0
All pictures courtesy of Jim Jesus (Rice-Rocket1).
On Thursday I set out for New Hampshire with my bike on the back of the truck. The bike was all ready to go with the new intake cam and just needed a little breaking in and tuning on the dyno. RJ's motorsports in Nashua had offered to dyno tune the bike for me and I dropped it off there on the way to the track. I headed up to the track and met up with Dan and Sylvia and made plans for the endurance race friday afternoon. We were planning to enter a 3 person team on a Penguin Racing School Ducati 900ss in the GTL class. After track setup I headed over to Stoneman's place for a couple of drinks and some food.
Friday morning and I went over to the track to help prep the Duc 900ss for the endurance race. Gordon took my truck and went to Nashua to pick up my bike which was now ready and he was back in time to crew for us in the endurance race. Thanks for taking that trip Gordon.
Charlie Tarna showed up at the track on Friday to run with Heath on the motard in the GTL class (team name NESR racing Moto) also along with a friend of Heath's named Scott.
Friday afternoon and the endurance race kicks off with Sylvia going out and cracking out 14 laps at 1:23 or so which is a pretty decent pace on an air cooled Duc. Endurance racing is about consistency and Sylvia certainly showed that. The pit board went out at 13 laps to give her an idea of her lap times and unfortunately due to a misunderstanding she thought it was the "pit in" message so she came in to the pits and Dan was not ready for his stint. That held us up a bit but Dan was soon out doing respectable laps. A bit slower than Sylvia but still very consistent and slowly coming down in times. Dan came in after 10 laps (another pit board misunderstanding) and Sylvia hopped on again and cranked in another 15 or so 1:23s and 1:22's before coming in and then it was my stint. I started with a few 1:22's and 1:23's and then got a whole string of 1:20's and 1:21's before being black flagged. I was thinking "WTF??" and I cam in to the pits to find the bodywork was falling off (our zip-ties were not really secure enough so we zipped them back up and added some safety wire and racers tape). I went back out and zipped off another few 1:21's and then as I was coming around turn 11 I heard the bike backfire. The temp had been pegged in the red for about 3 laps so I thought the bike was overheating enough to cause damage so I quickly glanced over my shoulder to see the coast was clear and darted left to make a very late entrance into the pits. We filled up with gas and Sylvia went out to see if the bike would run ok. it didn't, but she carried on as it didn't seem like a very bad issue, just a slight misfire. By this time we were in 5th place and we were just out of reach for 4th although we were gaining but there was no time and we ended up in 5th. A great try from everybody and a few planning lessons learned so we will do better next time. The SV650's in our class were by far the best bike to have as the two that we aere racing against got 8 laps on us by the end of the race.
Heath, Charlie and Scott put in a very creditable performance on what was easily the slowest bike out there, running 1:3* laps all the time but staying very consistent. Great practice for those guys and great experience for Heath who I know enjoyed the event immensely.
Saturday morning was qualifying. This was the first time I had ridden the F4i in 6 weeks so I had 15 minutes to get up to speed and post a fast lap (under 1:18.5). I went out and did four or five laps on new tires at 1:24 pace (scrub-in pace) and saw the electronic board telling me I had 7 minutes left. I flew in 3 hot laps and the tires and muscles were turning to jelly (it was 90 degrees that day) so I decided to pit and hoped my times were enough to qualify.
I pulled a 1:18.03 so I qualified in 11th place in the Formula Sportbike grid.
Sunday was race day. I practiced in the morning for 15 minutes in front of a good crowd and pulled in a string of 1:18.*** laps so I felt good about the race.
Sunday afternoon I had my tire warmers on for 1 hour. I heard 3rd and final call to grid and headed up to the hot pit. What I didn't know was that in a national event that means 15 minutes to race time so I sat on hot pit for 10 minutes with my tires getting cold before my crew hurriedly showed up with a set of stands and warmers. I got about 30 seconds of warmer time (not enough) before they sent us out for warm up lap. I tried to scrub in and warm up the tires as much as I could.
Race started and I flew from the 3rd row of the grid straight up into 5th place on a flying start (6" wheelie all the way down the front straight...perfect) about 2" behind the rear wheel of Scott Greenwood (Formula USA national champion and Loudon lap record holder).
I accelerated out of the turn 2 on the first lap after Scott and the next thing I knew the back of the bike came around on me as the rear tire let go and I hit the pit wall airfence feet first. The bike was a mess but I jumped back on and headed off after the pack.
3 laps later I was chasing the back markers and something on my bike hit the kerbing and the bike threw me off and slid off the track. I came to a stop in a cloud of dust and decided against getting back on this time although the bike was still rideable, but badly beaten up. I hopped over the tire wall and went back to the pits. Some race fans said that something on the bike was dragging as I was leaving spark trails in every right hand corner. Later on I found out that the exhaust pipe was bent and was sticking out and that is what hinged the bike into the air eventually.
Aaaaanyhooo, I'm ok (kinda) and the bike is fixable so C'est la vie. I'll try again to get a national result next year.
I have to give thanks to numerous people and if I missed your name out, PLEASE forgive me. I am writing all this from memory and I ALWAYS forget someone.
In no particular order:
Gordon
Dan
Jim
Mike
Mike
Mike
Jay and Cheryl
Sean and Leah
Will
Gary
Scott
Kyle
Beth
Heath
Charlie
RJ's Motorsports
Kevin
Thank-you all very much for making it a great weekend despite 2 crashes and an unfinished race. To the guys that packed my shit up at the end of the week, Cheers boys.
derek
Reply With Quote
..
