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Inside Line Motorcycle Racing | |
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Summary
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PreparationI started the season with a fresh set of BT-090's, but the rear tire was pretty well-cooked after two race weekends. I mounted up a BT-56 rear. No practice day this weekend. I packed up the bike Saturday evening and headed into Vancouver, WA where I attended WetLeather's annual Goat Roast. The goat was larger than usual, so I got to eat some despite arriving somewhat late. Lots of other tasty food had been brought by people, so I ate too much. A new fixture in the Golding's kegerator provided cold fizzy water, and flavorings were available, so I drank several cups of what was labeled as "the girly drink". I spent the night at Gustavo & Lizbeth's house afterwards. |
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Sunday June 29 -- The RacesThe morning started off warm, and worked up to over 90 by noon, with the wind picking up in the afternoon. With no practice day, I only had a 4-lap warmup to try to scrub in my new rear tire. There was a red flag on the first lap, but we got going again for 3 more laps quickly. I got lucky on this because I can warm up in either group 3 or group 5. I usually go with group 5 because I often forget to fill out my Bridgestone contingency paperwork or something in the morning, so I'm not ready. But today I was all ready and went in group 3. Group 5 got a red flag on the second lap of warmup, and that was the end of it. In group 3, we also got a red flag on lap 2, but we were able to re-start. Red flags on the warm-up? Yeah, it was a bad day in terms of the number of crashes. Blame it on having no practice day, or maybe the combination of a hot sunny day with all the extra rubber left on the track after the GI Joe 200 CART racing, or maybe it was something else... |
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| The Middleweight Superbike qualifier was my first race. I got a
slow start off the line, and then hit neutral between 1st and 2nd gear.
I guess it's good I was gridded on the side, since 2 rows of people behind
me went by! But I wasn't last into turn 1, I passed a couple people right
away, and then I started chasing the one guy out there on a Buell XB9R.
We went back and forth a couple times, and I eventually ended up ahead of
him.
The 450 Superbike qualifier came shortly afterwards. I got an OK start, and ended up dicing with Stuart Johnson and a pair of SV's that were behind the lead pack of 3 or 4 SV's and Scott Soper. Stuart stayed in front of me, but couldn't find a way around the 2 SV's. |
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After just two 4-lap qualifiers, my bike had the temperature gauge up near the top of the range, and it was making squealing noises from the radiator cap when I parked it in the pits. The good news is that all that work last month replacing the head gasket did fix something -- now when the bike cools down, it pulls water back into the radiator from the overflow tank. The bad news is that it pushes more than a tankful of overflow out, so I end up losing water over time. If you see any FZR 600 radiators in very good condition for sale cheap, let me know! |
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The other mechanical issue I'm having is that my brakes seem to pump up after several laps. Less lever travel is needed to engage them, and they actually seem to work better as the race goes on. However, the rotors are really hot when I return to the pits, and they drag more than they should. If you've read my old GS-500 race reports from a couple years ago, you'll know that I had a similar symptom for quite a while on that bike. Unfortunately, the solution I finally discovered on that bike (bent pad holders on the caliper) doesn't apply to this one because the brake design is different. |
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After a few more races, the 450 Supersport qualifier was next. I finally got a good start on this one and went into turn one in 3rd position, behind Scott Soper and Jim Kennedy. I passed Jim between turns 3 and 4 and started following Scott around from several bike-lengths back. On the third lap, Stuart passed me on the front straight. Stuart changed his race gas recently, and it seems to be making a difference! I finished 3rd. After this race I was hot, the bike was hot, my gas can lid almost flew off when I opened it because the gas inside was hot, duct tape was melting... it was hot! |
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The Middleweight Superbike race was the second race after lunch. I got a decent start and was mixing it up in the middle of the pack going into turn one. I got past the Buell and a couple other people right away and ended up following this guy on an SV that was taking some flaky lines. I finally passed him on lap 8. I started getting some mild slides from the rear tire in turn 4, but I think it was just from the track getting so hot.
After this race I started feeling some early symptoms of heat exhaustion -- mainly just that kind of head-ache that many people get from dehydration. No-one at the track was selling Gatorade, but Stuart and Rick gave me one of theirs. I thought the electrolytes or whatever Gatorade is supposed to have might help, since I had already been drinking as much water as I could stand all day.
