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Still trying to address my front brake dragging problem, I tried changing to the front wheel rim and rotors that my rain tire was mounted on. I needed a new front tire, anyway, so I moved the rain tire to the "usual" front rim, put the new Bridgestone BT-090 on the rain rim, and put in new brake pads. The rain rim came with EBC Race rotors which, in theory, should be better than my stock rotors.
I spent Friday night at Gustavo's house. Lizbeth was out of town, so Gustavo and I talked about bikes all night.
Saturday was warm and sunny, but only into the low 80's.
In the first practice session, I spent a few laps going easy to help bed the brakes in. I had already terrorized the neighbors on Thursday by running up and down the hill near our house trying to bed the pads in. On the fourth lap I started braking with normal force, and everything seemed to work fine. On the fifth lap I got a little surprise when a normal pull on the lever going up to turn one immediately had the rear wheel in the air. Woah! For the next lap and a half, the brakes were extremely grabby. Then, as quickly as it started, the grabbiness went away. After the session, the front rotors were really hot, but they never seemed to warp.
I was getting ready to go out for the second practice session when I noticed that two of the three screws that hold the tip of my muffler on were missing. It turns out that Kerker mufflers use SAE screws, and I only have metric spares. After some asking around, Bill Laupp found a couple of screws for me. I put them in with Loctite, and got done right around the end of the session. Oh well, I guess I will skip a session today!
After the next session, I checked the rotors again. They were cooler than the stock rotors, so I guess the pads had finally bedded in. Unfortunately, while the brakes seem to drag less with the new pads and different rotors, they still drag more than they should.
After the last practice, I went to meet Gustavo at PSU. He is taking some classes there, and they had a party for the students in the program he is in. I went as his "date," since Lizbeth was out of town. We had a nice dinner of international-themed finger-food.
It was another warm and sunny day, but no problems with heat exhaustion this weekend.
In the 450 Superbike qualifier, I did OK. It really didn't matter...
By the end of the first lap in the Middleweight Superbike qualifier, I was around the middle of the 20 or so bikes, as I usually am. I caught up with a novice on an SV in turn four of the second lap, and I managed to pass him going in to turn nine. He passed me back on the front straight, but I caught back up before he was even done with turn one. As we rounded turn three, I was thinking about trying to pass him between turns three and four. However, as he started straightening the bike up, he got on the gas too hard or something, and crashed when the rear tire slid out from under him.
While his bike slid more-or-less straight down the track, the rider slid to the right, which is where I was. Unfortunately, I hit him right in the middle of the back with my front tire. I have a very clear memory of the horrible moment when I was only 3 or 4 feet away from the rider and I realized that I was not going to be able to avoid hitting him. But I'm not sure exactly what happened after I hit him. The next thing I clearly remember is sliding face down and feet-first down the track. I stopped sliding shortly after leaving the track, and I rolled away from track, not sure whether anyone was close behind me or not. Fortunately, I don't think anyone was very close.
When I got up, I hit the kill switch on my bike (which was only a few feet away), but I think it had already died. A couple of turn workers were already running over, and they yelled for me to get over to the fence, so I limped over. I hit my right knee pretty hard, and also either pulled or deeply bruised a muscle in my chest. Unfortunately, the other rider wasn't moving.
The turn workers brought both bikes over to the fence, the qualifier was red-flagged, and the ambulance came. They loaded the other rider onto the ambulance, then one of the medics came over to talk to me. She made me check my arms and hands, asked about my knee, and made me take some deep breaths to make sure I didn't break any ribs. She said she wasn't sure about the other rider, but she thought maybe had just had the wind knocked out of him.
So I rode back to the pits with "Blinky" in the crash truck. When I got there, I found out that the announcer had been telling people that #272 (me) was the one in the ambulance, so all my friends in the pits were fighting over who would take my cool gas can home! No, really, they were worried and making plans for how to pack and store all my stuff.
I found out that the other rider, #924 Brandon Clark, was riding with SB Motorsports. The SB folks are good people and had the bike and pit stuff well in hand, and Brandon's father was already on the way to the hospital. Unfortunately, I later found out that the doctors thought three of his vertebrae were broken, but there did not appear to be any spinal damage. I haven't gotten any updates on his condition since then, but I hope things are going well.
A new group of volunteers known as ASIT have been helping crashed riders at OMRRA races this year. They offered to help and I got ice and a ziplock bag from them. I sat down, put my leg up, put the ice on my knee, and surveyed the damage.
