Kurt'sSV
Thu 6/24/04, 12:01PM
Willow Springs Motorcycle Club, Round 6, June 2004
With the start of the summer racing season comes a completely different strategy to tires. A warm track is good; a hot track can cause problems. Tires can get destroyed in just a few sessions out on the track when it’s hot, so you’d better have the right tires unless you think doing multiple tire changes in one day is fun.
Because I won a free day of practice in the WSMC drawing in May, I chose to do the Friday practice session because it does cost more to register for that day, plus you get twice the track time as you do on Saturday. I headed up there by myself thinking I would be meeting Steve Slaughter in the pits. Unfortunately Steve was still having problems with his Buell (surprise, surprise) and he was not going to be able to race at all this weekend. Luckily for me, Oren had recently moved up to Lancaster and because he had the day off, he road out to the track to watch. It’s so nice to have someone help you get your bike on and off the rear stand. Trying to get the bike on your rear stand by yourself after you’ve just come in from a hard session can put your bike in jeopardy of being dropped. The day went smoothly and was a lot of fun. I road myself ragged and improved on my braking into turns one and three. I was kind of shocked and disappointed at my rear tire, though. I had put on a Metzler M1 that I had used just a couple of times on the street and wanted to get some more life out of it before I threw it away. With the heat, a hard compound like a street tire is ideal, but the huge tread pattern caused the rubber to fly apart. By the end of the day I had a good flat spot on the right side of my tire from turn eight. The left side of the tire looked fine, but the right worried me. The tire never slipped on me while I was riding it, and since it lasted all through practice I figured it would last through two, very short warm-up sessions and a six lap race on Sunday. It had to last because I did not want to start using up the slicks I bought until I began racing in the expert class.
Sunday was warm again, but there was no wind in the Antelope Valley when we arrived at the track. We got to our usual pit spot just as someone pulled into it, so we had to hunt for somewhere else. I saw an open spot on the hot pit wall and figured there wasn’t any reason why we couldn’t pit there. Stevan does, and he comes in a little truck towing a crappy Uhaul trailer just like we do. I’ve always thought that pitting at the hot pit wall would be nice, but never have because I didn’t want to take anyone’s “spot”. The nice thing about being at the hot pit wall is that you can watch all the races from under your canopy and not leave your stuff. You are also close to pregrid which means you can wait until the last minute to leave your pit area to make the warm-up lap.
For some bizarre reason there were crashes in almost every race, all day long. It was taking forever to get through the schedule. Then, at the start of one of the races, there was a very bad crash in turn one and one of the riders didn’t get up. The medics determined that his injuries were life threatening so they called in a helicopter to air lift him to the nearest trauma center. Being on the hot pit wall we got a first hand look at the helicopter landing on the main straight right in front of us and it was weird seeing it do that. I watched them roll the guy out of the ambulance and I could see that he was intubated and that he had to have his breathing done for him. It was obviously a downer to witness that, and I was having doubts on whether or not I wanted to race (I would go out there for my race, but not compete and just ride around with the back markers instead). Being that my average attention span is three minutes, I got over this pretty quick and was anxious to get out there and do my last novice race. (After three days in a drug induced coma, the rider awoke and began to make his recovery.)
Due to the large turnout for this month’s middleweight novice race, I was not gridded on the front row, but instead was gridded on the third row in eighth position. Being this far back hurt my chances at a top ten finish, but worst of all my grid position did not allow me to see the starter. I had to sit up and lean to my right to get an obstructed view of him, but could never see the green flag. I just waited for his body to jerk, and when it did I launched. The start was not very good and I got to watch several bikes roll by me on the way to turn one. We all made it through the turn and even got through the Omega section without having anyone go down. We still didn’t make it a whole lap without a crash. When I entered turn eight I could see a huge cloud of dust off of the track. I couldn’t see how many bikes were involved, but none were me, and that’s all I was concerned about. I rolled up on an older GSXR in turn nine and hit the apex hard. As we started to come out of the turn I rolled passed him pretty fast, and to my surprise he never repassed me down the front straight. Beats me as to how I outran him on a half mile straightaway. By the time we got around to turn three they were stopping the race to recover the bikes that were off in eight and making us go back to pregrid.
On the restart I saw that it was the riders gridded in positions two and three that were the ones that went off. Regardless, I still could not see the starter unless I sat on my bike funny. When I saw his body start to jerk, I launched again, harder this time and headed off for turn one in a much better position. I held a solid line through one and squeezed all the speed I could out of my SV to keep up with the leaders on the short chute heading for two. I followed Melissa round an R6 in two, but backed off when heading for the apex because the front was pushing. Going into three I made a mistake and downshifted into second instead of third. I heard someone’s rear tire screech and I thought someone was about to eat it. When I felt my rear tire spinning up underneath me I realized that it was my tire that had just locked up. The bike didn’t get too out of control; it just slowed down a lot more than I wanted it to. The old guy in the Suzuki brand leathers went by me and I knew I wouldn’t be getting him back.
