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Loganville, GA The 2007 race season is over. I can honestly say that this year was much more difficult than last year mainly due to the self imposed handicap of adding a turbo to the bike in mid season. Anyone who knows me will tell you that patience is not one of my virtues. Actually I do not think anyone I know can attest to my having any virtues…
The beginning of the season started off with my brother Michael taking an early lead at the Atlanta Dragway points series. That was quickly surpassed by a new up and comer Ryan Coover who started to walk away with the points series. About this time I added a turbo and began to look like a fool in search of a new Shakespeare play to be in.
Towards the end of that points series I started to make a comeback only to be knocked out of 2nd place by a multi-time track champion on an old school Kawasaki 500 drag bike, Jay “Bird” Rhyne. Jay only came to a few races and won most of them. I have raced him 4 times now and have not been able to beat him. He is about as consistent as an enema induced bowel movement, minus the mess of course.
For Atlanta Dragway I ended up salvaging a 3rd place trophy along with the “Best looking motorcycle” plaque.
PROSTAR is the series I wanted. It is the NHRA of motorcycle drag racing. It was bought out last year and the new owners are really turning it around. We had a lot more bikes this year and spectators.
Last year, before they were bought out, the stands looked about as full as a pep rally in a mortuary. Not that I care if anyone is watching, although it is kind of cool when you start winning rounds and people are cheering for you as you comeback down the return lane from a race. (I first noticed this in Atco, NJ this year when I went 12 rounds total in 3 different divisions.)
Ok here is a not so quick recap of the 8 races for PROSTAR:
- Valdosta, GA. This was Stephanie’s 1st PROSTAR Race, we slept in the motorcycle trailer on an air mattress. The temperature dropped down to 30 degrees and I woke up at 2am because the air mattress felt like one of those 25 cent vibrating beds in a “Breeder room” Motel . (I have never actually seen one of these beds, but they still use them in movies.) It turned out that Stephanie was sound asleep, shivering, with frost on her lips. I took all of our clothes out of the suit case and piled them on her. She looked like a laundry heap. Due to lack of sleep I went 2 rounds at the season opener in Street ET, 2 rounds in PRO ET 1 and 2 rounds in PRO ET 2.
- Atlanta, GA. In order to keep Stephanie warm I bought a 19,000.00 sleeping bag. Granted it looks much like an RV. Now we can take the dog who has now earned the nick name “Pit Beagle”. The Atlanta race started out good for me; I made it through 2 rounds of Street ET before the rain came and cancelled the race. I also made it through 2 rounds of PRO ET 1 and 2.
- Richmond, VA. This was the first long trip for the RV and the “Pit Beagle”. He sleeps with his head over my shoulder and breathes warm, wet air on my neck. I also was able to mix business with racing for the first time at this race. One of the apprentices lived in Richmond and I had him come to the track for an interview. This turned out to be quite interesting in itself. The RV had a brand new awning that I had never opened before. We extended the awning and set up a table so we could do the interview outside. Some storm clouds began to move in and it started to get a little windy causing the papers to blow around so we moved into the RV. While we were inside, the wind picked up dramatically and 60 mph gusts caused the whole RV to rock all over the place. I looked out the window and the rain was coming down in horizontal sheets, not too mention my new awning had a 3 foot tear in it. So I went out side to roll up the awning. (This was almost impossible due to the fact I was drowning.) Then I noticed the table and chairs that were racing each other through the parking lot. So I took off in pursuit of them. By the time I got back in the RV I looked like I had been fishing for Alaskan King Crab. As for the race, I pulled 2nd place in Street ET for the completion of the rained out Atlanta race. Then I got knocked out in all of the 1st rounds of the Richmond race.
- Memphis, TN. This was the first debut race of the turbo. It was hot as hell. Went out in the 1st round in everything. It was kind of hard to win when the bike had about a 2 second leeway in dial in times.
- Columbus, OH This race was about as exciting as the Memphis race. I went out in the 1st round for all of the races I entered. Now I am beginning to wonder if faster is better… I almost forgot, our rear driver’s side inner tire blew on the way to this race. It took me 2 days to fix all of the damage.
