“What are you doing weekend after next?” Brian opened the out-of-the-blue phone call with. He set the hook and proceeded to reel me in with “Wanna race the bike that won Daytona?”

Sitting in my office, fat (this proves to be integral to the story), dumb and happy, I was cyber-wrestling an annoying piece of paperwork when Catterson rang. It seemed that he was heading to Road America to race in the Moto-ST endurance series but was sans a partner due to said partner's crash the previous weekend. After calling up the names of fast guys that were close to his weight, my name floated to the surface. In road racing, most riders are small and slender. If they are runway models, Brian would be plus-sized. I'd outweigh the security guard.

And that was that. Of course I wanted to race Road America , in a televised Pro race, for a magazine, on a competitive bike, with the championship leading team. What's that you say, only two hour practices where we have to share the bike? That will make learning the four mile long, 14 turn track more exhilarating — where's my Playstation? It turns out I didn't have Road America on any of my racing games. I studied a track map in earnest and discovered that, yep, it does have 14 turns and runs clockwise. My advance track learning completed, I booked by flight.

Due to the pinch-hitting nature of my involvement, my last minute plane ticket had me marooned in Denver for hours on a layover. I arrived in Milwaukee tired and anxious, got stuck with a Pontiac Vibe (an annoying crossover mom-car, it's like a diaper bag on wheels, but at least mine wasn't maroon like Brian's) instead of the G6 I reserved, and drove the hour and a half to my hotel room. En route, I passed the Harley-Davidson factory. “It's odd,” I told my wife later, “I didn't feel a thing.”

I arrived early and got the usual paperwork out of the way, then located the team. Brian introduced me to the crew and Team Manager/Co-owner David Lloyd. After pleasantries, I go over to inspect the bike. “There's been a change of plans,“ Brian says, walking up beside me. “The Aprilia USA lead team had a transmission problem that resulted in a tip-over. As a result, they'll be riding the bike we were going to be using, and we'll be on the backup-backup bike. It's bone stock.”

This was understandable. We were there to do a story, they were leading the championship. We were attempting to not be too big a distraction, nothing more. We surveyed the bike to see what would need the most attention. The team had transferred a tank with the proper dry-break setup, and moved bodywork over. Robert Pandya, ace PR dude turned crew chief was cleaning the newly assembled bike in the endless cycle of refreshment all professional racebikes endure. I chatted with the crew mentioned that we'd need some heavy duty springs, but they thought that a 105 in the rear and the stock spring rate in the front would suffice. I explained that when I raced a very similar bike, I used a 115 rear. The team didn't have one, wasn't convinced we needed one, so we decided to make do.

When practice rolled around, Brian took the bike out for the initial session. In the two hours of practice we were going to share, we had a laundrey list of things to accomplish. Brian would need to re-familiarize himself with a track that put him in the hospital with a broken pelvis the last time he raced it, some 10 years ago. I was starting from scratch. We had to practice rider hand-offs, find a geometry setting, a suspension setting, confirm fuel mileage, make sure the two-way radios installed in our helmets worked, and try to get comfortable with the whole package when finished.

Brian came in after his first stint and related that the Tuono was dog-slow, and the suspension settings weren't even close. We surmise that the 118 hp limit really puts a damper on the ole' fossil fuel motivation, and shrug it off. It was roughly a half hour into the session when I headed out onto the track, fuel light already blinking. I figured I'd give it a couple of laps, then come in and get fuel.

At four miles, Road America is the longest track I've ever raced on. Most tracks hover near the two mile mark, a rare track is three. I told myself this was irrelevant, it's the corners that matter, and I've raced tracks with 23 corners, so 14 should be a breeze, right? Except those tracks I had time to learn, and this is midway into a Pro practice, with guys going for broke and fully up to speed. Using that idiot savant logic only racers understand, I developed my strategy: I'd latch onto bikes with white number plates, as they would have performance characteristics near mine, and use them to learn which way the track goes and get initial brake markers while running at race speeds. The blue plates belong to the slower GST class, yellow plates the slower still ST class. I couldn't follow them, as my top speed would be higher and they'd be able to brake later — a bad combination when playing race leech. I came in after two scary laps, and ask the crew if I need fuel. They tell me no, I've got fuel for more laps than I'll be running this session. I headed back out and ran out of fuel the following lap.

