wrenn
06-11-2001, 05:53 PM
Conditions: Humid, partly sunny but mostly wet.
Track: Roebling is a 1.8 mile flowing 8-9 turn course (depending on your count) with pretty good runoff and very nice pavement until it rains. When it rains at Roebling Road even rain tires will not keep you from sliding. The pavement is very good under dry conditions and the cornerspeeds are very high. A fast novice will average 95mph and a fast expert around 100mph.
Saturday: It rained Friday and the track was still wet for the first round of practice. I had planned to ride in the morning practice and then tear into the forks to re-valve and change springs while they ran the Solo 20’s. Since the track was wet and I had work to do on the bike I elected to go ahead and start on the forks. This turned out to be a good idea. Although the track dried for the second round of morning practice, it rained during the solo 20’s and I spent the day working on the forks & picking up the crashers in turns 1,2,3,4,5 and 9.
With the racing day over and the forks back together I set the sag and raised a cheeseburger in celebration of Derek ‘Stickboy’ Bennett’s 30th birthday. Then Melissa and I headed for a hotel room with dry floors and A/C! just too humid to get a good nights sleep. Looks like I’ll be trying to get an A/C unit for the trailer next.
Sunday: More rain. The track dries very quickly when the rain stops, I which the paddock did the same. There is barely a foot path of "high" ground to get to my pit space http://www.wera.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif and there are some area’s of the paddock that require a dingy to get through under heavy rains http://www.wera.com/ubb/biggrin.gif. Brian and Stick took care of most of the crashtruck duties for me so I just played around in the shallow end http://www.wera.com/ubb/wink.gif.
Well with a new fork setup and adjustment needed, I can’t really learn anything on a wet slippery track except how to fall down, and I don’t really want to know any more about that. http://www.wera.com/ubb/wink.gif I sat out the first round of practice and decided I would only race on a dry track. Roebling’s pavement patches are best described as black ice when wet.
Remember I said the track dries quickly? Well it dried by the second round again so I went out to test the front end. Better feel, better ride and more stable but riding higher in the front, I’ll have to put some more spacers under the rear shock.
Then came the rain….drying, rain, drying, rain, drying….more tire changing than tire guys available…rains?DOT’s? rains?DOT’s? rains?DOT’s? rains?DOT’s? rains?DOT’s? you get the idea….i’m glad I wasn’t changing tires...those guys were slammed.
600 Superstock: by race 12 the track was “dry” on the wet line anyway so I went out and rode around to feel out the forks some more. I started pretty good and thought everyone was going slow so I turned up the pace and slipped in turn five…back end stepped out and I decided maybe this isn’t such a good idea. I backed down and surfed my way to a seventh place finish (so there were only 7 in the race, I still got the points and will pick-up some spots on the grid)
750 Superstock: Third call about to on the warm-up lap. RAIN. The Race director declares a wet race and gives everyone 10 min to got back and change to rain tires. 1. I don’t have a spare set of wheels yet and 2. Someone above told me not to ride on a wet Roebling track. There were only two experts to take the green, but a whole mess of novices in the wave behind them. I put my bike in the trailer for the drive home. The rain stopped long enough for Melissa and I to take the canopy down (thanks to huffdaddy for the help) and we hooked up the truck and headed home
Congrats to Scott Gardner, Scott Brown and Larry Denning on their wins and all the other participants that had a great showing. Thanks to the WERA officials and cornerworkers for putting on another great and pretty safe weekend.
This coming weekend, VIR. Hope to see you there, and feel free to stop by and say hello.
Track: Roebling is a 1.8 mile flowing 8-9 turn course (depending on your count) with pretty good runoff and very nice pavement until it rains. When it rains at Roebling Road even rain tires will not keep you from sliding. The pavement is very good under dry conditions and the cornerspeeds are very high. A fast novice will average 95mph and a fast expert around 100mph.
Saturday: It rained Friday and the track was still wet for the first round of practice. I had planned to ride in the morning practice and then tear into the forks to re-valve and change springs while they ran the Solo 20’s. Since the track was wet and I had work to do on the bike I elected to go ahead and start on the forks. This turned out to be a good idea. Although the track dried for the second round of morning practice, it rained during the solo 20’s and I spent the day working on the forks & picking up the crashers in turns 1,2,3,4,5 and 9.
With the racing day over and the forks back together I set the sag and raised a cheeseburger in celebration of Derek ‘Stickboy’ Bennett’s 30th birthday. Then Melissa and I headed for a hotel room with dry floors and A/C! just too humid to get a good nights sleep. Looks like I’ll be trying to get an A/C unit for the trailer next.
Sunday: More rain. The track dries very quickly when the rain stops, I which the paddock did the same. There is barely a foot path of "high" ground to get to my pit space http://www.wera.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif and there are some area’s of the paddock that require a dingy to get through under heavy rains http://www.wera.com/ubb/biggrin.gif. Brian and Stick took care of most of the crashtruck duties for me so I just played around in the shallow end http://www.wera.com/ubb/wink.gif.
Well with a new fork setup and adjustment needed, I can’t really learn anything on a wet slippery track except how to fall down, and I don’t really want to know any more about that. http://www.wera.com/ubb/wink.gif I sat out the first round of practice and decided I would only race on a dry track. Roebling’s pavement patches are best described as black ice when wet.
Remember I said the track dries quickly? Well it dried by the second round again so I went out to test the front end. Better feel, better ride and more stable but riding higher in the front, I’ll have to put some more spacers under the rear shock.
Then came the rain….drying, rain, drying, rain, drying….more tire changing than tire guys available…rains?DOT’s? rains?DOT’s? rains?DOT’s? rains?DOT’s? rains?DOT’s? you get the idea….i’m glad I wasn’t changing tires...those guys were slammed.
600 Superstock: by race 12 the track was “dry” on the wet line anyway so I went out and rode around to feel out the forks some more. I started pretty good and thought everyone was going slow so I turned up the pace and slipped in turn five…back end stepped out and I decided maybe this isn’t such a good idea. I backed down and surfed my way to a seventh place finish (so there were only 7 in the race, I still got the points and will pick-up some spots on the grid)
750 Superstock: Third call about to on the warm-up lap. RAIN. The Race director declares a wet race and gives everyone 10 min to got back and change to rain tires. 1. I don’t have a spare set of wheels yet and 2. Someone above told me not to ride on a wet Roebling track. There were only two experts to take the green, but a whole mess of novices in the wave behind them. I put my bike in the trailer for the drive home. The rain stopped long enough for Melissa and I to take the canopy down (thanks to huffdaddy for the help) and we hooked up the truck and headed home
Congrats to Scott Gardner, Scott Brown and Larry Denning on their wins and all the other participants that had a great showing. Thanks to the WERA officials and cornerworkers for putting on another great and pretty safe weekend.
This coming weekend, VIR. Hope to see you there, and feel free to stop by and say hello.