Stupid noob question...who’s bike?!?

So as the title alludes...How do you all manage “bike related understandings” when racing as a team?

I have some fellow new amateur racer friends tossing the team endurance event idea. Sounds like a blast. Also sounds like a great way to end a friendship .

For those who’ve been around, what are some common agreements for handling who’s bike to use and how to split responsibility if someone wrecks it or blows it up? We are all trackday guys turned amateur racer wannabes and I don’t think anyone wants to toss their shit down the track. I’ve seen some posts looking for riders, where everyone chips in if the bike goes poof... or do you guys chip in on buying a “team bike” and keeping that separate from personal events?

I LOVE the idea of endurance racing but afraid it can tear friendships apart if these things aren’t clearly understood lol. Thanks for any wise advise!

 

You wreck it you fix it, all other costs (fuel, entrance fees, tires, oil....) split evenly. You blow it up, the owner should have a general understanding on the condition of the motor in advance and not brought a time bomb to an endurance race. If you can’t afford to fix it don’t ride it.

 

bike or team owner should delegate conditions.
Tires, fees, & fuel split evenly on most teams. Crash damage responsibility of the rider at the time.
Winnings??? Team or bike owner.
Be prepared to deposit endurance bike in dumpster... ie dont develop a relationship or name the thing.
But for track time its the least expensive competitive event.

 

It depends on the goal. Win at all costs? Usually requires deep pockets. Riders may not have deep pockets to fix crash damage. Friends out for a good time need to have a good understanding of how it works before you go.

 

I'll never forget sitting in the pits and Mark asking me how we needed to handle my bike if it got trashed. He was having a very serious conversation with me about it. (Rightfully so.) and I told him I didn't really care. We could all split it, it was 1st gen SV I think I had $1800 in it. I told him surely we could all pitch in $600 to buy another. I could tell there was a huge weight lifted off his shoulders. There is a beauty to racing something like that. It lets your team get down to just having a good time. If your team is really having to stress paying for the bike. I would consider racing something cheaper.

 

When it’s a year old R1 with a $40k price tag it garners a different response!

 

I've done...
- nothing but show up.
- paying only gate fees and crash damage when I was at fault for the damage...getting taken out = not my fault.
- splitting all expenses plus crash damage.

It's been different every time, each “team” will have its own deals and each iteration will have its pros and cons. If we're gonna be real about it, the guy pulling it all together will have a completely different set of concerns and desires than “the rest” of the team.

The biggest challenge, imo, will be finding the riders and support team members that can and will commit to a whole season. You may even have manpower trouble just trying to do a single event, even if you already have all the equipment.
We haven't even discussed whether “the team” will be a finely tuned machine or everyone just hates each other cuz so-and-so is slow, Crashy keeps puttin' it in the dirt and the Chief is now a raving lunatic asshole.
Then there's the dream team...

 

OK OK all of the above. Endurance racing makes for good friends and good times.
But it's killin' me: "Whose".

 

There is no set right or wrong way to do it, whatever is mutually agreed upon system by all the riders is the system to use. I could write a dissertation on this as a team owner. I don't have nearly the experience that some do on here, but I sure have enough to know a thing or two. Having been there done that, this is what I would do:

- Bike owner has final say. Frankly, this is the trump card. Everyone wants to go endurance racing until it's time to choose whose bike you're going to ride. That rider is volunteering their bike? The ultimate decision for whatever it is rests with them.
- Any possible purse money goes to the bike owner. Don't like it, volunteer your own bike next time.
- Bike owner establishes a value for the motorcycle and all riders are in agreeance of declared value.
- You crash it, you fix it. Don't care if you got taken out or not. If the bike gets wadded past a certain extent (to be determined by the bike owner), that rider then "purchased" that bike and gives the bike owner the value of the bike, whether it be in cash, another bike, or whatever the bike owner deems acceptable. For example, if I thought you wadded up my $10k bike, congrats, you take the pile home with you and you get me $10k. Whatever you can sell off from parting that bike out (or re-using to build a replacement bike if that is acceptable to me/bike owner) helps offset the cost of the bike.

I did the "all riders split crash damage" for the time we did it. I will not do that again. Gets old when you spend a whole lot of time prepping a bike to be endurance ready, only to haul it home in pieces (and none of those times were of my own doing). Then for the cherry on top, I had to pay 25% to help fix my own bike, that I spent the majority of the labor also fixing. But that's just spoken from the view point of all my experience being the bike owner.

Not to make it sound like it's all business...but I think you'll find a direct correlation between level of commitment given with average placing in whichever class you're racing in. If it's all truly just for fun and a check in the box event, it's pretty laid back and easy going.

 

John you’re lucky I didn’t charge you for not running your bike or Possie over.

 

I've been bike owner (the SV that Max, Jesse and I ran a while back) and I've been a member of a collective ownership (chumpcar MR2). The biggest thing is to agree on it beforehand.


- Bike and capital. Responsibility of owner
- Wear items and general wear and tear, Split between event participants. Agree on a rate and what fits into the category. For example, I wouldn't partner with someone who would expect me to pay for an expensive paintjob.
- Crash damage. I won't ride with a team or group that makes crash damage the responsibility of the rider/driver, except only in cases of extreme negligence. I don't want to excessively burden someone just because they were unlucky. If there is a recurring them, then it's worth a talk, but I've never had that happen. I also don't want to start disagreements about who gets what stint and the state of the tires. I spent more time telling my teammmates to ride faster and not to worry about crash damage. Obviously it's different with a clapped out SV than a 40k R1. But, that goes along with another rule of mine, "Don't roll a wheel on track unless I'm willing for it to come back in a front-loader." The only other part of that rule is that the person who crashes it is the one who gets dirty to fix it. That's more applicable to cars, where pounding out body panels and crawling under a dirty, hot car 6 hrs into a 12 hr race is more likely.

 

With my team on my SV, our agreement is we pay equal shares to race and I willingly split purse if we get any...
Crash in practice, rider who was riding pays, and I bitch as we fix it
Crash during the endurance, the team splits the cost.
It works for us and we won a LWT championship in 2018

 

Very helpful discussion. I have wondered about these things. I wish I was fast enough to be on a team. Wait a minute. If I offered one of my bikes maybe a team would put up with me.

 

I've seen on Alberto Naska's youtube channel where he did endurance events with team members racing their own individual bikes. I think it was a 4 hour event, and each stint was 30 to 45 minutes or whatever the math worked out for the number of team riders.

Does anyone do anything like that over here? It might be a way to avoid some of the unpleasantness mentioned above and grow endurance racing at the same time.

 

I have raced the "Pony Express" (4 hour endurance, each rider runs their own bike) and I will say I liked not having the fear of crashing a friends bike. I get we didnt really have pit stops/tire changes/etc but it made it easier to get a team together and still had a blast with my friends