On the back straight I lost touch with the lead group as expected, but was hoping to make up a lot of ground in eight. When I swung into eight both the front and rear pushed out real hard and I had to back off so I could keep my line. This didn’t help my campaign for a top ten at all and the leaders disappeared. On the next lap I got passed by a white GSXR on the back straight, but I figured I could repass him in eight. When I dove in for the apex I was reminded that my tires sucked and I had to back off and just hang behind him. When we went to eight B, the corner worker was waving the yellow flag and I looked through to nine and the corner worker was waving the yellow flag there as well. Someone had gone off in nine and the waving yellows negated any passing in that section of the track. So I hung behind the GSXR through nine, hit the apex hard, and just like the other guy, I rolled right passed him and never saw him again.
Going into three again I got passed on the outside by another SV! Damn it, I thought. I always want to cross the finish line first out of us SV racers. I wasn’t surprised that this guy passed me though, because in the other races he had done it seemed like he made a lot of ground up on me. Being that I was finally chasing someone down on a similar bike, he didn’t pull away from me on the back straight. Going into eight he wasn’t very fast, and in nine I thought I was going to rear end him. Going out onto the front straight I swing to his outside to go around him, cussing in my helmet at the guy because he was so slow through nine and due to the waving yellows, I was not allowed to pass him. Coming out of turn one at the start of the last lap, I was passed by a gaggle of 600’s and tailed them through two. I had to back off again on the apex of two because the front was pushing, but still no sign of that other SV as I went over the Omega. Once I got to the turn seven area he finally caught me and rolled by on my inside. Because I had ran him down in nine on the previous lap I wasn’t worried at all and knew I could repass him. I was tailing him through eight, adhering to the waving yellows and I decided to see how far my knee was from the ground. I didn’t think I would be able to touch down because it felt like we weren’t going very fast, but when I put my knee out – bam, there was the pavement. Doing that upset my suspension and I had to roll off the throttle a bit to let the bike settle. I clung to this guy’s rear tire as we went through nine and I was chomping at the bit to jump on the gas and pass him. Once we got passed the waving yellow, that gave me the green light to make my move, but I didn’t know which way to go. I waited to see how far out he would swing coming off the apex. This time he swung out wider so I stayed tight, pinned the throttle, tucked in and took off. While I didn’t win, I was pretty excited to finish ahead of all the other SV’s in the race because that will probably the last time I will finish ahead of all the SV’s in any race.
Thanks as always to my sponsors: Jadeblue Creative, Tustin Martial Arts, Galfer and SoCalSVRiders.org. Also thanks again to Shandra and Oren Laskin for working my rear stand.
Next month: I’m the 550 Superbike Bitch. http://www.eunuch.org/vbulletin/images/smilies/bang.gif
With the start of the summer racing season comes a completely different strategy to tires. A warm track is good; a hot track can cause problems. Tires can get destroyed in just a few sessions out on the track when it’s hot, so you’d better have the right tires unless you think doing multiple tire changes in one day is fun.
Because I won a free day of practice in the WSMC drawing in May, I chose to do the Friday practice session because it does cost more to register for that day, plus you get twice the track time as you do on Saturday. I headed up there by myself thinking I would be meeting Steve Slaughter in the pits. Unfortunately Steve was still having problems with his Buell (surprise, surprise) and he was not going to be able to race at all this weekend. Luckily for me, Oren had recently moved up to Lancaster and because he had the day off, he road out to the track to watch. It’s so nice to have someone help you get your bike on and off the rear stand. Trying to get the bike on your rear stand by yourself after you’ve just come in from a hard session can put your bike in jeopardy of being dropped. The day went smoothly and was a lot of fun. I road myself ragged and improved on my braking into turns one and three. I was kind of shocked and disappointed at my rear tire, though. I had put on a Metzler M1 that I had used just a couple of times on the street and wanted to get some more life out of it before I threw it away. With the heat, a hard compound like a street tire is ideal, but the huge tread pattern caused the rubber to fly apart. By the end of the day I had a good flat spot on the right side of my tire from turn eight. The left side of the tire looked fine, but the right worried me. The tire never slipped on me while I was riding it, and since it lasted all through practice I figured it would last through two, very short warm-up sessions and a six lap race on Sunday. It had to last because I did not want to start using up the slicks I bought until I began racing in the expert class.
Sunday was warm again, but there was no wind in the Antelope Valley when we arrived at the track. We got to our usual pit spot just as someone pulled into it, so we had to hunt for somewhere else. I saw an open spot on the hot pit wall and figured there wasn’t any reason why we couldn’t pit there. Stevan does, and he comes in a little truck towing a crappy Uhaul trailer just like we do. I’ve always thought that pitting at the hot pit wall would be nice, but never have because I didn’t want to take anyone’s “spot”. The nice thing about being at the hot pit wall is that you can watch all the races from under your canopy and not leave your stuff. You are also close to pregrid which means you can wait until the last minute to leave your pit area to make the warm-up lap.