It was 85 degrees, humid, and I decided pushing the bike back to the pits was a lost cause, so I waited for the crash truck to cart me back to pitlane. After losing all of that hour and part of the next waiting for the truck and slow ride back, the bike was refueled and Brian headed back out. I'd completed two and a half laps and due to our little debacle, would now have 20 minutes to learn the track before I raced in anger. Apologetically, the team informed me that in the rush to get a third bike ready, someone forgot to top the tank off.

After Brian finished his stint and the bike was fueled up, I headed back out. I put my head down and concentrated with everything I possessed to make sure I didn't forget where I was on the track. Not knowing where you are on the track is infinitely superior to thinking you know where you are, and finding out that the price is wrong, Bob. I played a crazy game of chicken with myself; each corner I pushed my braking marker further and cast about for some reference point I could use for turn in. As I sped up, experimenting with gear and line selection, I began to notice how poorly the bike was handling. The forks were bottoming under braking, and the front end was pushing mid corner. Once I got on the gas, the rear end would squat like a dog that's been drinking salt water and the Tuono would run wide.

In spite of the awful setup, after a couple laps, I was amazed to find I was faster than the bikes in the other classes, and continued trying to get a tow off of any of the SST class bikes that made it past. I actually ran around a couple of them and just began to relax ever so slightly when the checkered flag dropped. Cruising back to the pits, I noticed for the first time how slowly the bike was accelerating. When I last raced an Aprilia, it pulled like a fat kid chasing an ice cream truck. This bike is much less enthusiastic when the spurs were applied. According to the team, it should only have been down about 15 horsepower (right at the top) to that old bike, but it felt like much more. In the final tally, I got eight laps in during my second stint. The ten total laps I had under my belt would have to do, as the next time I rode the bike I'd be racing it.

Brian and I compared setup notes on the bike once we'd recuperated. We both were complaining of the exact same things, and the team agreed we'd need a stiffer spring for the shock, and we resigned ourselves to maxxing the preload on the forks and dialing in all the compression. We also decided that in the hours we had in the morning, we'd drop the front end of the bike 10mm. We headed for dinner and with a fair amount of uncertainty.

Next morning, contrary to what we had decided, Brian got up early and went out for the three laps afforded us in the morning warm-up for CCS. We had decided that the three laps wouldn't be worth getting up early for, but Brian was suffering from a bout of insomnia, and decided to see what the 10mm change at the front and the stiffer spring on the rear had done to the bike. The team had the scrounged shock spring swapped and geometry change done quickly, and by the time I rolled up Brian was already out of his leathers. The report was that the bike was holding a line much better, but the forks were still really holding us back.

The rest of the morning consisted of cleaning the bike, arranging team photos for the magazine, bench racing, and nervous anticipation. The team also made one last change to the tank due to the game of musical Tuonos resulting from the earlier crash. Along the way, I found out that somewhere in my numerous practice laps, I'd run a lap only 7 seconds off the leaders race pace. I was stoked, and quite confident that with another day of practice and a proper setup, we could be right there aiming for an all Aprilia podium because we knew Brian was ripping off consistent fast laps and I barely knew which way the track went. We both started wishing for a nice set of fork internals and another practice.

Unfortunately, we were also aware that the only thing likely to help us was a fairy godmother, and while I'm ugly enough to be a wicked step-sister, neither of us have ever been asked to try on a glass slipper. Some help did arrive though. Because our lap-times weren't embarrassing the team quite as much as they were expecting, the team goes out of their way to hustle the forks off to a suspension guru for a revalve and stiffer springs.

As part of the final preparation, the team went over pit-stop strategy with us. The other two bikes had quick-change wheel setups front and rear. We only had the rear portion, and would have to ride the slightly harder front tire accordingly. As the other bikes are the priority, they will pit first, stretching our fuel window to the edge. There just aren't enough crew in the pits to handle all three bikes coming in at the same time.