- Indy, IN I finally took the bike in to Livengood Motorsports and got the thing on the dyno so I could get my fuel map looking more like a tabletop than a lunar landscape. The bike at this race was producing 212 hp at 6 lbs of boost and 258 at 10 lbs. I ended up going to the semi-finals, but it was not due to me. The race gods felt sorry for me and had the first 4 people I raced either break at the line or red light. My ET’s were all over the board because my chain kept stretching. Apparently a turbo is hard on a new chain. The RV also decided to blow a front drivers side tire on the way home from this race.
- Atco, NJ. Stephanie and I almost killed each other on the way to this race. I now know there are 2 surefire ways to end a relationship. One is to let your significant other navigate through rush hour traffic in Philadelphia and Newark, NJ with a 33 foot long RV pulling a 12 foot trailer. The other is to have your significant other help you erect a pop up shade tent, otherwise known amongst racers as the “Pop-up Homewrecker”. At this race I realized I had a chance at the championship. I also realized I could drop my motorcycle in the water box. Unfortunately, I was not the only one who realized it. It is on the www.reelvue.com website for everyone to see, as many times as they want. I made it through 4 rounds of Street ET, 3 rounds of PRO ET 1 (Which we could not finish, we would have to complete this at the Gainesville race.) and 4 rounds of PRO ET 2.
- Gainesville, FL. Everything was in place for me to win the Street ET Championship, the weather was perfect, the birds were singing and I think I could hear angels playing a lute…Then I made my first practice pass. The bike was flying right up until I passed the 1/8th mile then it decided to turn off, then turn back on, then turn off, then back on, etc. Let me explain something here. The motorcycle goes from 0-60 in around 1 second. So now you are pinned to the back of the hump. At the 1/8th mile I am doing 120mph. Now the engine turns off. At this point your body flies forward and just before your helmet hits the windshield the engine and boost comes back under full power. Now you fly backwards until your tail bone stops you on the hump. Imagine this happening four times in 1 second intervals. I am guessing this is how it would feel if you were being dribbled by Shaquille O’Neal. It happened on my second time pass also. The good thing was I ran 2 passes at 10.9 seconds. My feeling was, as bad as this sucked, at least my times were consistent. So I dialed in at a 10.9 for the completion of my PRO ET from Atco. This time the bike runs fine, causing me to breakout miserably even though I was on the brakes. From here on out the bike decided it wanted to race and I had fun. I did not win the championship, but I had fun and I gave it a fight. Also I must mention Jimmy and Eeman hosted the Annual PROSTAR Academy Awards in which the Academy so graciously chose me to be selected for the "I've fallen and can't get my Busa up" Award. My Atco faux pas will never go away...
At this moment I would like to give a big thanks to all of the people who made this happen:
Stephanie for her support, great video tape (Ow! I am going to feel this) and finding us some really cool campgrounds. My family for coming to some of the races. Jon Hawkins for all of the motorcycle parts and advice he has given me over the past 2 years. Steve Gould for the photographs and suggestions, he really has an eye for my mistakes. Brian Livengood for finally getting my fuel map straight. Jason Keranen and his AMSOIL that has kept my engine in one piece. James McDaniels for the use of his body shop and paint booth to repair my bike, my RV and paint god knows how many other bikes. Heidelberg for allowing me to mix racing with work. Suzuki, Blur, Vortex, Dynojet and VP fuels for their contingencies. Brock Davidson for his help with some problems on the bike I had at the track. Barry Henson for all of his troubleshooting tips when I was acclimating to the turbo. Johnny “Turbo” Dobrin and all of his help at Columbus, OH when I first got the bike on the track. Steve Brookes for finding the Hayabusa in the first place and getting me into this mess. The whole crew at Atlanta Dragway, Ray, Debbie, Wayne, Lester, Michelle, Crystal, Mark, Mike, John, and forgive me for the ones I am forgetting. Finally all of the people I race with, PT / Cliston, Tony, Don, Jimmy, Eeman, Debbie, Pat, Ricky, Curtis, Steve, Jeff, Mary, Ryan, Scott, Jay, Howard and the rest.
(That looks like the inside of a CD jacket. I should have added some fake names like MC Bika Z, Mo Betta and Fasta P to make it look more urban and hip.)
See ya next year!
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