WERA North Central Region: round three- Autobahn County Club-South

WERA North Central Region: round three- Autobahn County Club-South Course

05/14/2006

Circuit: Autobahn County Club-South Course
Location: Joliet, IL
Track length: 2.1 miles
Personal Fastest lap: (2005) 1:42.716
Personal Fastest at this event: 1:49.964
Last year's best finish: First
Photo link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/silopete/sets/72057594140599610/

Round three of the WERA North Central series had me out drive out to Joliet, IL to compete at Autobahn County Club. My wife Catherine accompanied me out west, since she’s originally from the Chicago area. We made our way out a day early, sharing the driving through lashing winds and heavy rains. We didn’t take any trucker speed, so we were spent by the time we arrived at the track around 1 A.M. local time.

I needed to empty the van so we could have our sleeping space, so Catherine huddled in the Econoline van while I attempted to set-up the pit area. Out came the generator, bike, tires, EZ-UP and 4 containers of assorted parts. The rain was bowing horizontal and cold, and I began to think that maybe, maybe Mother Nature just hated the North Central region. Between the previous weekend’s freezing temperatures, and now this, March –like weather was beginning to grind me down. But, after some help from Catherine, we got the van empty, the unfolded queen-sized futon and tucked ourselves away for some rest.

All night the wind rocked the van, and I wasn’t looking forward to getting up. But I had to work tech inspection for WERA Friday morning, so Catherine slept in while I earned my keep. At tech I got to send some bikes back to get some safety wire done, and just hung with the WERA staff. It was pretty cool, and cold for that matter. For the most part the staff huddled by the space heater.

By noon Catherine had emerged from ‘van-zilla’ and stated that she wanted to stay at a motel. Thinking it was more of a request, I’d said I’d prefer to save some money and sleep in the van. Catherine looked me square in the eye, smiled and just said ‘I’m not asking you, I’m telling I’m getting a hotel room. I’m paying for it. I want a hot shower and I want heat. If you want to stay here at this sausage fest, by all means feel free.’ Off to a hotel it was…
Friday night we went in to Chicago to visit my brother and deliver his golf clubs (why I had them is another story for another time…). We had some GREAT Mexican-nouveau food, and my brother actually paid for dinner. I was totally floored by his kindness. My mother wasn’t going to believe this when I told her, but Catherine was my witness to this event.

Back to the hotel, we slept like stones and arrived at the track Saturday morning. The weather on the radio kept speaking of ‘the coldest temperatures in 100 years...’ Yea, no kidding… thanks for update. It was just nasty out. Like November weather; damp, cold and grey.

I got some practice in on Saturday, just to get a look at the track. I hadn’t been on the course since the previous year, and at that time the track was dry. City Garage Racing of St. Louis, IL provided excellent trackside Bridgestone race tire service, and they installed my full rain tyres and offered some baseline pressures to run.

The track itself was just wet and cold and I just wanted to see how slick the surface was. And it was very slick up in the turn 1-2 area, and in the turns 9-10 and off the back straight in turns 11- 12. It seems that track management had ground down the bumps and re-sealed the surface. But the sealant was slicker than snot, and the cold track and ambient temperatures just made matters worse.

After the one session of practice, I worked the pits for the 4 hour National Challenge endurance race. I bundled up like it was November, while Catherine stayed in the van and knitted. Parts of my anatomy shrvilled-up by hour 2. Yet working the pits was very interesting, and despite the weather, quite fun. Listening to race control was also very entertaining. Especially when the start was red-flagged not even after the lead riders entered turn three.

By the end of my four hour stint in the pits, the weather had gotten colder and wetter. I’d had enough. We drove back to the hotel, where I think I took a 45-minute scalding shower. We headed out to the west suburbs of Chicago meet some family for some deep-dish Chicago style pizza. And we were not disappointed. In fact, we had plenty of leftovers. Lunch for Sunday was instantly provided.

