Oh… what can you say about Beaver Run that already hasn’t been said? A short 1.53 mile course in the eastern hills of Pennsylvania, just a stones throw away from the Ohio River. Plenty of elevation changes are crammed in to the 12 turns, so it makes an interesting course to say the least. Decent facilities on a relatively recently built track. WERA was there on the July 4th weekend for the fourth installment of the North Central region (if you race in the North East region, it was your fifth race). The plans to head up with Jerry Van Horn in his RV fell apart 30 minutes outside Jerry’s house. The water pump decided it was time to call it quits (the starter took a nose dive when he drove to Grattan a few weeks previous). When Shane Malone and I did arrive in van-zilla, it was almost midnight. When Jerry finally arrived, it was 4 A.M. On Saturday there were mild temperatures with plenty of sun greeting us. Over the fist two practice sessions I re-acquainted myself with the track and worked on bike set-up. The bike was either too stiff or the track had developed a few more bumps over the winter. Since the last race was at Grattan, I softened up the suspension to try and reduce the high speed chatter I was getting in to turn one. I used the Lightweight 20-lap endurance race to work on shift points, braking and entry speeds. I felt pretty good about the race, even thought I was almost dead last. The extra practice felt good, and I made some progress with the suspension. I dropped a full second from my 2004 best lap time, dropping down to the mid-1:09’s. Saturday evening Jerry, Shane and myself headed to Beaver Falls to go food shopping. Team Frost Racing was having an impromptu cook-out, so we needed to pick up some grillin’ food. After driving for about 20 minutes, we finally found the local grocery store. Then we needed to find the beer store, which was on the way back to the track, but not really on the way. Supplies loaded, Jess and Don put on a great little shin-dig. They rock! Sunday was slightly more humid. The rest of the guys we pit with had arrived; ‘Pants’ Romano; Joe Ball; Robert Grost and Scott Smallwood. I woke up early enough to get a new set of Bridgestone’s from Mize Mobile. Mize was late getting the tires on due to an ill-selected dinner (why would you buy ‘Chinese’ food from a small town in PA!?), and I almost missed practice. I forgot to take the sticker of the rear tire and nearly landed on my ass on the hot pit. After a double-butt-pucker, lock-to-lock out of my seat whipping, I scrubbed in the tires over the next two sessions. My first race was race one on the schedule, so I made my final adjustments to the suspension for the day. The adjustments and new tires go rid of the front end chatter. The bike was working well, but I was down on power (something that’s becoming more evident as year progresses). Formula 2 was race one for me and for the event. I had front row grid, inside and got a killer start. I was third by turn one, but by the time was had climbed the hill to turn seven and down to back straight, I was quickly loosing positions due to my horsepower deficit. Over the next ten laps I kept my laps times in the 1:09’s and even dipped in to the 1:08’s. I finished seventh, while Scott Smallwood took first. I was getting great starts all day. In D Superbike the FZR400’s of McKee and Tilley, Romano’s Mz Skorpion and Hinton’s Aprilia RS250 just had too much on my KTM. I was running third, and then fourth, then fifth and eventually last. A red flag brought out by Mckee binning it in turn ten on lap eight of ten. This stopped the bleeding, as I had no answer to for anyone on the grid. I was making up time in turns, but there was no enough juice in the bike to make up any deficit on the straight. I did post my fastest lap of 1:08.221, but I was three seconds off Hinton’s times. Frustrating… to say the least. Motard saw a great race with last year’s regional winner Jerry Shirley. For ten laps we chased each-other through traffic, working our way through SV650’s and lightweight superstock bikes. I made some clean passes in to turn one on the brakes, but couldn’t pull the gap any closer to Jerry. And as the race wore on and the traffic began to thin out, Jerry pulled a slight gap. Shawn Romano had blown up his KTM somewhere along the way, as I saw him in the infield with his bike. He didn’t look to happy (understatement of the year). I finished second, but it was a good race and I felt that I was reeling in the leader. I needed more laps, but felt good about the overall race. Clubman was a repeat performance (or lack thereof) of D Superbike. A great start but then a backward moving performance. No red red-flags or traffic to help me, I lost touch with the leaders, as Romano beat Shirley at the line by .04 seconds! I collected my points behind Don Fine and Rich Graver. I was pretty bummed, but I also know that it’s a long season. I’ll try and regroup for the next race, which is the WERA National at Grattan, MI the weekend of July 15th. I’ll be racing the Formula 2 class. Why? Because I can, that’s why. After that race I head straight to Mid-Ohio for the AMA GNC. So… with four races in to the nine race season, the points are looking like this for the WERA North Central region; 1st in Motard Expert; 1st in Clubman Expert; 2nd in D Superbike Expert and 6th in Formula 2. Leaving the track made me wonder if I should have remained a musket sniper in the Amish Liberation Front, but I just put the whole weekend down to a lack-luster performance on a track I’ve struggled with in the past.
