Saturday July 29th, 2000
This was the third racing weekend for me this year with the ratbike. Basically, this was a replay of the last racing weekend in many respects (click here to see last week's report).....Load the bike & everything from my garage into my Astro van on Friday (Note to self: Buy a bigger van), pick the boy up at 5:00 am Saturday in Dover, drive towards Loudon, stop for food at first open breakfast place, arrive at NHIS about 6:30am, stand in line for 30 minutes and register for two of Saturday's races. I was actually the first person in line this time. Other than the fact that this late registration puts me near the end of the grids (because NHIS grids racers by order of entry), this system seems to work well for me these days. I wound up doing just about nothing to the bike after last weekend. It worked well, I didn't mess with it.
The weather forecast was identical to last saturday's: 30% chance of rain. We had some sprinkles through the day, but none when it mattered to me. I have spare wheels, but haven't splurged yet to equip them with rain-tires, so I was reasonably happy with the way the weather went, despite the humidity. The short-sleeved cool-shirt from Helimot seems to keep me more comfier on these humid days than Chris who doesn't have one.
I sat out the first practice, but turned another 1:26 during the second practice, so it wasn't a fluke last week. I was pretty psyched.
Race #3, GTL
Amazingly enough, despite my late registration, I was NOT in the last row on grid; rather, there were three people to my right, and two more people in the row behind me. There were 20 entries, but at least one person didn't show for the start (my garage-mate Mike, who was nursing his wounds from a crash on Friday, and wishing his bike and leathers were in one piece still), meaning there were about 11 more people ahead of me on the grid. My start was pretty good, and I passed a bunch of folks headed for Turn 1. I tried especially hard to get the message to my right hand that it should *not* let up way early to avoid playing near the other children. This strategy kept me closer to the front than I have been accustomed to running: I think I was about 6th through 1A. About lap 6, Dana Temple (also on an EX500) came by me with some authority on the brakes into 1. Now, I *know* he's faster than I am by a three seconds, so I didn't fight with him over it, and simply shadowed him for about 6 laps, during which I turned a 1:25.978. A personal best, but of course I didn't know that until much later when lap-times were posted. (If all goes well, I'll have a drack lap-timer installed for the next race weekend.) I was really psyched that I was keeping up with him, and actually considered attempting a pass in a few places, but just didn't have the juice for it. A couple times he missed a shift or missed the race line and about 3 seconds too late I thought to myself "If I had been a little closer just then, and reacted a little quicker, I could have capitalized on that." About lap 12, I looked at the temp gage, and realized the needle was hovering just below the red over-heat zone. I backed off a little, but stayed out there since the needle didn't seem to be moving, and ran consistent low 1:27's for the last 6 laps. Ken Lawas on a Hawk 647 came past me on the next-to last lap, and I decided that I had to settle for that, as I couldn't get close enough to realistically consider a pass. I finished 9 of 20 for 4 more poin
ts. Dana and I were two of three juniors racing EXs, with only one expert on an EX. The rest of the grid was SV650s, Ducati 750s, and a handful of 125 and 250 GP bikes.
Race #9A, LW Sportsman
This week our race was split off completely from the LW Supersport race that was ahead of us last week, which meant that I was only 7 seconds off the fastest expert's time in my race....instead of the 11 second gap between myself and the fastest experts in the supersport race. It doesn't sound like much, but it really made for a much nicer race-environment for me.
I got a great start, and was fourth into T2...as I sit here now, I don't even know what happened to him, but person #3 stopped being #3 about Lap 2...I don't think I passed him, but maybe I did. Maybe he crashed. I don't know. However it happened, I was actually running 3rd for a couple laps. It was pretty cool. About lap 4, Kevin (#713) came under me into T6 with a low line....I had some corner speed on him, but he used the full width of the track around T6-7-8-9, crossing my racing line at each junction and I just didn't dare try to pass him. The lap sheets show that my fastest lap was faster than him, and I should have been able to go a full two seconds faster than him, but I just couldn't get the pass done. I really need to work on that passing technique. Then my motor paused briefly when I opened the throttle out of T3....Then it was fine for a while, then it repeated this. I started trying to determine if I could be out of gas. I didn't think so, but it seemed to be fuel starved occasionally. I figured short-shift a bit, and ride until it died. On lap 6, again coming into T6, one junior passed me inside, while another came alongside me on the outside, and stayed there through the turn. Yikes! Oh yeah, this *is* racing after all! Anyway, they eventually got past Kevin as well, and I took 6th of 14 for another 7 points. Coming around T2 on the cool-down lap, the bike died and I rode it into T3, then pushed it back to the garage. The tank was NOT empty, so I need to hunt for a kinked fuel line or some such.
Miscellaneous bike notes:
The cheap Wal-Mart 15W-50 dino-oil is working fine. No clutch troubles so far.
I was still running the 15/43 gearing. I still think there's a gearing swap in my near future. I was pulling 9900 RPM at the end of the front straight in 6th gear, so I could perhaps stand to go down a bit, but now I'm over-reving in my gear of choice at a couple places on the track. I'm ill-inclined to add an up-shift to my routine, knowing that that will add another downshift somewhere. Shifting eats time.....I must sit and ponder a while.
Hope to see you all at the races August 19th.
Wade Bartlett
CCS#371
