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July
10-11 USGPRU/CCS I had never raced at Buttonwillow up until this point. In fact, I had never done an entire track day on my 125 there. I crashed my 125 at this track in 2003, right at the end of June, which put me in the hospital for 6 days (and then 4 more later-but that is another story: If you look around this website, you just may find it) But this place was were I did my very first trackday, and it is a FUN, fast and technical track! |
Ahhh...a garage. |
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I drove my butt up there
Friday night and stayed in some lovely hovel for only 29.00 dollars a
night.
At least there was a Starbucks nearby, so I ain't complaining. I pitted
in
a garage with three other 2-stroke racers. It was 2 stroke
frivolity all weekend on that row of garages. Bikes popping and engines
being rebuilt the entire time, which means like of static breaking in:
WIIIIIIIIIIIING!!!!!!! I missed first practice session, had one, then had to qualify. I qualified pretty poorly: 17th out of 22. My best time was a 2:03 something. I think the best qualifying times were around 1:58, with the second group qualifying around 2:01s. There was some serious competition here, and you will see why in a minute. I then did the 250 qualifying round, and went a full second slower. I qualified 16th out of I practiced the rest of the day and didn't drop my times at all. THis track is very narrow and it is difficult to pass on most of the track. My tires were getting cooked and there were only Michelin tire vendors around. (I race on Bridgestones). I went out to dinner with 11 other hooligans, had a couple drinks and went to bed early. Sunday morning gave us one round of practice, then the races started. My CCS 125 GP race was 4th of the day, right after the Sidecars races. (Speaking of: I talked to some of those guys and am going to be a monkey for one of them at the CCS races in Las Vegas!! But I'm going to wear race boots instead of sneakers like they do. I can't imagine coming off at 90 MPH and losing a shoe on the pavement. Ouch.) There were 5 bikes in the CCS 125 GP races. We were gridded behind some SV650 race, expert and then novice in front of us. The blockers, we called them. I won the race without dropping my times at all. |
 Nothing
like A-kit parts
 I stole someone's pit crew. This is Al. |
My tires at this point were COOKED. No Pirelli/Bridestone and at this point no other tire vendors as they were all at Laguna or had packed up early and gone home. I had to buy a set of take offs from Josh Herrin who 1) weighs nothing 2) changes tires frequently, so they lasted me the rest of the day, sort of. Next race was the USGPRU 125 race. I was gridded on the 5th row and got a decent start. Turn 2 at Buttonwillow is a 90 degree right, and we were going four wide through that narrow turn. Someone ran off the inside of the track entering that turn then crossed the track diagonally in front of the pack of us! The entire race was mayhem, with bikes running off the track and crashing everywhere. There were some VERY fast guys in this race: the 125 lap record was broken, set at 1:54.333 by Brian Kracget, who broke down on the very last lap and never crossed the finish line. The extremely fast Nobi Iso from Portland placed 6th! I placed 12th and dropped my best time to a 2:00.53. I was really hoping to break the two minute mark, but I will save that for next time. The 250 race was next, but my bike was running so hot I had no power. It must have been down to 34 HP or less. The take offs were also done, so I pulled off the track on lap 9, rather than sticking a piston or losing the front/rear because of no tire grip. I discovered later there was a tiny pinhole leak in the cylinder head, that had gotten larger by that 250 race. The bike was running so hot that the piston was cooked and even the cylinder was scuffed up from it. I don't know how down on power I was for the 125 race, but by the time I pulled the bike off the track, I was down to about 30HP. The temp. gauge was not accurate, it only showed 70 C, (which is still high) but the water was not circulating and that made the temp not display correctly. |
Scotty-dog graced our pits with his borrowed 250.
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