I haven't been to TGPR since '07, but actually took my rider school with Ed Bargy here back in '94, so was pretty excited to return to the "scene of the crime" so to speak. I used to know every square inch of the pavement here, but having been only once since the configuration change, I knew I would have a little "reacquainting" to do. We arrived well rested and early enough not to have any stress or scrambling around. 1st practice went well, but it was pretty chilly, so I didn't push any brake markers or really put any effort in to get fast times....just rode around for all of the laps and tried some different lines. Towards the end of the session, a guy on a cb350 with "JB" on his leathers came out of the pits in front of me and was going really quick, so I picked it up a little and chased him and then kept the intensity up for a couple laps after I passed him until I made a small bobble and ran off slightly exiting the bowl. Gearing was a smidge tall, but I was pretty confident that it would "come in" as my corner speed increased. 2nd practice started with a fumble when the bike stalled right when they waved us onto the track. Forgot to turn the gas on....DOH! Once I got it re-fired, I put my head down and tried to put in some fast laps. Bike was working great and the gearing was spot on. I still wasn't hitting the line I wanted through T1, but could see that I would have no problem hitting it with a little help from adrenalin that would come from the race, so pulled in early to save wear and tear on the equipment. Grids were pretty sparse, except for the cb350 posee, which had pretty good turn out. Only 3 bikes in f500 and 2 in V3, so I was racing for "gauranteed" podiums in both races. (This is something I hate!!! Get off your butts and SHOW UP for a race!!!!!!!!!!!! This sport cannot survive without active participants!) National Anthem went well enough, but there was an annoying feedback from the PA, so I asked him to kill it and just played it "au natural". F-500 was Dick Gruhn, Charles Gault and myself, all on rd400's. I got a killer holeshot and took off flying, though I expected that Dick would be by shortly to show off his greater familiarity with the track. Sure enough, he didn't disappoint and passed me exiting the "90's". (ha-ha...it will always be "the 90's" to me, even though there is no longer any hint of a 90 degree angle in any part of that turn anymore) I put my head down to see what the challenge was going to be like. Very quickly, it became apparent that I had a small edge in off corner jump, and was carrying a smidge more corner speed everywhere except the 90's, but he had a BIG advantage once his motor got spooled up. Several times, I had a killer drive and closed right up onto his back wheel, only to watch him squirt away down the next straight with superior speed. I was concerned, but not worried, because I felt that if I picked the right spot, (going into final turn was going to be it) I would have no problem holding him off on the short run to the stripe. for the next couple laps, I kept the pressure on and showed him a wheel a few times every lap, but made no attempt to pass because I feared that he would easily have no problem matching my corner speed if he was following me and then HE would be the one with the advantage on the last lap! It all became academic around lap 6 or 7 when he suddenly slowed with an obvious problem. (I was outside of him when this happened and he did a great job of holding his line until I came by, instead of blindly "getting off the line" which would have had disastrous consequences!) I backed off and started short shifting to save the equipment until I started hearing the familiar noise of a diesel (Wayne Moore) behind me. I knew it wasn't in my class, but C'mon now! Can't give the overall away for nothing, so I put my head down and picked the pace back up for the last 2 laps. On the last lap, I spied Charles G coming up and backed off a bit, hoping to let him get all 10 laps in, but coming out of the 90's I heard Wayne getting close again, so went ahead and lapped him going into the final turn. The bike ran really great but at race speeds, the gearing was actually off a 1/2 tooth, but there was no way I was going to go through the bother of switching a front AND rear sprocket in between races just to get "perfect" gearing...especially when there were only 2 of us entered in the race, so I spent the time between races spectating and hanging out with the McEwen clan, who had come down. In V3, Dick was fortunate enough to have the use of one of the nicest rd400's in the country at his disposal as a spare, so we gridded up next to each other again for another battle. I got another great start and was up with the V5 leaders going into t1. Wayne Shelton was out front and I immediately became embroiled in a great battle with a guy on an ex250. I was too busy racing my butt off to catch the #, but he was very good and utilized the advantages of the ex's superior chassis to overcome the disadvantage he had in motor very well. We traded places several times per lap for the entire race, with neither gaining a lasting advantage, while slowly catching up to Wayne Shelton, who was alone out front. I think it was lap 6 when we finally caught him and I went up the inside of Wayne going into the 90's and the ex went up the inside of me a split second later. While this was all going on, a little voice in my head was saying: "you realize that you're showing Dick ALL of your lines and that he's probably sitting on your wheel right now, waiting for a last lap pounce" but I ignored that voice. I wanted to beat this guy on the baby Ninja!!! After he passed me, he enjoyed the biggest lead he had all race (probably 8 bike lengths, but starting lap 7, I was surprised to see that I was carrying more speed than him through t1, which translated into an easy pass on the "back" straight. He passed me back in the 90's and then suddenly lifted his hand and pulled off line in the skidpad turn. Post race go pro viewing shows his bike give a small jump right before, so I suspect something drive train related as there was no smoke or loss of speed. I had completely forgotten about Dick at this point and was mentally high fiving myself for the win when he passed me on the penultimate lap. "No problem" I though, as I had enjoyed a significant cornerspeed advantage over him in the previous race. Imagine my concern when I found that not only was I unable to close the gap, but that he started pulling away! I'm not sure how much of it was him picking up the pace and how much was me being tired from battling so hard with the 250, but i just had nothing for him and he opened up a good 1.5 sec gap on the last lap, taking the win. All in all, it was a GREAT day of racing!!!! As much as I love winning, I would GLADLY trade my second race for the 1st one ANY time!! Congratulations to Mr Gruhn for a hard fought, well deserved win and kudos to the unknown 250 rider for the very clean, close racing! Sorry for your mechanical woes, I was looking forward to taking that one all the way to the finish!! I'll do my best to get the go pro footage posted to youtube and will post a link here when I do, but it will probably be a few days.... HUGE thanks to: Moto Carrera, Vintage Specialties, THR and my WONDERFUL fiance Eileen for all of the support. I couldn't do it without you!
For being rusty, you were lookin pretty smooth out there Mark! Great report, love the Bugle man! Good seein ya.
Videos up!! F-500: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-WkqwFmMAc V3/V5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60RrYyfxLkc Thanks Charlie...Good to see you too!
That looked like a blast Mark...sorry I missed this round. You probably don't remember me but you helped me out years ago when I was an RD racer by answering questions etc via the different 2 stroke forums, so I just wanted to pass a big Thanks! off to ya. Hopefully one day I'll get my RD sorted and be back out again.
Fuel line that is latched onto the throttle bottle popped off! I have no idea how it could have happened. That was a fun race!
Peter- Sorry about the bad luck and also sorry for forgetting your name. I definitely remember racing you at RRR last year!! It's always a pleasure to race with someone who races close and clean. Bummer the video doesn't catch all of the times you pulled up right beside me on the outside of the skidpad. (every single lap!) It def would have shown if I had been running the camera on my helmet.
