FIM 125GP

[Paul_E_D]

Tim! I hope you had as good a time as I had. A HUUUGE thanks for helping me with my race effort. This USCRA race was the MOST fun event I've ever been involved with. If any of you guys want to race for fun away from the squids, vintage is THE place to be. I wish I could have been a more gracious host for yo, Joe, and your dad, but it was a GRUELING weekend. Here's my report:

Saturday, Hot Humid, but dry. Plenty of practice time, even with a casual schedule. I rode os SHAGGED tires, then parked it and put on my 8 lap tires from the national.

The heat race was eventful. I got th holeshot and led the first few laps. Zack Courts came from the back row, plowing through the canes on the inside of T1 to pass the pack and he passed me about lap 5.
He looked back and gave me the thumbs up, and we proceeded to dice it up swapping the lead a few times. I thought I had him covered, but a lapperstood it up as Zack zapped him in 1a and I got balked. Zack crossed the line in first.

Race officials did not like the move Zack used off the start to pass everyone inside the cones, so they took his finish away. We all lobbied fr him nd got it reinstated.

Saturday Night it POURED. I got little sleep as we got more and more soaked in our tent.

Sunday morning was wet, but not raining for practice. I went out and burnt up my old rains, then had a fresh set mounted, along with some medium compound slicks.

The race went off in HUMID but dry conditions. I settled into 4th place on lap one. Eric Yoo and Zack started getting away, so I zapped Greenwood in T1 and made chase. The sprint was on!

I reeled them in and I thought I was in the catbird's seat when things started to happen. First, Eric Yoo lost focus for a second coming out of 12 and he SMACKED the wall hard. I had to back off because I literally thought I was going to kill one of my best friends on the front straight.

Eric never let off and I had to reel them in again. We ran an ENDLESS string of low 18 high 17 lapsand I started losing touch in lapped traffic. On lap 20 we started lapping people 2X and I had the big moment.

I laid it over in T2 and I started to feel/hear the dreaded grinding of hard parts. NOOOOOO! My front wheel was off the ground and my foot peg, ass and elbow were on the ground. I pulled the wheels back to the ground with my outside leg and the bike stood up! I was headed for the wall, but I was up. I got it stopped and turned back down track, bt my hamstring was locked. I couldn't move my right leg.

I knew from my crew that I had a 15 second gap to 4th, so I cruised home for the safe third place.

The vintage crowd was AWESOME. The bikes wer INCREDIBLE. Lisa got to do four laps as a monkey on two sidecar rigs. She was STOKED.
She dragged my leathers hard though :-/

Thanks to Chris for getting awesome photos of that session and the racing. It was so great that you came by.

See you all next week!

[GMAN226]

Sounds like a blast... I wish I wasn't such a fat ass or I would get one of those 125's...


G-man

[Johnny B]

Originally posted by Paul_E_D
Race officials did not like the move Zack used off the start to pass everyone inside the cones, so they took his finish away. We all lobbied fr him and got it reinstated.

For the record, Starter Cindy Smith and I (Hot Grid Marshall) saw Zack's killer start. He has a dog paddle that you wouldn't believe! He kept it to the right until just the last cone. We discussed what we saw. Our main concern was that since it was a purse-paying race, one of the competitors would complain if we didn't do anything. (We were thinking of the USGPRU racers bitching about Jayroot not doing the weigh-in after qualifying for the 250 race at the FUSA national. FUSA officials shooed him off pit row while he was waiting to go on the scales.) Cindy and I decided to let it slide, but the scorers put it on their sheets.
I saw the results sheet later on in the evening, and the next morning, after talking to Cindy about it, we approached Karl Smolenski and told him we didn't feel that Zack should be penalized. Karl told us that the decision had already been reversed, but thanked us for backing him on it.
Zack is one of our brightest stars in vintage. In addition to his 125, he also teams with his father in sidecars. They swap off on driver/monkey duties. As a matter of fact, halfway through one race earlier this year, they swapped places while coming down the front straight at speed. (See picture) They won that race by eight seconds!
Zack also runs a vintage Triumph, and he's fast enough that on a good day, he can beat Dave Roper.



Our next vintage event will be on Labor Day. Cindy won't be around, so I will be the Starter at that event. Those of you up for the LRRS event that weekend should hang around for one more day and check it out.

[gixxer6]

That sounds like so much fun paul!!!!!

[trackdog]

Those of you up for the LRRS event that weekend should hang around for one more day and check it out