WERA Sportsman, Round 7 Summit Point, WVA Aug 6, 2000 This weekend was a National race event(as opposed to Sportsman, which is what I run.) On Saturday was the Annual 4-Hour Endurance Race, which I have run the last two years. My partner Romeo went to the practice day on Friday, and was courted by another, so they ended up running it without me. Even though I had asked to run this race with Ro over 3 months ago. Needless to say, the feeling of rejection are running high, but I'll get over it eventually. Romeo wrecked in T5, and later went out completely on a mechanical. I don't know where he finished. ---===--- Sunday was a day of 18, 6-laps sprints. I was registered for my standard 3 races. Practice began on Slicks, and I squeezed in about 4 laps when the rain drops began. I started thinking about Miguel Duhamel breaking his hip at Loudon in these conditions, and pulled off after 1 more lap. Well that was it for the sunshine and dry track conditions. The next couple of hours were spent swapping to rain tires, and waiting out the lightning. When practice finally resumed, it was in the WORST rain I had EVER ridden in. Coming out of Turn 10, and coming down the straight, you could see a wall of water that you were about to hit at amazing speeds. At the rider's meeting, I brought a card for Ernie Miale who was seriously injured at Nelson 3 weeks ago. Many racers signed the card, and I collected ~$120 which I gave to Robert Rudnicki to hand deliver to Ernie and Rose, his wife. Due to the break in the action, and the PA being shut off, and a bunch of other weather related mishaps, I decided to head to the Chez Summit to heat up my Chef Boy-R-Dee Ravioli. Normally, I let the sun do the warming, but today I need the power of radiation. For about the next 45 minutes, I hung out at the Chez, ate, and chatted it up with anyone that walked through the door. Realizing that it was getting ready to race time, I sauntered back to my pits, and sat down to finish my nukewarm pasta chunks. As I sat down on a toolbox in the back of Quentin Mise and Jay's trailer, Quentin posed an interesting question to me. He said, "Isn't this your race?" "Naw..", I replied, "..it's the last practice." "No, dude. Practice is over!", he said with staunch certainty. As the roar of the D-Superbike left the pits, the commotion and random curses coming from our pits easily drowned it out. I strapped on my helmet and gloves, and roared off to assume my grid position without running a warm-up lap.(Luckily, I had kept my leathers and boots on the whole time.) As I waited on the grid, all by myself, I awaited the arrival of my nemesis Robert D. Nees. I was gridded in the middle of the front row, and since he is ahead of me in points, he would be gridded to my right. When the 2 minute board was shown, Robert was still not in position. At the one board, I realized that he would not be attend this wet soiree'. All alone on the front row, the green flag flew and I led uncontested into T1. With great caution, I eased around the track, and finally looked back after the 2nd lap. Coming out of T10, I saw a bright red bike behind me. I assumed it was Donnie Unger of Doc Pond Racing, and figured, he would be passing me in no time. Completing another lap, and taking the halfway, I had not yet seen any part of the red bike, until just before the entry of turn one. As I broke, the whine of an FZR400 zipped past me. It wasn't Donnie, it was Jason Parker, former WERA Nat'l Champion. Having previously made short work of him on many other weekends, I affix my sights for a wet, sloppy battle, but didn't realize how sloppy things were about to become. As we came into T3, I got a better entry and exit, and began to overtake Jason on the entry of T4. Unfortunately for me, there, on the inside, was parked an Orange T-shirt. Jason eased left to overtake him, I eased more left to overtake Jason. Well, that was the kiss of death, as the bike let go and slid off the edge of the track, and onto the wet, sloppy, slippery, nasty, disgusting, red clay mud dirt we have all come to know and love at Summit Point. Thanks to Steve Keener and Pete Friedman, I logged some time on a couple of dirt bikes early in the off-season months. Right about now, everything I had learned really hadn't been much use to me. Right about now, was the time I began employing EVERY concept that I had learned in those cold winter months. As I descended the hill, in the mud, my options began to vaporize. I had the tire wall to my left, the mud underfoot, and the race track cutting a hard left straight in front of me. I threw a quick glance over my left shoulder, and saw that no one was coming down the hill. Praying that my rear Penske shock was all that and the chips, I attempted to cross T5, to head for the infield, where I could pick up the track again at T8. Evidently this maneuver caused both wheels to leave the ground, as I jumped a good portion of the payment upon reentry. I have watch at least a dozen people head into the infield. Many have made it, other have found that perfect chuck-hole that sends them brains over bread basket. figuring that I had used all my luck to this point, I just stood in the pegs, and waited for the inevitable. As I slowed to a stop, it happened. *SPLASH!* My front tire dove into a 1" deep mud hole and splashed water everywhere. I hammered the throttle and drove the whole bike through it.(Good thing I drilled that drain hole in my lower fairing.) I looked right to signal the cornerworker, I looked left to see where first place was, I looked back to the cornerworker, who was already frantically waving me to get the hell out of his jurisdiction. So, I waited for Jason to come by and reassumed the chase. As you can imagine, Jason saw me in the mud of T4 and assumed that death was imminent. He had failed to see me perched to kill when he came through T8, so he thought he was home free for the checker. At a break-neck pace, I caught Jason coming into T3 one lap later. As he checked up for another lapper, I refused to learn my lesson, and passed them both on the outside. Coming into T5 there were 4 more lappers in line. I diced through them, leaving Jason stranded with mouth agape. In the midst of all this racing action, the flagger had missed giving me the white flag, so I ran an extra lap, at full pace, and took the checker one lap later than everyone else. As I traversed the cool down lap, there was no one behind me. When I pulled into post race tech, Jon Hovey and Brian Kcraget we're chatting it up. I pulled in behind them and asked, "Who won?" Brian looked at me like I was an idiot and said, "You did?!" I completed post race tech and tried to make heads or tails out of the event. Jason came over later, with his eyes bugging out of his head. As you can imagine, "Where'd you come from?" was the first thing out of his mouth. ---===--- Robert Nees' dad came over to say congratulations, and said that Robert's battery was malfunctioning. Upon winning this race, it put me into 1st place in the region by two points. Robert is also ahead of me by 4 points in Formula 2. On the hot pit prior to Formula 2, it was good to see Robert. Jason wasn't signed up for anymore races, and I wanted more bar bangin' competition. Unfortunately, I saw Robert get off and start pushing as I left for the warm-up lap.