Nice track, nice people, nice racing, nice lake, nice EMTs, bit of a drive to the hospital. Practice on Friday was productive but thankfully uneventful. Martin Musil was learning the track, Matt Lynn was at home from multiple track days but was fighting a touch of butterflies from his first National, and Matt Rogers was there getting comfortable for the next Regional. Bright and early Saturday morning the Endurance teams began to practise with Martin riding for Steve Clark’s Tight Squeeze II along with Chris Normand. Martin was screaming around turn 9 heading towards the lake passing another rider on the outside (for those that forgot your high school Shakespeare: that was called "foreshadowing"). The other rider began to take a "unusual" line and ended up hooking up with Martin. With both riders making a B-line for the lake and both unable to stop, Martin digresses to a hocky type move to break them apart. First rider washes out the front and stops at the top of the bank of the lake. Martin heads straight down the bank and in his own words "SPLOOSH". The bike digs in to the sandy "mud" at the edge and catapults Martin a dozen feet in. The other rider runs to the bank as the spray settles to see Martin emerging from chest deep water. His laughing is quickly quieted when he realizes he doesn't see a bike. As Martin begins to wade in the other rider jumps in and they both begin feeling for the bike. It's quickly located completely submerged at the edge of the shore. It takes both riders and a 1/2 dozen corner workers to free it from its watery grave. Good news is both riders were fine with the only damage being Martin's new nickname of "Crocodile Hunter" (or Auqaman, or swamp thing...). BETTER news is the B bike TSII was able to locate was faster than the first! Result: A FIRST in LightWeight Superbike for riders Chris Normand, Martin Musil and team owner Steve Clark! Matt Rogers (526N) had been sitting on the sidelines for today but was soon called upon to ride an Endurance SV for a injured rider. After a few quick lessons on hand signals Matt screamed out of the pits turning a few respectable lap times before disaster struck. For unknown / unconfirmed reasons Matt went down in one of the fastest turns in the track. When he came back on the crash truck he was asked the first question most people on a crash truck get asked: “What happened?” His answer of “I don’t know" didn’t seem odd at first and work on the bike began. When Matt began to ask where he was, what day it was, and what happened to him we knew something was wrong. Initially a check of his helmet showed some slight scratching on the outside but further inspection inside the helmet revealed a spider web of white cracks indicating a substantial impact. Matt was driven to the hospital in Valdosta where he annoyed and scared his driver (me) by asking the same questions over and over and over and over and…. “Where are we?” “Did I crash?” “Where?” “Did I come in on the crash truck?” “What turn?” “Where are we?” “Did I crash?” “Where?” “Did I come in on the crash truck?” “What turn?” “Where are we?” “Did I crash?” “Where?” “Did I come in on the crash truck?” “What turn?” Matt was diagnosed with a moderate concussion and given a cat scan. It was found that he had diminished cognitive reasoning and poor higher thinking skills but we were assured that was only because he was a racer. He’s OK and ready for the next weekend. Sunday started with rain. The kind of rain that makes you want to crack the windows in the hotel room and just let it lull you back to sleep. But it also brought cold. Matt Lynn (Boy Racer 549) threw on a set of rains and jumped on the track. He was scooting along well enough that some of the teams that owned trailers bigger than my house took notice and inquired about who he was. By lunch the tire vendors were again swapping tires for people as the rain had tapered off. Unfortunately the cold stayed. Martin again showed his prowess on his own SV (The BBC Racing bike) by methodically working is way up from the 4th row to a very respectable second place finish behind Bradley Champion. Martin was only 2/10 of a second off the leader’s pace but after weaving through the pack couldn’t gain any on Brad. Next time, when those two start side-by-side there will definitely be some of the most exciting LWT racing ever seen. Matt Lynn started his run after lunch by swapping the rains for a soft Metzler DOTs. His first National start was a doozy. Matt was following a rider around the outside of the pack when one of the pack riders began to drift wide. Matt gunned it to hurry around but ended up getting caught between the wide rider and the one he was following. Skillfully the rider Matt was following was able to not only keep it upright but also not lose any ground when Matt unwillingly nudged him off the track. Focusing on the remainder of the race Matt smoothly worked his way up to second. A slide exiting onto the front straight put Matt slightly off the track. His years of dirtbike experience paid off as he was able to not fly through a muddy puddle but only lose one place before getting the tires back on pavement. The rest of the race was spent successfully getting the lost place back for a Second place finish! Both Matt Lynn and Martin raced again with Martin taking 5th in HWT and Matt accepting an eighth (dropping down from third) after another unfortunate (but extremely entertaining) off-road excursion. Could there be any better way to spend a weekend?
From a Proud Dad..... A Huey,,,, Dude, 750SS/Nov. 5th....... Even after the "offroad excursions". And BIG BIG thanks to you, for the RearTire and all the help. And also to Mike ThermosMan for the "RainTires" & SuspensionTuning And to my lifelong friend Greg Livingston for the pit help. And to my son Matt "BoyRacer" Lynn for working so hard, to get where he is trying to go.
Great report Huey! Tell Martin the first time he is able to beat Bradley straight up I will buy him a case of beer. Kendall P.S. Stay out of the Pool Martin!! See ya at CMP.
On top of that: 1. JLG sprained her ankle, badly, while walking the pitbulls during a fuel stop. 2. We had a blowout on 1 of the 4 trailer wheels. 3. We got the RV and Trailer STUCK in a church lawn in the wet Florida, quicksand on Thursday Night, and had to have Greg Meyers and John Walters drag us out with that cool-ass Hummer2. (Thanks again Gents!) THEN... Martin went mud boggin' But, if that's what it takes to get 1st place, we'd do it all over again.
Let's not forget about the pipe with faucet on it that I broke backing up with the trailer right before the humvee left to pull you out of the sand pit Nice fountain it was and they had to shut the main to fix it - my apologize to the people that couldn't take a shower or flush their shit that evening .
Kendall, if you want to motivate me, it's gonna take more then a case - we are talking keg proportions ! See ya !
Thanks to "Huey" for all his help this weekend. You are #1 in my book. We did some last minute changes on the bike without even practicing on sunday and Huey took great care of it even when I was a bit nervous and bitchy. Thanks man !
