Took off for Roebling with my buddy Bob who graciously offered to drive and since I drive most everywhere I was glad to accept his offer. Cool, just sit back and ride. We left on Friday afternoon about 4 and of course we hit some ATL traffic so a 3-1/2 hour ride took about 4-1/2. Got to the track and dropped the trailer and headed over to Tom's pit to scam a couple of beers. We hang out and bench race a little then we hit the hotel. Saturday morning dawns and all is well in Savannah. Bob said he would buy me a race for my up coming b'day. Cool, so I add the LW Solo 20. Get through tech and everything and I'm ready for practice. Both sessions go pretty good with no problems. After practice I mount up a fresh set of slicks for the race. We hit the riders meeting and now it's time to wait for the LW race which is the fourth race of the day. I feel a little sleepy so I take a little catnap before our race. LW solo is up and I'm gridded on the second row left. Green flag flies and I get one of my best starts in a very long time. I actually thought I had jumped it but I must have timed it just right. With that start I blew past the whole front row with the guy who was on my row and another guy from behind us. By the time we got to T1 I was in third. The first couple laps was pretty insane with everyone jockeying for position. The race settles down and I'm in sixth with fifth and fourth just ahead. But I thought those guy where the fourth and third place guys, must have miscounted. So I ride my ass off and catch the fifth place dude. We battle back and forth for about 3 laps with me finally taking a firm grip on fifth. Next victim is the fourth place whom I catching pretty quickly. By this time the halfway flags had been displayed we were working lap 14 or 15. I caught the fourth place guy down the straight with the superior horsepower of the 400 on crack. He had looked behind earlier in that lap and I screamed in my helmet "you're mine mf'er". Well after I screamed that I thought to myself "you shouldn't have done that because now you'll probally crash". I'm all over the fourth place guy trying to stay close to pass him down the front stretch. Go into T4 and get on the gas and the front tucks coming out of the turn. I catch it on my knee and toe but now I am spooked. Is it going to do that again? I back off just enough to allow sixth place to get by me. I try to make it back up but I run out of time and finish sixth. I ran a good hard race battled all race long and felt good about my finish. We head over to Tom's pit for the party. We drank some beer and ate some fine food. BS'ed for a long time then we head back to the hotel. Sunday morning we wake up to rain. Roebling is very slippery in the rain so I skip practice and hope it dries. No such luck so we pack up and leave before the first race. All in all we had a good time. Didn't crash and went home in one piece. See ya next time.
Race Report: Roebling Road Raceway, March 24-25, 2001 Weather: Middle 60’s and sunny on Saturday, rain and 50’s on Sunday. Track conditions: Clean and still reasonably smooth Saturday. Wet Sunday morning, drying by 3pm Sunday afternoon. I drove to the track Friday night with great expectations. My friend Fred Farzanegan had loaned me his bright orange and flame decaled Suzuki TL1000-R for the weekend. Another friend from Raliegh, Scott Carpenter agreed to bring it down for me. I ‘camped’ at the track Friday night and woke very early (5am) Saturday morning. I was too cold to sleep, and the chickens, cows, dogs & geese had begun their morning routines so it was too noisy to go back to sleep. I grab a hot shower, get dressed and take a walk around the track with a met-rx bar and water for breakfast. I catch Scott at the gate and help unload the gear and set-up the pits. I start looking over the TL-R and find some things that need to be adjusted and safety-wired before tech and practice. I take care of these things easily, check the oil, gas and go to tech in time for first practice. Boy do I have some cobwebs to work out. I’m very slow and the bike feels funny. The second practice feels much better but the bike is feeling really loose late in the sessions. A quick check of the air pressure in the tires solves that problem. (they needed about 8lbs, each) So I’m all set for the Heavyweight Solo 20. Gas the bike and suit up. The race was an eye-opener! I started on the 3rd row outside. I knew I wasn’t completely ready for this so I made myself skinny and started slow. I was last into T1 and just kind of worked my way around. I passed two or three then got very tired and started making a lot of mistakes. I missed downshifting several times and was not running good lines in every turn. I got passed back, so I just pulled in for a breather. No point in crashing Fred’s bike while fighting to stay in last place. While on pit road sipping Gatorade (thanks Fetsko) I saw the half way flags. I stretched my arms a little more and decided to go back out for a few more laps. I was slow, but I felt much better and finished the race. I checked the results later and found out I did not finish last. It seems ‘critter’ was using the race to set-up his 750 and spent more time in the pits than I did. Oh well, it was fun, it was real, but it wasn’t real fun. Scott C. and I met Moose, Greg and the gang from Pit Bull for dinner at Tubby’s, good seafood, and absolutely hilarious company. I slept much better Saturday night. When we woke Sunday morning, the sky was crying…yep rain, light but constant and everything was wet. The rain was supposed to blow over by noon at the latest, but I do not practice at Roebling in the rain. There are so many patches its too good a possibility to fall down. And since I was riding Fred’s bike, I wasn’t even going to race in the rain. So I spent the morning helping Scott and Craig Working prep for their races. Switching to rain tires and stuff like that. I watched some of the races noticed the track was drying. The rain had stopped about 2pm. I checked on some of the guys that were coming in and saw the rain tires were getting shagged pretty badly. I suggested to Scott to change back to DOT’s and helped get that done. Since the track was getting very dry by race 8 and Scott came in and said the DOT’s were a good call, I plugged in the tire warmers and gassed the TL. I suited up for race 12, Heavyweight Twins. There was Suzuki Money on the line so I wanted to see if I could get some. I started from the 3rd row outside again but got a much better start this time. I went into t1 in 2nd place. I stayed there for 2 laps then Scott Harwell, Bud Lawter and Russel Masecar all passed me one by one. I was now in fifth. I began to get tired and slowed a bit. Mark Hale passed me on in T1 the 6th lap and I passed him back on the front straight at the white flag and held on for fifth. It was starting to be real fun again. We closed the pits, said our good-byes, and made our separate ways home. All happy, all healthy, and all pretty satisfied with the results. oh yeah, just to give official props to Steve & Heather Breckenridge, thank you again for bringing the trailer.
Hey Wrenn, why in the hell did you post that on my thread. Can't you start your own topic. That would have been the proper thing to do.
Great reports guys. Like readin the first person points of views. Besides with Mongo slow on the draw in posting the results, its nice to see how a couple of the races went (even though I watched both of those races in person, its still nice to hear).
tracee, actually i thought it better to post by the 'topic' but if you don't wanna share spotlights...have mongo nuke mine & i'll post a new one
Wrenn thanks again for letting us use the trailer as a motel. I wished we had Tony heater for Fri night like we did for Sat. It was good to see ya, let me know if ya need something. It was good to see ya out on the track.
