Race Report!!

[BMFR6]

Been a long time since I've done one of these! Well, Saturday night I got invited to go ice racing in Sturbridge on Sunday and agreed to go. At this point I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Basically told to bring my racing gear and show up at 10, I would be using the bike that belongs to the son of my wifes boss. Great, hes like 16 or 17 so i'm figuring a 125 or something, some 4 stroke variation, shouldn't be much of a problem. I show up, Joe shows me the bike, a CR 250 set up for flat track and even better the engine has been built! This could end badly. It wasn't until he told me there are no front brakes that I realized how far over my head I was. I have been on the ice once, I was probably 12 or 13 yrs old, I'm 31 now, you do the math. I haven't actually ridden a bike in about a year, a dirtbike in about 2years and haven't ridden in a competitive enviroment since the 07 LRRS season. If anyone needed a recipe for disaster, there it is.

Well, Joe gives me the run down on how the races work. There's a four lap practice, a heat race and then the feature. Joe's daughter was able to sweet talk the official into letting me out for 2 practices, so I go to my heat race with 8 laps total time on this bike and the ice. Wonderful.

But it ended well, I was the only person registered in my class. That took the race aspect out of it, and all I had to do was stay up, keep my line and not get run over by the other class out there. Piece of cake.

Made it through the heat race and made it through the feature with no incidents, bravo. Thanks for the trophy.

The ice was fun, an entirely different world than road racing. i can really see the benefit running flat track would have on your road race abilities and would recommend it to anyone. But I would also recommend starting with a smaller bike.

[BMFR6]

A comparison:
Fast Guys



Me:

[Kitt]

how was your mask? didn't fog up? damn... goggles are probably your best friend in ice racing - i'd hate to catch an ice shard to the retina.

[BMFR6]

had it cracked open a bit, couldn't close it all the way or it would fog. fortunatly with only being out there 4 laps at a shot, i wasn't around a pack of bikes long enough to make their roost a concern.

[SVRACER01]

when i did it with PK and KB last year i looked kinda like the guy on #525. it took a while to get there and i could only do it on the north end for some reason. ice was better up there or sumptin. looks like fun.

[SVRACER01]

ice riding goes against EVERYTHING you learned as a roadracer. you pin it until you are about 10' INTO the corner. chop the throttle (rear comes out) and pin it again. modulate rear with small throttle inputs.

[GixerJockey]

Who's bike were you riding?

[BMFR6]

bike belonged to the son of my wifes boss, they're a big flat track family.

oxx you're right about it going against everything you learned as a roadracer. the only way to really get traction is by pinning it, that helps to keep the knobs free and clear of snow/ice build up. thats a big part of where i struggled, couldn't bring myself to keep that bike wide open right at corner exit. i could see myself improving with a day out on the lake with a couple friends, but the 16 total laps i have under my belt weren't quite enough. another tough aspect was just how quickly the track changed, warm weather plus 28 races, heat races and practices (they have 28 classes) really put a beating on that track.