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Loganville, GA I first heard about this race from Andy Baumbach in Commerce, GA at the April AMA Dragbike race. He asked if I was going to enter it since this is the kind of racing I do. No boxes and no throttle stops.
I had completely forgotten about it until I was on www.Dragbike.com and saw the notice for the race. After reading it I forwarded the page to my manager/girlfriend to get her view on it. She immediately responded with a, “Have you signed up yet?”
The deal was awesome. A $20,000 payout for first place (That is not a typo.) $5,000.00 for 2nd 1,250.00 for ¼ finals, $500.00 for Semi’s and $100.00 per round from 3rd round on. There was also a $5,000.00 race scheduled for Sunday May 25th that broke down the same way, with smaller dollar amount s of course.
All this for a $300.00 entry fee if you paid before the 19th.
The rules were simple. No boxes, no delay boxes. You could enter the same bike twice if you wanted ($600.00 entry fee). Wheelie bar bikes ran against each other for the first 2 rounds as did the no bar bikes. First round buy backs had to run each other and then were put back in their respective groups for the 2nd round. In the 3rd round wheelie bar bikes and no bar bikes were thrown together. There was a 2 hour test and tune prior to the race, I made 5 passes, I could have made 20.
The track was an 1/8 th of a mile, I prefer ¼ but 1/8 is a great way to practice for ¼. There is no room for mistakes. (They just bought the property at the end of the track and are planning to go to a ¼ mile track.) www.piedmontdragway.com/
I had been talking with Mike, whom I believe is the track owner, via e-mail about some of the details. He was always quick to answer and assured me the race would happen even if he was going to lose money. I told him I would try and get some of the people I race with to go. I do not like to see anyone lose money especially if they are trying to do something like this. Nobody does this.
All the people I called bailed out due to gas costs, it being a holiday weekend or their bike was in pieces. I also had a few people warn me about potential cheating and the track was probably not that good. One person just plain told me he sucked at racing and had no chance, unless of course he could hire a sniper. I told him I thought someone would probably see a pattern after the 2nd rider was shot racing against him.
It turned out the track was awesome. It was built in the 50’s and had rubber on it to prove it. I never once had my back tire come loose. It was every bit as good as a fully prepped AMA Dragbike Track. My only complaint would be that the slow down area was a bit short, but that is only my perception. I get carried away after a race and like to glide a bit before hitting the brakes. There were Pro Mod bikes running in the 4’s that were stopping fine. The track also had cement walls through the 1/8 giving way to the motorcycle racers nightmare steel guard rails. Although, these went all the way down to the ground and were far enough from the sides of the track that something would have to have gone seriously wrong for you to hit them.
The race was a blast. The competition was tight, very rarely were the racers running more than a few hundredths off their dial ins. In a lot of instances the wheelie bar bikes were only thousandths over. You had to cut a good light on a no bar bike to have a chance. I did that through 4 rounds before getting knocked out by Joe Procopio, who went on to pull 2nd place. .02 of a second was the difference in my loss to him, what made matters worse was that I had him by .08 at the light. The whole Procopio family is a tough group to beat.
Ultimately, I only walked away with a $100.00 bill. Which was fine by me, I have to work much harder in AMA Dragbike to do that. I also have to say that the payouts were all cash.
There was no cheating, all the track employees were nothing but nice and the track was easy to find. I’ll go back as soon as Mike announces the next race. Next time I’ll get more money…
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