For some bizarre reason there were crashes in almost every race, all day long. It was taking forever to get through the schedule. Then, at the start of one of the races, there was a very bad crash in turn one and one of the riders didn’t get up. The medics determined that his injuries were life threatening so they called in a helicopter to air lift him to the nearest trauma center. Being on the hot pit wall we got a first hand look at the helicopter landing on the main straight right in front of us and it was weird seeing it do that. I watched them roll the guy out of the ambulance and I could see that he was intubated and that he had to have his breathing done for him. It was obviously a downer to witness that, and I was having doubts on whether or not I wanted to race (I would go out there for my race, but not compete and just ride around with the back markers instead). Being that my average attention span is three minutes, I got over this pretty quick and was anxious to get out there and do my last novice race. (After three days in a drug induced coma, the rider awoke and began to make his recovery.)
Due to the large turnout for this month’s middleweight novice race, I was not gridded on the front row, but instead was gridded on the third row in eighth position. Being this far back hurt my chances at a top ten finish, but worst of all my grid position did not allow me to see the starter. I had to sit up and lean to my right to get an obstructed view of him, but could never see the green flag. I just waited for his body to jerk, and when it did I launched. The start was not very good and I got to watch several bikes roll by me on the way to turn one. We all made it through the turn and even got through the Omega section without having anyone go down. We still didn’t make it a whole lap without a crash. When I entered turn eight I could see a huge cloud of dust off of the track. I couldn’t see how many bikes were involved, but none were me, and that’s all I was concerned about. I rolled up on an older GSXR in turn nine and hit the apex hard. As we started to come out of the turn I rolled passed him pretty fast, and to my surprise he never repassed me down the front straight. Beats me as to how I outran him on a half mile straightaway. By the time we got around to turn three they were stopping the race to recover the bikes that were off in eight and making us go back to pregrid.
On the restart I saw that it was the riders gridded in positions two and three that were the ones that went off. Regardless, I still could not see the starter unless I sat on my bike funny. When I saw his body start to jerk, I launched again, harder this time and headed off for turn one in a much better position. I held a solid line through one and squeezed all the speed I could out of my SV to keep up with the leaders on the short chute heading for two. I followed Melissa round an R6 in two, but backed off when heading for the apex because the front was pushing. Going into three I made a mistake and downshifted into second instead of third. I heard someone’s rear tire screech and I thought someone was about to eat it. When I felt my rear tire spinning up underneath me I realized that it was my tire that had just locked up. The bike didn’t get too out of control; it just slowed down a lot more than I wanted it to. The old guy in the Suzuki brand leathers went by me and I knew I wouldn’t be getting him back.
On the back straight I lost touch with the lead group as expected, but was hoping to make up a lot of ground in eight. When I swung into eight both the front and rear pushed out real hard and I had to back off so I could keep my line. This didn’t help my campaign for a top ten at all and the leaders disappeared. On the next lap I got passed by a white GSXR on the back straight, but I figured I could repass him in eight. When I dove in for the apex I was reminded that my tires sucked and I had to back off and just hang behind him. When we went to eight B, the corner worker was waving the yellow flag and I looked through to nine and the corner worker was waving the yellow flag there as well. Someone had gone off in nine and the waving yellows negated any passing in that section of the track. So I hung behind the GSXR through nine, hit the apex hard, and just like the other guy, I rolled right passed him and never saw him again.
Going into three again I got passed on the outside by another SV! Damn it, I thought. I always want to cross the finish line first out of us SV racers. I wasn’t surprised that this guy passed me though, because in the other races he had done it seemed like he made a lot of ground up on me. Being that I was finally chasing someone down on a similar bike, he didn’t pull away from me on the back straight. Going into eight he wasn’t very fast, and in nine I thought I was going to rear end him. Going out onto the front straight I swing to his outside to go around him, cussing in my helmet at the guy because he was so slow through nine and due to the waving yellows, I was not allowed to pass him. Coming out of turn one at the start of the last lap, I was passed by a gaggle of 600’s and tailed them through two. I had to back off again on the apex of two because the front was pushing, but still no sign of that other SV as I went over the Omega. Once I got to the turn seven area he finally caught me and rolled by on my inside. Because I had ran him down in nine on the previous lap I wasn’t worried at all and knew I could repass him. I was tailing him through eight, adhering to the waving yellows and I decided to see how far my knee was from the ground. I didn’t think I would be able to touch down because it felt like we weren’t going very fast, but when I put my knee out – bam, there was the pavement. Doing that upset my suspension and I had to roll off the throttle a bit to let the bike settle. I clung to this guy’s rear tire as we went through nine and I was chomping at the bit to jump on the gas and pass him. Once we got passed the waving yellow, that gave me the green light to make my move, but I didn’t know which way to go. I waited to see how far out he would swing coming off the apex. This time he swung out wider so I stayed tight, pinned the throttle, tucked in and took off. While I didn’t win, I was pretty excited to finish ahead of all the other SV’s in the race because that will probably the last time I will finish ahead of all the SV’s in any race.
Thanks as always to my sponsors: Jadeblue Creative, Tustin Martial Arts, Galfer and SoCalSVRiders.org. Also thanks again to Shandra and Oren Laskin for working my rear stand.
Next month: I’m the 550 Superbike Bitch. http://www.eunuch.org/vbulletin/images/smilies/bang.gif