They had a couple of problems but it was bouncing back and forth between PR1 KTM and the Village Idiots and BEI/Dunlop for the entire race. VI's were running LONG stints and still keeping good laptimes, KTM had fast riders (Ty Howard has the track record I believe) and BEI had their normal good stops until a fuel pump issue. All in all perfect Endurance racing. Thanks to CMRA and all their officials and riders. We had a blast. Wish we could have hung out more last night and hope today is going as great as yesterday did. You guys run a good show.
You didn't get any of the BBQ?!?! Thanks again to CMRA and WERA for putting this together. If we can get our electrical issues figured out we'll see you at NOLA. Team Tip Toes and Tonka Trucks!
That BBQ was great! Some of the best chicken I've had closely followed by the spicy sausage. We were all starving at the end of that 8 hour race. Much appreciation for the food provided. A lot of thanks to all involved that made the TWS combined endurance race happen. Mongo and Evelyn, Walter at CMRA, Shaundra (sp?), all the grid officials that made it a point to stop by our pits and welcome us and also check on us during the race (I'm sure I looked like I was having a heart attack after each stint I did), Steve in Tech, etc. Even had Quentin, the Bridgestone contingency pay-out guy from Indy, hang out with us for awhile. Good thing we were on 'stones Ben Kirby, Blake Jones and myself left Nashville TN Thursday night at 7pm. Drove through the night so we'd make it to the track when tech opened at Fri noon and get some stuff done early. Didn't work out so well. I got exactly one hour of sleep Thursday night. Five miles from the track we had a blow out on the trailer that ripped the fender skirt off, tore some of the fiberglass siding and somehow managed to jack up the bottom of the inner wall of the trailer, cause the water quick disconnect area to start leaking and also cause a faint propane line (or something in that area) leak. While checking stuff under the busted up area of the trailer I noticed two wires leading to two different brake backing plates were disconnected. I think what happened was sometime early on in the trip or possibly during one of last years trips to the tracks I must have snagged something on the road and ripped the electric brake wires loose. I also think every time we stepped on the brakes we were locking up a wheel or two and wearing flat spots. You'd think you could hear it or feel it but I'm leaving room for option and theory. Besides the blown out tire, two additional tires looked like crap! Needless to say I was rather disturbed as I just installed new tires on that trailer last year. Once we got the spare on the trailer and to the track we spent the remainder of the afternoon rushing to get all the wheels, including spare, off the trailer and into the truck and get into town for new rubber. An additional 700+ dollar expense on top of an already expensive weekend Saturday morning we almost didn't get a wall spot to pit and we had to be one of the last teams to set up. 30 minute endurance practice... Ben went out first followed by Blake. I was rushing around taking care of last minute details, getting grid position (row 3 left... thanks CMRA) and getting the fire extinguisher through tech. I got into my leathers and to the bike in time to get almost a full lap in (pit out goes into T1 and checkered flag waves before pit in, so I never saw the front straight until my first stint). All three of us ran fairly consistent lap times. The pit stops went quite well. The front and rear tire swap/fuel fill at the four hour mark wasn't terribly bad considering no quick change equipment. Shameless Bridgestone plug: The first and second set of slicks worked out as expected... great! Pressures on all four tires, as soon as they came off the track and still hot, were within .5 lbs of where they needed to be. We had good temps throughout the day. Cloud cover a lot of the time with sun popping out a couple of times, it was a crap shoot trying to figure out how much warmer the track would get and gauge where tire pressures would end up considering our three different riding styles and speeds. There were quite a few times I pushed the front end in corners and started to spin up the rear coming out of a corner but the 'stones held in there. Lot of pride in Blake and Ben right now for putting up a good race. We all had a lot of fun and we each had good battles with not only a few lightweights but quite a few MW bikes. We podium'd with a 2nd place finish and an 18th overall. Oh, did I mention there were 40 bikes on the grid? Good start to the season Funniest moment last weekend: Ben Kirby standing under the canopy in our pits shortly before endurance practice. He opens his gear bag, starts digging, looks at me all puzzled and then it dawned on him... he brought all his gear except his leathers
Nope, and I'm still bummed. Screwed up the flights - time was too early and I got the airports backwards so my dumb ass booked us into Hobby not Bush. By the time we got over to the Q the line was going to take half the time it took me to drive to the hotel by Hobby and sleep seemed like a good idea. That and I knew it'd be another 3+ hours at the track with Q and beer
Thanks to everyone who was at TWS this weekend - the CMRA are awesome and the WERA Teams who did show did well and made me so proud. Motorcycle Roadracing is alive and well in Texas! Hopefully this series will grow and we can expand a bit and schedule better for 2015! Thanks to Lucas Oil for all their faith in us and to all the other folks who are coming on board for this joint endeavor! See those who believe at NOLA in April!
Are you actively trying to make all the LW teams pissed off at me? I know I yelled at your dad once during a 24 but damn dude, that's harsh!
