Nelson 4/30-5/1 roll call

Small turn out and the weather was crazy, 1/2 the grid on rains the others on dot's in most races.

 

Sam pulled out this morning and let a few other take a stab at winning in the changing track conditions. Rick won 2, Lefurgey won 2, JB won a couple I think. Plenty of crashes and even more mud. And to top it off, a motor let go and dropped oil on a wet track. It was "cleaned" with a torch. We had 4 crashes total for our 3 riders. Nobody left in the meatwagon.

 

I won BSBK and Nick won ASBK. I also threw my bike down in the carousel. Ironically where the oil was about, doing nothing wrong and I was the one that stopped on the side of the track to tell the corner works to check the track for oil....%^&^&$

 

David Podolsky won hwt Superbike and got taken out by a middleweight novice who couldn't hold his line in the carousel. Whose idea was it to have middleweight novices start before heavyweight twin experts? I may not be a racer, but that seems like one of the dumbest things I've ever seen. It's a good thing nobody got hurt. :down:

 

i was pitted across dave and damn did he have a nice bike! was quite amusing seeing a clump of mud/grass blow out his exhaust when he started it up to clear it out.

 

Sean, it's not fair for the novices, either, many of whom were wearing orange shirts, to be racing in miserable conditions on that piece of shit track with expert racers cutting through them who on average, were running 20 seconds per lap faster. The lead hwt pack of Nickerson, Borello, Podolsky and Greer caught up to them by t4 and passed the entire field, but for one rider. If I had health insurance, that might have been my first race, too. It's enough to worry about other racers in your own class, but to have to deal with getting your doors blown off in the first lap by experts who are outpacing you by 20 seconds? That seems to be a bit much.

 

What about gridding the twins in front of the novices?

 

First race weekend was awesome! Met some cool people and learned how the show works...

Trying to predict the weather and track conditions is pretty stressful. I went out in the LWTSS race with DOT's and the rest of the grid was on rains... pretty big mistake.

One of our guys broke his collar bone on Saturday in the MW Solo, and anothers bike had electrical gremlins on Sunday.

 

Yesterday, probably not. At best, it may have delayed it. In the dry, there was a bit more parity, with the about 4-5 of the twins turning 1:12's or 13's in the solo and the faster amateur middleweights running 1:16's or in that ballpark. Under dry conditions, you would likely still have novices getting lapped, but not the entire field. There would be significantly less interference for the lead pack to negotiate, I would think.

You're right, though: where else would you put them? The class is dwindling, although in the past, there were a number of lwt's that would fill out the grid, too. Maybe they're still out there and the weather kept them away. It seemed like there were maybe 80-90 racers there the whole weekend; all of the grids were light this weekend compared to what I've seen at past events that I've attended as a mere spectator. I hope it was just the weather and that you have a better turnout at Summit next month.

 

Rain Dance, Rain Dance! That's the toughest choice in racing, rains or not? Well that and whether to take spank pictures of another guy's wife.

 

Was definitely a crazy weather weekend at the track! Finally got the bike sorted and felt great in raced 1 (C Superbike). Ended up second behind Gary Yancoskie. Gary ran a great wet race. I followed him for at least 6 of the eight laps waiting for him to make a mistake that never happened. Good job Gary.

Race 2 (back to back races for me) was the "HWTSS" race. There was lots of passing at the beginning of the race (I think i passed 8 novices lap 1) and was not running anywhere near the pace i was in Race 1 because of all the congestion. After sorting thru the traffic I was able to pass Nickerson for the lead and checked out but the red flag stopped the race and scoring went back to lap 4 so I ended up second. I spoke to Jim and agree that a bigger gap for the wave starts will help in the future.

Race 11 later in the day had everyone trying to decide between DOT or rains. I picked DOT's which was most likely the right choice. Unfortunately for me a "mechanical" failure sent me to the moon exiting t-13. The bolt in my rear link
backed out. That crash hurt. Locking nut on that bolt but somehow she still came out.

I want to thank everyone from WERA with the concern they had and professionalism displayed during my crash. Jim, Tom, Rich, terrance, etc are great people and top notch they ran a great event on a weekend when weather was not on our side.

Big to thank John Greer, Katie Bladon, Pops, Lance L, Dave Podolsky and everyone else who came over and helped or offered to help after the crash.

Also thanks to Scott Rosey for the help this weekend and all the guys in Scott Nelson's crew that helped me swap out the rain tires for DOT's just before race 11.



PS-i think i heard the ladies during registration saying Provisional Novices didn't have to pay for transponder rental! If thats the case...Big props to WERA for eliminating some of the initial first weekend cost to get more riders at the track!


Ride safe,
AAron

 

1.) DaveSV, you are a stand up guy!! Fast and a good person to talk too. It was fun to run with you and exciting to see you challenge for the front your first time at Nelson.

2.) WERA and the track management went above and beyond in handling all crashes, oil and weather. Definitely had our safety on their minds.

3.) I hate predicting if I should chance DOTs or go full wets....



Had fun guys!!! Thanks to my team, my wife and everyone else I got to meet and chat with.

 

suggestion:

Mongo,
in previous years, this is how the Heavtweight grids were:
http://maps.wera.com/pdfs/2008Schedules/vir032110.pdf

1) C Superbike Ex, HWT SS Ex & Nv
2) C Superbike Novice
11) WSS, HWT SB, V6 HW, V7MW

This year, this is how the grids are:
1) C Superbike Ex
2) C Superbike Nv, HWT SS Ex & Nv
11) WSS, HWT SB, V6 HW, V7MW

Why not revert to that?

 

AA, it was great meeting you this weekend! how are you feeling today?

 

didn't know that was you. Glad you're ok