I thought about skipping the 450 Superbike race to save energy for the 450 Supersport race, but there was a red flag during the Novice event, then a long red flag delay during 600 Supersport because someone oiled the track. We ran out of ambulances at some point, too, causing more delays. Like I said, it was a bad day for crashing. So with all the delays, I felt rested and decided to race.
Just like last month, I had no assigned grid position for the 450 Superbike race. But I found the appropriate spot empty when I rolled up to the grid. Since I was feeling tired, I took it a little easy at the start. I followed Jim Kennedy around for a few laps, then passed him and managed to pick off a few SV's. I caught up to the flaky-line guy from Middleweight Superbike on the 8th lap. He screwed up turn one and managed to ride over the second curbing section on the inside of the corner. He stood it up and went out wide so I started going inside him, but he swerved back to the inside early for turn 2 and scared me off. I had to brake pretty hard to avoid him, so I lost a bunch of ground on him. I caught back up and passed him going into turn seven on the last lap.
The 450 Supersport race started pretty much like the qualifier. Scott Soper, as usual, lead into turn one with Jim Kennedy and I following. I heard Stuart right behind me coming out of turn two so I ran turn three wide to let him by. He went inside me, as I expected, then swerved to go around Jim on the outside of the exit of turn three, which I hadn't expected. With his footpeg scraping, he managed to finish the turn and pass Jim - yikes!
I followed Jim around looking for a good place to pass. I was glad to see that he got his motor back together. He says that in order to try to keep it from blowing up again, EDR took off the ignition advance and put the jetting on the rich side. Supposedly this should make it slower than before. However, on the track his bike seems to be faster than before on the straights. Passing Jim on the straight was not going to be an option.
On the third lap, Jim caught and passed a slow rider from the 650 GP Twins wave between turns two and three. I was following him around, and planning to pass the slower rider around the outside of turn three. However, Jim lost the front end going into turn three and slid off the track. The slow rider immediately stood her bike up and slowed down, even though Jim was well ahead and outside her line into the turn. It would have been safer for her to continue turning away from Jim sliding on the track, but I guess the panic reaction is to slow down, which tends to stand the bike up. Since I was outside her, I had to slow down or hit her. Fortunately I had plenty of room.
Jim had been only a couple seconds behind Stuart, and Stuart was only a couple seconds behind Scott, but after the big slow-down in turn three, I was suddenly way behind Stuart. I "put my head down" and tried to put in a few fast laps, but I didn't seem to be making any ground on Stuart, so I relaxed a little and cruised around to 3rd place.
After the race, I took my race gear off and started packing up a few things, but then I suddenly felt totally exhausted. I sat in my chair and sipped water, but every time I would drink some, my stomach told me it wanted to send it right back up. I really felt like I wanted to lie down, so I stumbled over to Stuart and Rick's pit, where they had these great folding recliner chairs. I took over one of their chairs and told them that I needed to take a nap. They gave me some fruit juice and a banana and some more water, and I did my best to try to keep drinking more. Rick needed to get going, so we moved their chair back over to my pit canopy and they packed their stuff up. After about an hour, most people had packed up and I was still lying in their chair feeling nauseous and tired. Stuart and Les Green came over and offered to pack up my stuff for me. They got my bike and all my junk into my truck while I "supervised."
They both headed out, so I went over to where the trophy were going to be presented. I talked to Jim K a bit and found out that neither he nor the bike had any serious injuries from his crash. The trophy presentation was very slow to start, and finally, just after it finally started, I felt alert enough to try driving. I was going to stop at a friend's house if I got tired again, but after about 15 minutes in the car, I started feeling better. I stopped feeling nauseous, got hungry, ate the banana and some potato chips, and decided to keep going and drive all the way home (about 2 hours).
I guess the lesson to be learned here is just to be careful. Between arriving at the track in the morning and the last race, I'd drunk either 8 or 10 of those 16oz bottles of water, plus one of Stuart's 20oz Gatorades at the track. Sure seems like a lot of fluids, but I think I may have gotten somewhat dehydrated on Saturday. I drank a lot of water Sat. night, but either it wasn't enough, or I just wasn't keeping up on Sunday.
Many thanks to Stuart Johnson and Les Green for packing up all my stuff!
Thanks to Gustavo Buhacoff & Lizbeth Garcia for the nice guest room and breakfast.
Thanks to all the OMRRA turn workers, registration folks, and other volunteers who made this OMRRA race weekend possible.
Thanks to my sponsors Inside Line, Bridgestone Tires, and Lockhart-Philips USA.
My most special sponsor is my wife, Julie!
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