(There's a video at the end for those of you with ADD) I truly wasn't going to go. Seriously. I was registered but had allready sent an email to Em about a credit. Luckily she ignored me as she usually does. After everything that was involved getting ready for Road Atlanta, the stress of practicing and racing two totally different bikes, having to repair the R6 meets Turn 7 episode before I gave that bike back, getting ready for my trip to Macau, worrying I might hurt myself, trying to source another EX to borrow, the expense.. I just had a lot on my mind. Then my friend Jeff called. He has an awesome EX (which didn't help my fear of "what if") and wasn't able to go to the GNF. "Huey, race my bike. You did awesome at Road Atlanta, it's just going to sit here, you already have tires, it doesn't need anything, and if something happens don't worry about it we'll work something out." I sat on that offer for an entire day. My counter offer was that he let my dyno tune it for him. Deal struck. I picked up the bike Wednesday at lunch! I'd blow off 600s this weekend to make it a bit more chill. I wanted to do some stuff to it after running it on the dyno and making a few jetting changes but we had an emergency customer repair that kept me at the shop till 11:00pm! Getting a customer on the track is way more important than my fat ass getting seat time! So I helped MarMo mechanic Risconsin get a motor hung, trace down some electrical gremlins and tuned the bike (John finished up everything Thursday while I was practicing and I saw that bike and rider set a personal best for him later that weekend!). I didn't get finished loading and packing till 1:00am! Sucked when I had to get up in four hours to start heading for the track! Showed up at the track right as or shop manager and fellow ESS'er Ed Eberhart pulled up. We found an awesome place next to some awesome people: Heather, Kenny and Jamie! Setup the pits and I had to get to work on the bike quick! I ran over to Stick and had him swap out the tires Jeff uses and ran back to start swapping springs for my... huskyness. With Ed, Heather, and Kenny's help I was on the warmers in time for first practice! I was at the opening round for Barber back in 200something as a mechanic but I only got to ride it for the first time last year. What a beautiful place... to suck so bad at! Holy crap I could not string laps together. I was only doing 2:03s! I've never been a bragger but I thought I'd be going a little faster than that. At lunch I ran into Dave Krier. He knew exactly what it was, maybe from seeing me at Road A or maybe from his EX experience over the last few years: I was riding the track like I was on a big bike. I was going deep on the brakes, waiting to turn in, squaring corners and getting on the gas early. Everything you shouldn't do on a bike with 30 HP. I had done a LOT of studying and knew the track well from years of working there so when Dave started talking I could relate it to points on the track. I dropped 5 seconds the next session! I went back and asked him a few more questions. I don't think he'll ever have to worry about me closing in on him during a race but I think he'd still help me even if I could. I can't say enough! So more practice, more figuring stuff out. Few changes to the bike. I really need to quit this bad habit of suddenly getting nervous about something on the bike at second or third call and grabbing a wrench to it. So race time: Good friend Bob Eady walks up right about then with his "can't shake me" demeanor and that helps so much. Especially when I realize I've forgotten my grid position. Watching ol' Bob work an Iphone to find the pic of the grid was about the best thing that could of happened to me right then! Time to race: warm-up lap, grid spot, look around, CRAP! turn on cameras, try and remember if it's one or two waves, pull leathers out of butt (again), clap real excited like JoJo the idiot circus-boy, wish I'd peed for the 19th time, wonder if I have enough gas, wonder if I have too much gas, adjust junk, bounce up and down on seat, blip throttle, hold up 1 wave finger, laugh when I think that I should of held up "2 waves" fingers and see who fell for it, blip throttle, adjust junk, pull leathers out of butt, clap, wish I'd peed.... TWO BOARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For the rest of this please read knowing that none of this is bragging! I'm pretty proud of what I've accomplished but I also know it's not a lot! I also know I'm damned lucky to have caught some good people on some off days, wrong setups, wrong bikes (CBRs), broke foots, etc. Just trust me I know I'm not all that nor the bag of chips but for only my 5th time racing and maybe dozenth time on the track I'm I'm having a blast being on this side of the bars! I got a pretty good start. I also remembered to shift. So I got that going for me. Looked for a hole down the hill to 2 and just kept aiming for clear spots. Just like an old woods rider told me once "don't look at the trees, look at the spaces between the trees." Course he walks with a limp but I don't need to worry about that right now. By the back straight I had settled down. I was following Kessler and Rogers who were going back and forth. I had a teeny bit more than them when they were messing around but couldn't do anything with it when they were together. Going into the museum turn Nikk went a little deeper that Kurt and got to the top of the hill first. I was right behind him. I'd been practicing not going over the curbing and this time it paid off. I was able to squirt down the hill. It made me square up the bottom and not get as good of a drive out as I should of but it