4th Race Update

Road America AHRMA report

Raining/drizzling at 5:30 am on the way to the track. Folks around here seem to know racers, because the McD's was open at 5:45 and the 24 hour Walmart had a huge shelf of Brak-kleen and shop towels right out front...

Grabbed a McSausageSomethingOrOther and rolled to the track. Futzed around until it was time to do something, then suited up and got ready to head out for first practice. All dressed up, put the bike on the roller starter and cranked it. Didn't fire off just right, rolled down the pit road, and headed out anyways, thinking it was just cold and would clear out when warmed up. Well, it didn't. Throttle wouldn't pick up and then wouldn't go back down. Pulled off at the exit and came in. Yep, stuck throttle slide. Had rags in the carbs all the way up but musta sucked some crap in because after I cleaned it all out good, everything was oK.

Newby Pat from the BBC ran the first practice and came in after with a cracked oil tank - right at the seam on his production BSA. Throw it on the trailer and back to the house with you. Conveniently, he lives 40 miles from the track and has a TIG welder at home.

Second practice went well except for the two Nortons in my class that were IGNORANT fast. I had nothing for them on the straights, so was resigned for a 3rd at best. Nice mixed grid in the class: Triumph, BSA, Norton (2), and HD. Bike felt good, still got shitty brakes, rock on.

The family shows up so I did some orientation for them. The British Biker Cooperative shows up with about a dozen bikes so I meet, greet, and visit with the club that is so graciously sponsoring me this year. Their motto is something like "Dedicated to the preservation of the British motorcycle" and these guys are all about it. Many thanks to them for the continued support - no shit, I couldn't do this season without them. Real cash money out of club members’ pockets is helping me run this season.

Pat gets back with his oil tank repaired so he's good to go.

I grid up for my race and the green flag drops. The damn Nortons just leave, while the rest of the class bombs into turn one. I get past the BSA (last year's champion) in one or two and am chasing the HD into 5. The track goes up a hill after 5, then there is a blind turn just past a bridge at the top of the hill. There were 6 bikes coming thru this turn when one of the Nortons just damn parks it (later investigation showed the clutch flew apart). Bikes flying everywhere to avoid the rider and we all negotiate the next two turns and go into the carousel.

This carousel turn is over 180 degrees of nice flat sweeper that is 3rd gear WFO on the Triumph. I passed lots of people here, as the front didn't chatter and stuck to the pavement like glue. Hang off and hammer it, then get ALL OVER the brakes for the chicane (site of last year's broken ribs, thank you very much).

Pretty soon it settled out that number one Norton (oh yeah, a previous champ that's been doing this for more than a few years) had stepped out a big lead, but I found myself in a highly entertaining battle with the 350 sportsman bike of Gary Swan. He could pull me on the straights but I would go into the corners harder (hey, I had no brakes!) and carry more speed through. We had a ball passing back and forth, and we caught up with Mr. Norton, who seemed to be sightseeing when we caught him but stepped it up. 3 wide up the hill after 5, me on the rumble strips, nobody letting off. GREAT fun. I put Gary down in the carousel again and tried to make it stick, but at the very last second he beat me across the stripe. Not that it means anything since he was in a different class, but it's the principle of it....

With one Norton out of the race, this put me into second, a result I was quite happy with.

Great weather, good racing, good friends and good fun. Pat completed his first race without blowing up or wrecking and took a fourth which was a good result for his first weekend.

Results out of Talledega WERA today say that Steve picked up two second places as well, so Team Fat Bastard is representing all over the country. Seems there was some smack talking about the absence of the fat Viking, so I'll have to show up for the Road America WERA round and slap some Atlanta boys around....he heh eheheheh

Sunday was more of the same - beautiful weather, pretty bikes, and fun racing. Some of Pat's students stopped by, along with some BBC members, so again we had a cheering section.

Pat and I worked together in Sunday's practice...after he got in from a 2am thrashing session to get his bike race worthy....and I showed him that yes, you can go into turn one a LOT faster. Hopefully this helped him in his race.

Attrition took its toll in my race, as two of the competitors (HD and BSA) didn't make the grid. So with just me and the Nortons, I rode around racing with the Sportsman 350 bikes that I caught. Had a fun pass on the outside of turn 5 into the rumble strips again...again because I couldn't stop and had to do SOMETHING.

Hit the road and headed home immediately after watching Pat's race. At home by 1:30 am and still made it to work on time at 7am. Just a couple of days to get through and I'm off again, this time to Grattan, MI, for the next round of AHRMA racing.

After seven rounds, I'm leading the Classic 60's 650 class.