All the equipment was moved to the pit lane, and we headed to get suited up. Brian was going to run the first stint, and would be dealing with a pace car start for the first time in his racing career. This style of start is unique to Moto-ST, and would require some adjustment. Because we'd never raced in the series before, we were gridded in the last row of the SST field. It's a three hour race, so nailing the start isn't crucial; you can lose the race at the start with a penalty, but you can't win it.

When the green flag waves as the field roars past, it's clear Brian has been very prudent and was taking it easy, very easy. I wasn't worried, as we'd already had that chat, but then David mentioned that Brian was communicating over the radio that the bike was very slow, and running poorly. We all deluded each other by guessing it was just a venting issue from a full-to-the-brim tank. “He'll burp it and be fine.” We all said simultaneously.

Brian was not fine, however, he was going backwards. The next lap he was still last, much farther back, and was now getting drafted down the front straight by SV 650s. He stayed out for a few laps, and came in. We wheeled the bike behind the wall and begin to look at the fuel delivery system. With all the tank swapping that'd gone on in the pits, we surmised it wasn't getting proper fuel. One of the fuel lines appeared kinked. After straightening it, I headed out. We were down a couple laps, but it was early days in the race, and after three hours, you never can tell.

That sentiment lasted until the end of pit row. The bike felt like it was wounded — missing, wheezing, revving slowly and crawling down the tarmac like someone had put a bullet in the thing when none of us were looking. I lasted one lap and brought it in. The team surmised that we might have a fuel pump problem as a result of the tank swap, so I headed back to the pits to grab another tank and fuel pump. This task was accomplished while bravely attempting (mostly unsuccessfully) to avoid the eye-burn caused by the torrents of sweat running down my face due to the stress, exertion, heat, humidity, and most of all from running the 440 yard dash in my full Kushitani race leathers.

I will spare you the play-by-play of our tribulations as we battled to find and fix the problem. Eventually, we found a problem with the fuel pump, and decided to simply swap to a stock tank. About halfway into the race, the other tank had been secured on the bike, and I went out to see if that fixed our problem. The bike was a revelation! Not only fixed, but substantially faster that it had been all weekend. Now that it was fast, I could tell all our setup guessing had paid off; the bike steered accurately, was stable under braking, and held a line on corner exits. Inside my helmet I was already formulating our new plan. It would make a good story: we would come back from heart-breaking failure to run lap times that would have put us on the podium, we would get good photos, and we would take the checkered flag.

Then, before my out lap was even complete, the team called with more bad news. It seems we needed to swap the tanks back as the rules stipulate you may not run a stock fuel cap, which the replacement tank had. The other two bikes were running on the lead lap, and no one wanted to possibly incur a penalty that would affect the other teams. Unfortunately, that wouldn't be an easy fix, as the tanks were different, and we'd have to rebuild one fuel pump with part of the working fuel pump from the other tank, then bolt everything back together. It would take most of the race, but we'd get to ride the last half hour and take the checkered flag. This final plan was thwarted by race officials. It seems that while we were crawling around the track on an earlier lap, someone had complained we were dangerously slow. This little kick-in-the-nuts was something every racer dreads to hear, but we heard it just the same. Again, rather than argue and possibly affect the other bikes, both with legitimate podium potential at this stage of the race, the team withdrew our bike.

In the final tally, our race consisted of seven or eight excrutiatingly slow laps and two sweat-soaked hours of feverish diagnostic wrenching. Not quite what either of us had flown to Wisconsin for, but like all whimsical events at the track—that's racing! On a brighter note, the other two Lloyd Brothers Aprilias finished first and second. While the team had been leading the points coming into the weekend, they hadn't won a race, so that result was beyond expectation. Not surprisingly, most of the people in our pits were in great spirits. We thanked everyone and attempted to leave without bringing the team down. Graciously, the team invited us back at a yet-to-be determined date next year, but it was probably the euphoria talking. Will there be a round two? I dunno, but if Brian calls me up again, I'm there. Have love handles, will travel.

My svelte backside

LEECH!

The bike we were supposed to race; it won

Pandya and the bike we would actually ride

My view of the race

Desperate wrenching

Our Nemesis

Brian

Pandya workin

Second place team

Winners