Another great sleep and it was time to roll up to Autobahn for Sunday’s event. The weather was still on ‘full-suck’, so I kept the rain tires on the bike and tip-toed around the track for 2 practice sessions. It had stopped raining, and most of the track was dry. But there was huge rivers running across the track. Some racers went out on DOT race rubber, only to come back in and swap on a set of full rains. It seemed even the racers running on intermediates came back in for full rains as well.

What about lap times? At this point it was about survival. I was wayyyy off my fastest pace from 2005. And with the skies threatening to open up after lunch, it was a matter of trying to decide if I needed to swap out my rains for DOTs (I don’t have a spare set of wheels). When two riders in the A Super Stock race came in after one lap, both running DOTs and saying ’wrong tire choice’, I figured full rains was the tire of the day.

Race one was Clubman, and the skies were still grey and overcast. We had three entries on the expert class. My main goal was to stay in front and upright, but Dave Knapp (KTM 525 SMR) got out in front, and Dennis Ergo (Honda NT650) was close behind. My Cleveland-Akron KTM was pretty evenly matched with the other KTM, so we stayed pretty close through out the race. I made some ground up on lap three, but then my bike threw me up in the air in turns 9-10. At that point, I figured if anyone was going to make a mistake it was going to be Dave. And he didn’t make a mistake, and won by two seconds at the end of 8 laps. A posted lap of 1:49.694 on lap 6 was my fastest lap of the weekend.

D Superbike was a donnybrook. Four bikes lined up on the grid, and when the flag dropped Wade Parish (Honda NT650) grabbed the hole-shot in to very slick turn one. I was running second until Aaron Kidd (Yamaha FZR400) passed me in turns 12-13 on lap 3. From that point Aaron took the lead from Wade on lap 4 and checked out. Wade was running a fast pace on full rains, but I was able to catch up by lap 5. By the end of back straight, I had reeled Wade in.

On lap 6 I had closed the gap to Wade and was setting up to pass him before the checkered flag. As we came down the back straight I was all over Wade, and decided to make an outside pass in turn one. This was a very poor decision that was made because I was impatient to get by Wade. And this poor planning had me on my butt as I exited turn one.

Just as I passed Wade the bike low-sided and I finished the turn buy looking at my bike spinning away from me. I jumped up and ran to the bike, which had stalled and caked itself with mud. I cleared the dirt-funk off the throttle, got the bike started and took off in pursuit of Dennis Ergo (Honda NT650), whom was now in third.

After a lonely lap I pulled in to hot pit, got a re-tech and headed back out to finish my last lap. As I left I saw my wife Catherine and she was just looking at me, shaking her head in disbelief. Needless to state but the last lap was very lonely and I was just puttering around on my dirt encrusted bike with my dirt encrusted leathers. 4th place was the end result for my lack of thinking and impatience.

After a quick wash of the bike, and a ‘I don’t know what you were thinking…’ from the wife, I was off to the last race of the day- Motard. Mother nature played a sick joke at this point, as the wind died down and the sun came out from behind the grey skies that had plagued the whole weekend. There were still streams of water running across the track, and since I was the only entry I just collected my laps and stayed on track. The last race reminded me that when in doubt, play it safe.

After a long weekend of cold, wind and rain a nice van ride home with a hot meal on the way was very welcome. I had just had two race weekends of lousy weather and was looking forward to the month-long break in the schedule. The next event is at Grattan Raceway, on June 24-25. Catch you on the flip side.

North Central Standings (After 3 rounds of 9)
Clubman: Cline (51), Ergo (46), Fine (28), Knapp/Higinbotham (tie-20), Shirley (15)
D Superbike: Ergo (45), McKee (40), Cline (37), Chang (32), Kidd (29), Parish (27), Fine (21), Schickler (16), Kinsey (15), Kovach (8)
Motard: Cline (57), Shirley (20), Knapp (DNS)

 

good write up pete!



here is how my write up would have gone.

friday practice was an expensive day, 4th lap of the 2nd session i tossed it in the weeds/mud...... then called it a day. froze my balls off.

couldnt gather my manhood to practice saturday.

sunday i finished all 4 races without crashing. i hope we dont this shit again. the end.