ZDR Does Summit September 2010 With a Bang

ZDR Does Summit September 2010
The Season Ends With a Bang (Two, Actually)

ZDR rolled into Summit Point with beautiful weather beckoning. We were looking forward to a happy end of a largely successful season. In particular, we had been chasing our tails over our first foray into true vintage racing with a CB 350, which ran very well but the season was plagued with sorting out a myriad of small details that had seen the bike spend more time under wrenching than out on the track, and it now seemed fully sorted.

Saturday dawned cool, sunny and gorgeous. Morning practice was interrupted by an overfilled crankcase weeping oil all around the course, on the line natch. The resulting snake of speedy dry was probably a bigger problem (a bit exciting on the CB, which was running strong and handling sweetly), so they shut practice down and spent an hour cleaning the track. Bless WERA they managed to still run a full schedule.

My first race was V1 on the CB. I got off the line well and was rolling around having some fun. The bike was clearly running well – I was battling for second with Eric Mercer, who has significantly more experience on a CB and a fresh Superbike motor. Coming out of turn 1 on Eric’s tail I accidentally caught an extra downshift as I drove out and to my dismay watched the tack bury itself – generally not a great idea on a 40 year old motor. But it is a Honda, so it didn’t break, only bent. I lost power and the ability to rev out and began dropping down the order – bent valve. I decided to retire rather than do more damage. Well, at least we know it runs!

Next up was V6 Lightweight on the mighty Hawk with my arch nemesis Dr. Evil, er, I mean Scott McKee. Now, for the uninitiated Scott purports to ride an FZR 400, but has somehow managed to disguise an R1 motor in that thing. It. Is. Fast. The general drill goes like this. Being an experienced racer Scott only goes as fast as he needs to – which means he uses the loud handle to stay a safe distance ahead of me but doesn’t run away. If I should happen to catch him he tends to hear me (I am Hawk, hear me roar) and turn the handle a bit harder. So my general anticipation is he will always go a bit faster than I. Well, in this race he must have had his hearing aid turned down because I was sticking with him, and he wasn’t getting away. In our usual deal he would gap me on the straight and I would close back up by turn 3.

All was good fun until somewhere around mid race I came barreling into turn 10, one of my better parts of the track. I good speed through ten reduces the gap he puts on me into turn 1 so I was cruising. So in I come on my knee and flying – and there is Scott – parked in the corner. Yikes! To avoid a royal punting (just not done among mature gentlemen) I was forced to roll out of the throttle just a bit – with wholly predictable results. The front went away and I began the 100 mph slide towards the gravel trap. I was doing fine – until I hit the curb. I was told I got good air and began to do the Raggedy Andy. After about three rolls I managed to tuck the appendages in – which serves to increase roll speed – great fun kids! When I came to a stop my helmet was full of gravel – a regular Barney Rubble. I hopped up, helped the corner worker move the bike and headed back to the pits to reconstruct the might Hawk.

Sunday dawned equally beautiful. Other than a very sore neck I felt not too much the worse for wear and tear. We hit the track. I finished the Hawk and went out for practice, which identified a few additional adjustments to be made. As I was working on the bike I realized I was getting a little foggy and making simple and stupid mistakes. Ahh yes – when you tumble at high speeds the brain probably tumbles as well – and a nice little concussion results. Deciding I was probably not safe for my fellow competitors I decided to wrap it up for the year.

Many thanks to all of my peeps for a great season, looks like four regional championship. To all y’all – Robin as always, Q and Continental, Dr. Evil, Chris and Melissa for friendship and counseling; Eric, Stephen and his lovely wife and Tex for CB advice and Thai food, and Tom for knowing everything about bikes. And of course, the wonderful folks at WERA. See all of you in the spring.

 

Well next time you decide to take a double dose of Geritol in the morning and are feeling all racey be sure to let me know so I can dial a little more loud into the evil FZR. That way we can aviod this kind of thing. Hope it didn't take too long to get the compressed air in your noggin back to normal.

Dr. Evil

 

Sorry to hear about the premature end to your season! I was looking forward to another battle with ya on the GSXR450 but Uncle Sam said I had more important things to do at the last minute. Guess I'll have to wait until March! Maybe this winter I'll find a little something extra hp-wise and be able to keep sight of that other fast old guy too.