Race reports

August 13-15: Barber Motorsports Park

Pat #233

Well Kelly and I got on the road about 7:30pm thursday night since, after talking to a few buddies decided I would drive straight there in time to get some practice in on friday and run the Team Challenge. That would also get me another two practice sessions on my TZ. We arrived at the track around 6am, and sat outside waiting to register and get in. Finally, after over an hour, we got into the paddock. I am very dissapointed on how Barber handled the entry. I don't see why they can't hire security staff, to run the gate 24 hours a day and let people get in. If Barber is rich enough to have the entire property manicured, landscaped, and a huge museum/track worth millions, why can't they hire some highschool kid to run the gate for $7/hr in the summer? Or, have electricity in the paddock? Boggles the mind, but its still the best track overall I've ever been to, and I love it there.

I wasn't sure what bike I'd be riding or who with in the Team Challenge, but after a few phone calls I found out it would be Gian Bojanovich ("Fever"), John Langenfield ("Johnny Lobster"), and I -- riding Gian's '01 GSX-R600. So we were known at RUFFIAN RACING for this outing, that's Gian's team. I had hardly ridden a 4 stroke in a year let alone race one, so the first time out on the bike felt like something completely alien. The thing felt like a diesel dump truck, in comparison to my 250GP bike. But it was fast,,, I coudl see how you could get used to it sliding around, and it had incredible acceleration.

Well friday I got 2 practice sessions on the TZ, and was very slow. I had the wrong gearing completely the first session, and my tires were cold and shagged from Roebling. I ran very slow in a very cramped practice with a lot of bikes out there.

I got one practice, about 5-7 laps on Fever's bike. He rode behind me on Timmy Rinaldi's bike to make sure I wasn't a moron and to see how I rode the thing. Well, I was slow. And nervous. But I stepped it up and started feeling out my limits a little bit. Came time for the Team Challenge very early since they were running out of time (due to the Learning Curves race school, and some red flags, bikes dropping oil, etc) and cancelled the last 2 sprints of the day, so we husted all the stuff down to the hot pit lane and got ready. Gian was riding the first stint, and rode well. They took the grid at about 4:20, and after about 20 minutes of riding we spoke with an official that said the race would be over at 5:20. What the fuck?!??? We paid $175 to enter, $300 for a set of tires, etc to run a race that was supposed to be 67 laps or 2 hours, whichever came first. Well by the time we got Gian pitted and me on the bike, we only had about 24 minutes left in the race. I got about 10 laps on it and then a red flag came out. No time to restart, race over. Johnny Lobster didn't even get on the bike! Needless to say, we and most other racers were not happy and after speaking with CCS, we would get refunds in some shape or form. There was much debate on how CCS handles weekends, especially FUSA weekends when they simply try to cram too much into one weekend, every event this year has been delayed somehow. Pretty dissapointing to those of us who shell out a lot of money and time to get there and get on the track. We pay for laps, we don't get them. We pay for races, they are cut short. Terrible. I think we will get credit to run the Team Challenge at Homestead in October, or just a full refund. Either way, it was a really shitty Team Challenge event and just a big to-do about nothing.

Oh well, it was fun to ride a 600 and really see why I love my TZ. It is purely a better machine...

Saturday I just had morning practice and got a little faster, but not fast enough. Laptimes in the 1:44 range. Then since I had 250GP qualifying that afternoon, I got new tires and a whole lot more confidence, right out of the box.

Changed gearing, tires, jetting, and got the bike ready to rock. Got to relax and watched an SRA Side-Car race, that was freakin cool! Those things were awesome, getting loose coming over the hill at turn 12.

250GP qualifying was cancelled for saturday since they were running late (do you see a trend here?). So we were going to qualify after the last practice session sunday morning. I went out to dinner with everyone and ate more seafood than I ever had in my entire life at one time. A dozen oysters, huge crab feast entree including 2 Alaskan king crab legs (one day I am going to quit my job and go work on a King Crab boat, deadly or not), two 5oz lobster tails, etc. That might not be considered the dinner of champions, since I gained a few pounds easily but I tell ya, it was worth every cent and every bite.

Got out for practice sun morning and started running a lot faster, I could just feel it. I had confidence in my tires and could lay on the gas hard on corner exits.

Went out for 250 qualifying and I guess those fast guys blowing by me really got me going. I ran really well, albeit missing a few shifts and braking mistakes, got a lot of clean laps running in the 1:42-43 range, but my best was a 1:41.86. So I was on the 7th row of the grid, not too bad but I knew I could be faster (last year I ran consistent 1:40's and best last year was 1:40.03).

LightWeight GP - sunday Aug 15

Well I really should've changed my clutch friction plates. I thought I could get another race or 2 out of them, WRONG! I got a wicked holeshot, took the early lead with ease but I knew my clutch was fried. By the middle of the first lap I was passing experts. I was pretty far ahead from what people told me, but kept getting slower. The bike would rev from 9-13K in a microsecond and I was limping around the track, short-shifting to keep the bike accelerating and not slipping. I was topping the bike out in 6th gear on all the straights not even half way down them. By the 3rd lap, I was in very bad shape. The bike would almost kick me off if I spun the engine up, the clutch was going badly but sometimes would catch for a split second. That's all it takes to spit you off. It was terrible, I got passed by two SV's and took 3rd place. I only could suffice 1:44 lap times. The 1st and 2nd place guys only ran mid-1:44's, so needless to say if I had a working clutch I would've been way ahead of them, but alas, I gave them those positions. That will never happen again. Well after the race I put a new clutch in, but I was not a happy man to have given away a certain victory.

USGPRU 250GP - sunday August 15

There were a lot of big dogs who showed up for this event. I really hope the USGPRU series can expand into a stand-alone, national series one day. The pole lap time was a 1:34 so needless to say there were some folks that were head-and-shoulders faster than I. I got a great holeshot, launching past a lot of people, and got with a big pack for the first lap or so. Things began to spread out and I had many great battles with 125's and 250's alike, I knew I was running faster laps than I had all weekend because I was really pushing it. I went wide in a few turns a few times, and I know which turns I can really improve on at the track. I did get a little fatigued, mostly my neck and upper back. I worked on intense braking and some different lines through turns 2 and 3. Overall it was a tough race, but very fun and the battles were great. But I ran my fastest lap of the weekend, a 1:40.27, on the last lap since I had a feeling someone was going to try and nip me at the line. I finished 23rd out of 36 entries.

Barber is the best track, I love it. I only wish it was closer than a 12+ hour drive away... thanks to everyone who was there, Andy for pulling my trailer there, and Kelly for letting us take her car there instead of my truck. Special thanks to Timmy Rinaldi for letting us use his generator and also for helping me with a stripped bolt hole. It was great to see a lot of old and new friends there!

I gained so much confidence on my new Dunlop slicks -- I have to thank them! Now I just need to stop hiking up my skirt, and riding the crap out of my bike..... I must get faster.

Well here are a couple pictures Kelly got during the weekend

my steed, waiting for the USGPRU 250GP race, had already loaded nearly all of our stuff

On the grid of the USGPRU 250GP race...

Crossing the line in full tuck

Videos (although not the greatest quality, need to get better software or something):

Here is a link (CLICK ME) to some video Kelly got of practice sunday morning.

Nothing really special here except you watch me fly up the inside of an expert SV guy going into turn 14/14a

Here's a video of the LW GP race. One the start, I am in the first row, second from the left. You can see I got a great holeshot and after the HUMONGOUS group of experts goes by on the first lap, how much of a lead I had after only 4 turns in the race.

Here's some video of the Barber USGPRU 250 GP race.