posted on July 16, 2010 21:13
Roebling Road Team Challenge
First thing I have to say is Scotty is Iron Man!
Scotty got up about 9am to finish loading the trailer so we could be on the road by 4pm. We finally left at about 5pm to head to Savannah, GA. Scotty then insisted on driving through the night. We arrived just north of Atlanta at about 8am and had breakfast. After breakfast Scotty continued driving to the track. We arrived at about 2pm and could not get into the track until 5pm. Once we got in and got unloaded, had dinner and watched a movie, we all finally went to sleep at about 10pm. 37hours later and Scotty was claiming that he still wasn't tired. He did mention the next morning though that he had one of the best nights sleeps he has had in a long time.
Friday morning, time to learn the track. We never walked the track the night before or that morning so first session out was the first time I saw the track, other than on youtube videos. The track was quite easy to learn, I think by like lap five or something I wasn't the slowest person on track anymore. As the day went on and the lap times dropped the more I struggled with chassis problems again. Not only was the chatter that I had at Road America still there but it was also slowly starting to get worse. I was also having problems with the bike not completing two of the corners. We ended up dropping the front end and it was much better or so I thought.
Saturday morning I had signed up for the GTU race to get some more track time. Went out for practice and the bike was handling well. The start of the GTU race I had one of the worst starts of my life. I should have gone up and watched the starters for the GTO race so I had a better idea of how the starters for that region did their starts. The board went from 2 - 1 - sideways before I even realized the board went to 2, or so it seemed that quick. It was definitely quicker than what I'm used to. I still wasn't last going into turn one so I guess I wasn't the only one sleeping. There were three people on the grid that jumped the start though. As the race went I dropped another second or 2 and then the running wide in those 2 corners came back again. We got just over half way and the red flag came out. I know red flags are not good situations but I was glad the race was over, no more fighting the bike! I did get the red flag in turn one so as I'm coming around the track to pull into the pits I see the aftermath of what happened. Turn 6 is a left hander then a little short shot into 7, right hander, and the bike is on the inside of turn 7 right at the entrance and there is a berm there as well so the bike launched itself up the berm and landed right next to the port-a-potty. I got back into the pits and where we were pitted you can see that turn perfectly. I asked my family if any of them had seen what happened? We had Alex Stein with us this weekend and he said he had seen most of it, or at least what it looked liked happened. I guess the guy was trying to go around the outside of me in the left hander, and that is one of the turns where the bike was running wide on me, well needless to say I didn't know he was there, the bike ran wide and he ran off track, almost saved it and then I'm guessing from there hit the berm? Not really sure what happened exactly other than he ran off track trying to go around the outside of me. :-(
Sunday was TC race day. The grid was pretty scarce this round though. There were a total of eight bikes. Two in GTO, three in GTU and three in GTL. Everyone podiums no matter what. Scotty and I talked before the race started and with the small grid we were shooting for the overall. Scotty and Chris had beat Chester Auto Repair on the new 1000 BMW out at VIR so Scotty thought we could do it again. Scotty started and by the end of the first lap Scotty was in second right on Chester's butt. As the laps went on though Scotty had slowly started to drop off the pace of the leader and settled for second. Scotty made it halfway on his tank of fuel, barely. Halfway was 37 laps and Scotty made it 38 before we pulled him in. As he comes down hot pit for our pit stop, I'm standing right along the wall and my mom is out in front of where Scotty needs to stop so he has a reference point. As he comes to a stop he puts the bike basically right on top of the wall and pinched both my mom and me between the bike and the wall. So I then got in the way of my dad putting the bike on the stand and slowed our pit stop down. Once I got the chance to get the info from Scotty about the bike all he could say was the bike was chattering worse then ever and that's why he backed the pace down. I go out for my stint, also hoping I'll make it to the end of the race before the fuel light comes on and we don't have to make another pit stop. I went out just in front of Chester Auto, which kept us in the lead. Oh yeah, Chester had pitted before us so during Scotty's stint yet that had but us into the lead overall. Scotty had also put Premier Racing and RNR Racing down a lap in his stint. I was able to keep Chester behind me for the majority of my stint but the chatter was so bad on the bike that I couldn't push as hard as I wanted, so I was going about 3 seconds a lap slower than Scotty and Chester was going faster than Scotty, so it was just a matter of time before he passed me. I did mange to finish the race on that tank of fuel and put Premier down another lap and RNR down another two laps. This was also our first class win as well.
After the race Scotty and I were talking about the chatter problem. The chatter was what caused him to practically take my mom and me out in the pits and the more I thought of it, the chatter on the track also forced the bike to the right and caused me to turn in early into turn one every lap. We have two weeks and one weekend off to tare the bike down and find the problem! Wish us luck!
megryanracing.com