(I didn't miss it this time!) As I sat in my grid, I again waited for Robert to show. As the 2 minute board was displayed, I heard an FZR screaming and coming at me, as Rob slipped up next to me. He had to keep the bike revved to keep it running. As the green flag dropped we ran neck in neck. I normally brake at the 3rd brake marker, but we past that, on the gas. We passed the 2nd brake marker, on the gas. When we got to the 1.5 mark, I laid on the brakes and began downshifting. I had started using the back brake in the rain to help settle the bike, but not risk tucking the front end. Well, it began to backfire. The rear locked up, and began sliding out and too the left. Again, employing that off-road experience, I didn't panic, but I also didn't turn it turn 1 when Robert did. As a matter of fact, 3 other guys after Robert turned in before I did. So, exiting turn 1, I was now in 4th place. Robert was in the lead entering T3. I reminisced about a death slide that I had in T3 back in April. Well, I didn't have to reminisce no more. Robert's front end broke loose, and he slid about 6 feet across the track. He put his left foot out, in flat track racing style, and got off the gas. The 3 of us quickly made short work of him, and I never saw him again. Other than that, some National level racer was on his 125cc bike. I took chase, but he was too smooth for me. I began breaking the bike loose in all kinds of places that I didn't want to. I looked back and saw that there was no one behind me, so I backed off to take 2nd. ---===--- LW Twins was race 16 of the day. It was about 6:30pm, and just for giggles the sun poked out of the clouds. Tired & wet, I didn't know if this was a blessing or an insult from God. I took it as the former, and went out and lead Green to Checker. Well, that's not entirely true. During the race, I got a pit signal telling me I was waaaaayyyy ahead(Thanks Jennilynne!). I backed off, and looked back to see yellow on a bike. My LW Twins nemesis, Daniel Josephs, has lots of yellow on his bike, so I thought he was catching me. I put my head down and turned a few more hard laps. Getting the all clear again, I backed off. With a lap to go, I checked my six, and there was Novice with his yellow plate some ways behind me. I started thinking about what would be the coolest thing to be able to say as a Novice racer?? The answer, to be able to say that you beat the entire field of Experts. Exiting T2, I looked back, and began waving to the Novice to come around. I slowed, but stayed steady. The novice got excited, and he said later that he almost washed it out in T8, but he finally caught me out of T10. I was hoping to have a drag race to the finish with him, but I had checked up too much. The novice took the checker and celebrated. Needless to say, Jennilynne gave me the WTF? as I crossed the line. Another great weekend of racing. Thanks go to all the following folks: FastLaneCycle.com RamMC.net JB & Bridgestone MW Services Sisson Landscaping WCS Landscaping Jennilynne Guthridge Quentin Mise, Jay, and Kelly WERA Officials And the biggest thanks goes the sopping wet MARRC Cornerworkers, who, even though they were understaffed, still managed to keep the day going smoothly. ---===--- Donate $5 to the TSR Injury Fund, *FREE*, just by registering with PayPal using the following link: https://secure.paypal.com/refer/[email protected] Thanks, ===== Steve Clark Tight Squeeze Racing '99 Suz SV 650 - WERA #16, CCS #239, MARRC #2352 Sponsors: http://www.FastLaneCycles.com http://www.RamMC.net <--Bodywork Click below to donate to the TSR Injured Rider's Fund https://secure.paypal.com/refer/[email protected]
Being THE Rain Director, I lived up to my title this weekend. Steve did a good job of describing the conditions his D Super race was run in. As it was, I had taken Sean to look at the track conditions. I had received the usual reports from Control reporting water in the usual locations. This time, standing water was almost half way across the track entering T6 with a 3 foot long stretch of running water just before the turn. The Esses had it's usual running water. Both spots required the rider to turn in a bit later in order to keep the bike upright. Even Sean said "If this keeps up....". I recalled a race in October 1990 that had the track shut down for Saturday morning practice due to 6 inches of rain that fell early Saturday AM. There was a drain to rider's left before the Carousel that was clogged, causing the low spots in the Carousel area (T6 & T7)to be under more than a foot of water. Just prior to Steve's race, I was trying to locate that drain. I was knee deep in water at the end of the tire wall. Ballast stone was now covering any drain that may still exist. Failing to uncover the drain, I stood on the embankment to watch how things went. I find it amazing that a number of riders decided they would take the race line through the standing water on the warm-up lap. I was signalling them to keep right past T5 to avoid the water. I wonder if they would have changed their line if there were nails on the tack. Doc (head of the corner workers that weekend) and I watched Steve dice for 1st place. We were alerted to Steve's running off track by the T5 flag station waving a yellow flag. Steve appeared to be dead even in the turn, except that he was in the mud while Jason Parker was where Steve wanted to be. Steve, you did catch some decent air after hitting the mud hole. I was cringing while the words "This is gonna hurt" formed in my mind. Amazingly, you saved it. There was a group of 30 or so supporters of Chris Pyles in the stands behind me. They gave you scores of 9.7 or better for technical merit, with a perfect round of 10's from all the judges for your artistic interpretation. I don't know if you were smiling or growling at me when you waved during the "splash-down" lap. THE Rain Director
