just finished riding at suzuka. what a RUSH!! heading down the start/finish straight your clicking up to about a buck 70. when you get to the 250 break marker you sit up and get hard the the brakes setting up for turn 1. you go thru turn 1 at about 70 grabbing a gear right after the apex. grab as much throttle as you can and feel the front end get light. hold on as tight as you can because turn 2 is coming quick. as you enter turn 2, your easy on the throttle as to not upset the chasis. the turn begins to open up as you shoot passed the apex. you straighten up and wack the throttle wide open heading toward the tight left hander known as turn 3. you down shift twice and again get hard on the brakes. turn 3 sets up the start of the "S"s. after you sling the bike thru the "S"s you drag your left knee thru the big sweeping left hander. shoot hard up the hill grabbing 4th then 5th gear. grab all the front brake you can and down shift three times setting up for the hard right hander known as "degner" corner. get on the throttle hard as you leave "degner" corner and as the front end rises grab 3rd gear then 4th gear. hit the rev limiter in fourth just before down shifting 3 times and squeezing the brakes and sitting up in the wind to slow the bike down to got thru the tight left hand "hairpin". start grabbing gears as quickly as possible to start heading up the hill for the big sweeping left hander. as your left knee touches the ground it seems like it stays there, dragging forever, going around the corner. as you leave the corner you start grabbing gears and holding on for dear life as you rush down the hill with your chest glued to the tank, just like atlanta used to be, then you sling shot up the hill towards the left hander that will connect you to the "kink". you go thru the left hander and realize the kink will be a hard right and left that is off camber. you dice your way thru the kink then slide the back in as you head back down the finish straight. geeeeez i'm sweating just writing about it. i will probably have to agree with the wife though. if i can remember this much of the track i'm playing way to much playstation. man, when does racing season start? [This message has been edited by brian (edited 01-03-2001).]
I know the feeling. I just wished we ran at Laguna Seca. As much time as I've spent on that track in GT2, I would feel right at home. I wished a programmer would give us a game that had all of the southeastern tracks on it!!
I crashed a Moriwaki Kawasaki 1000 in that third-gear left-hander at the end of the back straight, running 15th in the Suzuka 8-hour round of the 1980 Endurance World Championship, highsided. At the time the game had no reset button...and later my Japanese teammate went end-over-end when the front tire (sidewall had been damaged when the bike went into the Armco after my crash) blew out in top gear 3/4-way down the back straight. He broke both wrists and both ankles, and when they rolled him back into the pits he apologized to me for crashing the bike! My partner was originally Gina Bovaird but she wrecked the bike and broke her hand in practice. We missed two days of practice, I qualified us 35th out of 60, ran 15th, crashed after tangling with lappers. But got the endurance bug, came home, got hooked up with Bruce Hammer, founded Team Hammer, ordered a Moriwaki F1 bike, got a Suzuki GS1100 engine, and entered the fray in 1981. JU
You gotta love the Japanes culture! Actually, canadians aren't bad either: a friend of mine this summer apologized profusely for not doing work I was too lazy to do myself and that she had offered to help with. She had been busy breaking up with her husband the night before (they're are currently divorcing) and felt horrible about letting me down. Needless to say I was quite embarrassed! Maybe it was just a ploy: I ended up doing a whole lot of work for her during the last 6 months of the years...
JU When you came back and started Team Hammer your team wore the red/white/blue Team Hammer Arai's, and I'm wondering why your team dosen't wear them anylonger? Is it b/c your going as Team Valvoline now? It would be nice to see them again, as sort of a link to your WERA days...or maybe now that CU will be doing the Endurance Nationals he can wear it. I got a fix if it's b/c your Team Valvoline now...just stick a Valvoline sticker on the top! Takes me back to when I used to go to the races and see M4, Tray, Josh, and Grant. Anyway just an idea.
And now you know the rest of the story. I'm Paul Harvey...Good Day. [This message has been edited by TSR (edited 01-03-2001).]
Actually when we started Team Hammer we wore Bell Helmets. They dumped us (they called it declining to renew) after the disastrous 1982 season that saw Bruce get hurt, I guess they figured we weren't going anywhere after that. CU actually has been wearing a variation of the Hammerhead design that Bruce first came up with. The Arai guys made a logo helmet for awhile but it apparently was not wild enough to sell well and they discontinued it. Interesting side note/quiz: At one point when the team was in the process of switching from WERA to AMA, a well-known racing director for a well-known helmet company said that the team was "pathetic" because Batey/Lopez/Smith did not win the team's first AMA Formula Xtreme race. Who was he? And where is he now? JU
I've got one of the Arais' sitting on my bookshelf for posterities sake. Of course if I could just convince the boss to let me buy one of the old Endurance machines I'd be all set
There's one with your name on it at Keith's, complete with #1. You can justify it as the start of the WERA museum. JU
You talk to the boss about it, she's about ready to kill me if I ask again I've also kept track of the one that went to the Harmans (if I recall that's the one that Kurt and Michael last rode). It's now a street bike...
Hey JU, you know Paul Bray who used to race with Team Hammer and I think went to the Phillipines or Macau to race in the late 80's? Was he fast or what? He's a friend of mine.
ROTFLMAO - JU might have met him once or twice Next time you see him tell him Evelyne (the boss) says hi. As for him being fast - yup, that he was.
Yeah, Paul was fast. He and Mike Smith were about equal speed. The only catch was that they used to crash the endurance bike trying to be faster than each other. In 1989 they crashed the endurance bike something like 11 times, including 8 times out of first place. Damn I love kids! JU
Too bad he got hurt. Me, Paul and his dad rode to Canada last Labor Day and stopped by Springfield for the mile races. Paul rode his HD with a sidecar. Whether he knows it or not he's helped me a lot. What an inspiration!
So will your team return to the hammerhead design for '01? I've seen CU's helmet w/ the graphic in his article, but mostly he wears the hideous (IMHO-everyone has to have one...love the articles though!) other helmet design. So do the Arai guys or you have any left over in a M RX7RR??? Should I call Sammy Tanner? As for the quiz, I give up who?
