Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater
I can't say I have a ton of experience with the final-session races, but being early October, you're definitely in for a crap-shoot as far as the weather goes. For our last race of the WMRRA season, we had cold mornings with spectacular afternoons: full sun and into the high 60s at least.
My racing has, for the last few sessions, been steadily improving. Two sessions back, I was running about 2:15 per lap. Then last session, in September, I hit a personal best of 2:13. This session was a huge surprise to me: I not only had a "best lap" of 2:11, but for the second race, I turned 2:11s for pretty much the whole race!
I'm still 10 seconds off the fast guys' time, but with a 2:11, I'm finally keeping up with a few folks, which is a nice feeling.
I have three "most memorable moments" from this last session.
The first one came during practice on the first day. It was the second practice, and I was doing really well (I'd later learn that the one lap I managed to finish was 2:11, smashing my previous best time). I came around to the entrance to the Bus Stop for the second lap, hotter than I ever have, and was all set to blast through there like a champ when suddenly the engine spun way up, and I started slowing down.
It only took a moment to realize what had happened: my shift lever had finally, catastrophically, touched down. I'd been grinding the rubber off it for a couple sessions, as I had it adjusted really far down to provide me with comfortable shifts. It was aligned in such a way that it was the first part to touch down in a left-hand corner, and I kind of knew in the back of my mind that sooner or later I'd end up in the wrong gear because of it.
I tried to keep going, but when I upshifted out of the Bus Stop, the shift lever clung to my boot like glue. I looked down, and realized that it must have been quite substantially scraped up, and there was now a dime-sized raw spot on my boot where the shifter had taken hold. I shot my hand up, and laughing that my petty "comfort" concerns had finally come back to bite me, made a slow lap back to the track exit. I was able to fix the bent shift lever with some big pliers, and a bit of work with a file.
For the second memorable moment, I was keeping up pretty well with Tim Fowler, who's one of the medium-fast guys, in the first race on Sunday. If he did up his bike like Tim O'Mahoney has done, he'd probably be around 2 minutes per lap, but right now he resides in the 2:08 to 2:10 category, which put him in my sights for this race.
We were nearing the end of the race (although I probably would have sworn it was the middle at the time), and exiting the Bus Stop (a particularly tight and technical turn just before the straightaway), I was close behind Tim. I have just a little bit more power than he does, so I was actually able to creep up behind him. As we were going down the straight, I was drafting in behind him, and gaining quickly, when I saw the flag waving. In a spurt of optimism, I pulled out to pass him just as we passed by the flag, and thus the official timing line. I figure I just about had my front wheel even with his rear wheel when we passed the line, so I didn't quite pass him, although I passed him shortly thereafter, before turn 2.
Excited at my reasonable finish, I kept up my pace, but slowed down a few times on the cooldown lap. Tim passed me going into turn 3 (which he always does), and I followed him, curious if I could still keep up with him. It should have occurred to me at the time, but didn't, that Tim was keeping his pace up, and definitely wasn't letting up at all. Finally, around turn 5/6/7, I realized that I wasn't seeing any yellow flags, like the corner workers usually fly once the race is over. As I passed turn 8, it clicked: was that actually a checkered flag we had passed? Then as I got into turn 9, where there should be a big sign saying "PIT," I realized it was not a checkered flag we had passed. There was no PIT sign. The race was still on.
I was still running close behind Tim, and figured I could pass him in the straight again, and maybe even do it before the timing line. I kept close through the Bus Stop (the next turn after turn 9), and passed him through the kink just before the timing line. Sure enough, there was a waving flag this time, and it was the checkered flag.
I was faked out the first time through because I don't think I've ever passed a white flag (which indicates one lap to go) before. I'd always been lapped by one of the big bikes, costing me a lap, and meaning that the only flag I'd ever seen waved like that was a checkered flag. Oops!
The third memorable moment also involved Tim. For the last race, he and Ron Blocker from Portland were trading passes ahead of me, but both were solidly beyond my grasp for most of the race. Ron has a decidedly fast bike, and he's pretty good through the corners, a combination which is guaranteed to leave me in the dust.
Thus it was with great surprise that, on the final lap (having carefully scrutinized the first waving flag I saw to make sure it wasn't checkered), I came upon the following situation: Ron and Tim and Arash (who's way faster than me, but had slowed down so as to have someone to race with) were all packed pretty close together through turn 9, and packed even tighter into the Bus Stop. There, some kind of alchemy happened, and both Tim and Ron just weren't accelerating. With someting approaching glee, I swerved around Tim, and followed several bike lengths behind Arash into the straight. Clearly I wasn't going to catch up to him before the line, but I was actually gaining.
As we crossed the line, Arash was maybe a dozen feet in front of me, and Ron and Tim had disappeared behind me. That was a pretty odd feeling.
After the races, of course, I discovered why I had done so well: Tim was chasing an intermittent misfire in his engine, so that he wasn't able to accelerate or maintain speed as well as normal. That was true for both races, as I recall. Ron had somehow lost 4th gear (his top gear) midway through that last lap, managed to actually break and fix his shift lever while riding along, and once again lost 4th exiting the Bus Stop that last time.
So, really, I gained those places by dint of having the most trouble-free bike. Still, it's a victory, and I've gained places more than once because I've had less trouble with my bike than other riders.
For all the excitement of passing people and gaining places, my real victory comes from my own lap times. To have gained two seconds between sessions is nothing short of remarkable for me. I'll take it. Of course, come next season, I'll probably be back to 2:25 laps, but that's the way it goes, I guess.
Posted at 14:55 permanent link category: /motorcycle
Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater