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This year, the real season goal was to secure a bike with which I could qualify to race the Barber Vintage festival with AHRMA. Kerry has done it a few times, and made it clear that I NEEDED to get there. Thanks Kerry, it was even more spectacular than I imagined!
For those who don't know, AHRMA is a national vintage race series that has expanded to include modern classes for singles, twins, and triples. That means everything except the obvious inline and now V4s has a class to be competitive in. They have it figured out and the club is booming. I figured an SV would be a good choice and I knew Isaac Maycotte had a nice one sitting relatively unused. I rang him up and a deal was struck. I had secured the bike. Woot!
Next I needed to race a double round in Jersey to get enough finishes to enter Barber as they will not let anyone do JUST the Barber round. See my earlier report on how that went. Cliffs: 2 race wins. My bud Kris Hopkins thought this sounded too good to pass up so he borrowed Peter Kates' SV and joined us on these adventures.
Kris and I drove Kerry and my new rig and trailer and Kerry flew down ahead of us. 17 hours straight through on Tuesday night and we were suddenly roasting in the Alabama sun setting up our pit and getting the bikes though tech. The event would draw 80,000 people over the weekend. Spectators, swap meeters, museum goers and racers. It's like a dead show for motorcycles... ALL kinds of motorcycles. The grounds are kept as nice as Disneyland, and the incredible facilities handled the crowd without a problem. It's world class. No joke.
Thursday and friday were practice days and this was critical for us as the race days do not include practice. We were lucky to do a track walk Wed night. The place is a rollercoaster, constantly undulating such that most corners are blind at some point. My first day was...awkward at best. T5, Charlotte's Web is sketchy at best. Tight 180 with an off camber, bumpy entry that is so east to overcook it's not funny. T6/7/8 is a bizarre sequence of fast to slower, to slowest with the infamous curb jump in the middle. Then 9/10 is a kink so fast it's hard to get the bike to flop anywhere near in time to keep the throttle pinned like you need to. 11/12 is a fast to slower kink. with a G out at the bottom. 13/14 is an awesome NJMP like decreasing right hander, but with a G out at the fast beginning part. This is a track where experience pays big time.
After sleeping on it, on Friday I started enjoying it more, but if I was going to do well, I still needed to find 2 seconds on race day. I wasn't sure this was in the cards, but I mounted up some fresh Pirellis so if nothing else, I would trust my tires. Another thing: my grids were HUGE. 56 bikes in Sound of Thunder 2 (my bump up class), and 48 in Sound of Thunder 3 (The proper SV class). They decided for safety sake to do a timed qualifying for SoT2 so friday practice times had some meaning and I was pushing to learn as fast as possible to get a good grid spot. I ended with a 1:39.2. Not what I wanted, but not bad for a first go.
Saturday Kris and I were in race 3 and 5. Since races start at 8 we would be done by 10:30 AM! Kerry was 11 and 14, so she wouldn't even start until 2:30. At least we could watch each other's races and help out in the pits. Afternoon temps were around 90 every day and the sun was relentless. This was not an easy undertaking!
More tomorrow... Zzzzzz.
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Originally Posted by tsorfas