worked. I was able to get Nikk after his CBR petered out down the back straight. So that left me closing in on Butel who had expert Payne sitting on her. Took me a few laps to catch up but it was similar to before. I thought (that's what we call foreshadowing!) I had something for them and was close for an entire lap trying to figure it out. I got past Reagan going down the chute onto the front straight and after catching the white flag, I don't think Butel was expecting me to come around the outside of her at 2! In hindsight I think she was just waiting for someone to play with because me taking that 4th place position lasted all of about 200 yards. Payne soon wanted his spot back also as we climbed out of Charlotte. I remember yelling "Nooooo, I got work to do!" Going into the museum I went deeper than I had all weekend and passed Reagan back. Because he was on the inside that drove me to take the jump a little bit which I hadn't been doing anymore. As soon as the bike "landed" and loaded I tried to stay close to the inside to keep Reagan behind me. That's the thought that was in my head when the back end broke free. You can hear in the video the bike kick out far enough to start dragging the peg. Reagan said I layed 6 foot of blackie! The bike baby-highsided, kicked me up out of the seat a bit, straightened itself out so I gassed it! Heading out of museum I gave Jessica the patented "you're in my sights", Steve (man I can't remember his name, raced SV endurance foe years), finger-pistol, pew-pew! Going into the first chicane Reagan was passing me on my right. He stayed wide at the first apex and really hugged the second one (more foreshadowing) the whole time we were side-by side. I do remember thinking "why are you racing me so hard!" but racing's racing! He was able to pull a bit harder down the back straight and heading into the second chicane it was nearly a mirror of the entry into the first: Reagan was beside me, I was a little back, I was taking a shallower line, he was taking more of a wider line. The only difference this time is where before Reagan was passing me, here we were more at the same pace. It's hard to Monday morning quarter back but my absolute first thought is that I would just go in deeper than he would (as I had Nikk a few laps before), my second thought is that he'd given me enough room the last chicane when we were lined up like this, but who knows... As the funnel of the lines closed at the first apex we hit pretty much side-by-side. All both of us had to do was catch an extra down shift and we were back on our way! Don't worry we had a long talk on pit lane, then later in the pits. He'd raced the EX endurance race at Talladega we put on a few years back! I still don't think I could ever race one of these there well. But regardless we're both OK. At first I was sure I'd had him into that turn. But after looking at the video: I had gotten suckered into a race and should of just settled. Maybe not. Hard to say at that exact moment. I shook his hand, apologized and we settled on "racing incident". Speaking of race, let's get back to it! Annnnnd that was it. I was able to close a little bit more but after that incident I braked really early for the pit-entry turn, didn't get a good drive, an excuse, another excuse, some more excuses, and I crossed the finish line in 5th less than half a second back. Not too terrible considering I started from the last row and 4th place started from the front row... but she was wearing a cast when she wasn't racing so... Hahahaha. Like I said, no excuses. I had an absolute BLAST. Got to hang with some awesome people. Helped out where I could. Saw some old friends. Met some new ones. Ate some awesome BBQ... What more could anyone ask for? Oh a video? OK! Huey's E SuperStock Youtubes. You can go full screen and change to 1080 if you has it! Thanks for reading and letting me chair race for a while. Normally all I have to remember races by are pages of notes and pictures of other people so this has been nice! Huey
Damn, that's a nice race Huey. Interesting line through the chicane. Nice grind too. Kicked the shit out of the Yo bike.
I wouldn't say that. He was having an off weekned and missed setup from what I understand. Not to mention having to travel back and forth to Atlanta everynight for work! I didn't even know it was him till I was watching the video. He really needs to wear the hat on the bike.
Huey, Enjoyed the story and the video was great (more riders should use the fast forward). Thanks for sharing!
Great report, can't see the vid on my phone, I'll watch it soon. I'm glad you are finding some time to do some racing yourself. We can tell that you enjoy it and you have a great attitude about it. I saw the pic of you and my boy in another thread- thanks for having it taken and then posting it. I look forward to meeting you. John Hayes
Yeah screw that kid! You need to teach him how to respect his elders! Blowing past me on the straights. He should of slowed down and held the door open for me! Seriously though: he was an extremely respectful, very nice kid. When I told him I was in that race with him he never "uhhh"ed or "ummm"ed or anything. He asked me my times and then was polite enough not to laugh. He said something like "that's pretty good!" (So actually I guess he is a liar. Hahahah) We chatted some more, he shook my hand and went about his business. Cool dude.
Good write up, I need to get on one of the new 300's. fuel injected to keep me from over revving the little thing.
250 is carbed and has a rev-limiter. But as with all limiters only works on the way up. Most of the over-revs happen on down shifts... Don't ask me how I know that. Hahaha
