WERA HISTORY QUESTION... calling all you WERA lifers...

OK, I'm new (or new enough). Two questions for all you WERA lifers....

What was the first year for Cycle Jam, and had it always been at VIR?

What was the first year for WERA GNF, and had it always been at Road Atlanta?

How many regions did WERA have when it first began? How many classes? Any of the existing classes we now run, how many are from the origional class structure (minus some minor rule changes)...?

 

Cycle jam used to be at IRP - in Indy

 

and Pocono

 

Joe Ball (resident local WERA lifer) told me about IRP. Some very scary stories about the transition from the drag strip to the turns or something like that.

 

and cones to denote where the track was when it cut across a parking lot.


and I think GNF has always been Road Atlanta.

 

Good questions. I'm a relative new guy too. But, I think the first year for WERA was 1974? Cycle Jam was at Pocono in the 80's at least, then moved to IRP, then to VIR in 2001, I believe. It would be cool to see a timeline on the web site going back to the beginning.

 

ERA ran 8 races in 1974 at Summit Pt, VIR, and Bridgehampton. Membership and race license cost $5 for prod&mod bikes, $10 for GP.

Beginning 1976 the name change to WERA. There were 3 classes, production, mod. prod. (cafe'), and GP. Entire rulesheet was typed on the front and back of ONE sheet of paper.

By 1977 the name had changed again, WERRA (western/eastern ROAD and RACING assoc). That year the Grand National Final was held at West Palm Beach International raceway. A 24 hr endurance race ran that same weekend.

I don't have this stuff committed to memory, I dug all these old papers/flyers out of my barn recently as I was getting back into roadracing. If I had a scanner I would post up some of this 'memory lane' stuff.

 

I think diet Dr Thunder has a promotional poster, or something similar, for a WERA race or region from a decade, or so, ago. That thing is bad-ass. Yo Dave, snap a picture and post away. :up:

 

I just visited IRP last week for a tuesday night test and tune. I drove the entire course in the truck and it's scary in some places. The front drag strip was and forever will be a scary transition. The parking lot has not been resurfaced at all. And for those of you who remember turns 1-5, it's bumpier than Nelson ever hoped to be. The only benefit is they repaved the end of the dragstrip to about 1/2 way into 1...

Stupid me I'd still like to run it though...

 

Here's a repost of a flyer from the 30 Hours of Rockingham.



IIRC, that was 1980.

 

And here are my GNF medals from `79. The GNF was held at North Carolina Motor Speedway, Rockinghamd NC. I ran my `77 GS750 Suzuki in 750 Superbike (2nd), Open Superbike (3rd) and Formula One (3rd).



Ahhhhhhhh. I love the smell of styrene...

 

Wow.


I was born in 1980...

 

Will do...later tonight.

 

It was called the Cycle Jam as far back as 88 & 89 at Pocono, I loved that track, safe? no but I loved it anyway.

http://lizardking.8k.com/photo4.html

http://lizardking.8k.com/catalog.html

http://lizardking.8k.com/custom2.html

Three current officals are in the photo in that last link.

And yes, Its Graver right up front...

 

man, this is old skool stuff.... keep bringing it!

 

I see Sharon and Rich who's the third?

 

Isn't Heidi in the photo.

Dan

 

The first GNF was a New Year's Eve event held in 1977. It was a four or five day event, it seems like we were there forever. There are stories....
We have an original poster framed in our office, I'll see if we can get a picture posted on Monday. Have a few other items as well, will look around when we get home late next week. Jason has made fun of the event shirt, which was a Terry pullover.

Connie DiSalvo (of all people).

 

Hey Connie!