My gear worked well and did its job. My Teknic gloves have some scuffs and one seam on some external padding could use some touch-up, but they're perfectly useable. My Joe Rocket leathers have some new scuffs, and the velcro patch for the right knee slider is damaged, but otherwise they look pretty much the same as they did before (which is well-scuffed). My Daytona boots have scrapes on the toes and a small rip in the (replaceable) outer cover.
The bike came through fairly well. Some bodywork was damaged as you can see below.
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The whole area outlined in red at left was missing. Maybe I should try to get a sponsorship from Bondo next year! (The picture is after lots of fiberglass work) |
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| See the Bondo and the electrical tape? |  |
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The alternator cover broke, but what race bike is complete without some JB Weld? | |
Around noon, Julie arrived, and the Risch family showed up. I had a fan club again, but there wasn't much to cheer for at the moment.
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Dominic and Oliver both still wanted to sit on the bike, though. As you can see, the right side of the bike still looked fine! My plan at noon was to rest and keep the ice on my leg through lunch, then try to get the bike back together in time for the 450 Supersport main race in the afternoon. The race was fairly late in the days schedule, so it seemed like there was a fair amount of time available. The Rischs went and watched some of the other races, then Amy and the kids went home for lunch. Julie had brought lunch for me. After lunch, the real work started. Rocky Sloan took the alternator cover off his spare bike and loaned it to me. Les Green came over and replaced the footpeg and shifter with the ones that Stuart gave me. Ralph stayed and taped up the bodywork so the cracked parts wouldn't blow off. He also helped me get the carbs off and clean out the airbox. While we're counting up damage, I forgot to take the petcock knob off the gas tank before trying to pull it off. It took a minute to dawn on me, and by that time I had stripped the screw that holds the knob on. Oh well, now I have to keep the knob in my toolbox. Les showed me how not to fear the carb cleaner spray (known by the state of California to cause cancer), and really spray out the carbs. There was a lot of dirt and grass in the carbs and airbox, but it looked like the throttle was closed, and the engine may have already died, because we couldn't see any in the intake ports. When Ralph and I put it all back together, it seemed to run fine. Yay! |
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(Future racers Dominic and Oliver -- pictures by Amy Risch) |
It had seemed like we had lots of time to work with, but time went by quickly, and we were just getting the bike back together and the race before the 450 Supersport race was already in progress. I still had to get my gear and the bike through technical inspection, and get the gear on!
There was some panic while Julie and Ralph rounded up an inspector. Meanwhile Les and I intercepted another one who was walking by. Everything passed inspection, and I got suited up and out on the track with a whole minute to spare.
I was gridded at the back for the 450 Supersport race, since I had missed the qualifier. Of course, since there were only 8 people in the class, that meant I was in the middle of the second row. I got a pretty good start, and passed half of the front row right away. Stuart missed the shift between 1st and 2nd gear, and I ended up following Rocky through turn one. Scott Soper, as usual, was leading. I still wasn't 100% confident with the bike. Everything had seemed fine on the warm-up lap, but I wasn't going to push anything on the first lap, so I just followed Rocky and waited for Stuart to come by.
Stuart never did come by, and I was able to draft past Rocky toward the end of the front straight. Scott wasn't pulling away, and I caught up to him. He had crashed his Superbike-spec FZR in the 450 Superbike race, so I think he was off his usual pace. I was able to catch him in the corners, and even had a notion of passing him at one point, but he kept pulling away on the straights. As we started passing lagging 125's and SV's from the previous waves, the gap between us would shrink and grow.
In the end, I finished a second or so behind Scott for 2nd place. My knee was sore, but I was happy!
I spent a while after I got home with the knee up and on ice again. Then I was REALLY sore the next two mornings. The chest muscle thing made lots of things feel wierd (like sneezing, or sleeping), and my knee seemed to get worse for several days. I did keep putting ice on it, but I still went for short walks while trying to avoid bending it much. I think maybe I should have stayed off it completely for a while. Of course, it didn't seem so bad until it started getting worse...
Finally by Saturday the knee started getting better, although it's still sore almost two weeks later. I guess I'm getting old!
As you can see from the pictures above, I've spent a fair amount of time getting the bodywork and alternator cover repaired. I didn't have time to get it painted before the next race weekend, which is Sept. 6th and 7th. Mmmm, fiberglass smell!
Thanks to all my friends at the track, and to the Risches, for helping out with spares and fixing things.
Thanks to Gustavo for letting me stay at his place.
Thanks to all the OMRRA turn workers, registration folks, and other volunteers who made this OMRRA race weekend possible. Special thanks to those in turn four and outside turn three! And to the ASIT people.
Thanks to my sponsors Inside Line, Bridgestone Tires, and Lockhart-Philips USA.
My most special sponsor is my wife, Julie!
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