Have I mentioned how fast that damn bike is? The looks on the modern bike racers faces as we pass them is priceless...
Another bittersweet weekend. We had our work cut out from the get go. First of all, I'd never raced at Gingerman. Second of all, we had all new suspension, geometry changes and a new motor that was barely broken in.
Friday started slowly as something shorted the battery and damn near fried everything. This caused us to miss all of the sessions before lunch. The crew worked their tails off to get it sorted while I rode my 675 to get a handle on the track layout. To say Gingerman is bumpy would be a major understatement. Not to mention the 1" gaps in asphalt between "lanes" that you have to block out and just rail across while fully leaned over. Our first session after lunch was very sketchy. The bike was trying to tank slap on every corner entry as well as corner exit. We moved all the settings front/rear to tighten things up with preload as well as compression. Next time out was much better, probably better than the set up we had a Road America and Grattan, be we were still a ways from what our new components were capable of. In the afternoon our Michelin tire vendor and local track legend David Grey (
www.sportbiketireservice.com) stopped by to help. After getting some accurate sag numbers, we discussed what the bike was doing and how we could get closer to a set up for Gingerman. Dave was a huge help and made the adjustments accordingly. Ken and Todd split early to go hang with our photographer, while pops and I took Dave out for dinner in South Haven.
Saturday morning brought a gearing change and a new proper road racing chain (thanks Ken!) with another link or two to get us some desperately needed wheelbase. I had the guys on pit wall with tools ready for changes mid session, but I never came in. The bike was that good. I also needed to ride it harder to feel what was going to happen at race pace. I passed several modern bikes and the faster I went more I was convinced we now had a good baseline. The new YSS shocks with the added ride height were great. I wasn't dragging any hard parts and they handled the Gingerman bumps very well. Much nicer than the Works units that were previously on the bike.
Everyone was feeling pretty good come race time. 3rd and final call came. Ken couldn't get the beast kicked over though. Everyone remained calm in the most frantic way possible
. It still wouldn't fire. Luckily our friend and team mate Stu had a set of starter rollers and we got the bike to life just as the marshals were about to flip the 4 board to 3, which would mean no warm up lap and possibly having to start from pit lane. I ran a hard warm up lap to get some heat in the tires and brakes. Once again the modern twins were gridded in front of us, with the modern 2 and 4 stroke singles behind us, and the Triumph Thruxton Cup behind them. Our holeshot was not spectacular. The new 1st gear is suuuuper tall and the bike wants to fall on it's face. I was able to wind it out, but we were in 3rd coming through T1. I made the pass in to 2nd right away, with the pass in to first after T3. My friend Scott came by us on his 2002 RS125 and was setting a good pace. He and I started picking off the modern bikes one by one. Not wanting to be in the way of another class's battle, I backed it down and let a few of them back by. We seemed to have a pretty convincing lead in our class and I was trying to be mindful of our front tire which was from Grattan. Just before lap 4, I saw the red flags out. We came in to hot pit lane and shut it down. Holy #$%*! was it hot. 95 and humid. My umbrella girl rushed over with a big ass piece of cardboard to keep me shaded! Hilarious. On the grid Ken wanted to know why I let the other bikes past. We talked about our goals and risks vs. rewards. While on the grid our team photographer, Presley, snapped some shots of the freshly built bike. Presley is a ladies man and the girls were flocking to him to get their pictures taken, but we made them back off. Just then the race director came over and told us we'd be restarting the race from row 1 outside.
The boys put the kick starter on and got to kicking.....again to no avail. Although this time we were on the grid...with no rollers in sight! The rest of the bikes had already taken off for the warm up lap. The starter came off and we decided to bump it. Still nothing. Luckily, there was an Astro van on the grid powering a set of rollers. After 2 tries she fired and I was gone! Another very close call. I got a little better holeshot this time, although still quite a bit of bog due to the tall 1st gear. I was in P1 straight away and put my head down for a lap while I lead the overall. On the 3rd lap I turned around and saw Scott on the RS125 right there, along with a modern Ducati. I waved them by and watched him go. I knew we had the pace to run with them, but it wasn't in the team's best interest to go battling with guys not in our class on a horribly bumpy track. We cruised the rest of the way and brought it home safely. All in all a good day. We lead the overall for a bit, and I'm sure it was fun for the people watching to see (and hear!) the Cycle X bike out front. Back in the pits Ken and Todd found that the battery was fried, so they left early to try to find one in town.
Sunday was much cooler. Mid 70's and slightly humid. We skipped morning practice to save the front tire. We decided to run as fast as we were comfortable with consistently throughout the race. I was in 3rd coming in to T3. As I leaned the bike over, one of the other RS125 racers (who's ambition outweighed his skill) made a way too late kamikaze move to pass me on the inside. Not only was he way too late to pass, he ran so wide that we hit shoulders and he couldn't hold his tight line. I was able to keep the bike up and just off the grass. I'm still not certain what the guy was thinking. It's hard enough to control a big superbike when fully leaned over some bumps, let alone stand it up mid apex. I gave him a little look as I went past him an that was that. The next lap I ran down a SV650 and passed him on the brakes coming in to T1. He stayed with me the rest of the race as we ran a pretty good pace, which for me was one full second per lap faster than Saturday. On lap 7 when downshifting for the last turn before the front straight, I heard a few pops on decel. Bike pulled just fine, but then got worse on decel coming in to T1. As I was going through T2 with knee on the ground, the bike gave a hard sputter and completely cut out, then came back hard resulting in a pretty big front end slide. The SV came by and I pulled the clutch in. Engine revved up just fine. I let the clutch out and it was running real rough. At first I thought maybe we were out of fuel so I shook it side to side to try and get every last bit out of her. Still rough. We had a huge lead and there we no bikes in site. I think I had lapped just about everyone in our class. I limped the bike around hoping we'd make it to the checkered flag, to no avail. I tried everything, partial throttle...full throttle and everywhere in between. Finally it quit one turn before the front straight. For a moment I envisioned an epic RickyBobby finish with me pushing the bike across the line and maybe someone tossing me a beer just as I crossed....and maybe a few hot girls in bikinis waiting for me....instead I got a ride in the crash truck in just enough time for me to get a drink and gas up the Triumph as I was in the next race. Ken and Todd drained quite a bit of fuel from the tank, so we definitely didn't run out of gas.
Ken and Todd were pretty bummed. We all were actually, but this is racing. Anything and everything can and will happen at any moment, and we're prepared for this. This isn't our first rodeo, and most certainly won't be the last. We learned a lot over the weekend, and ultimately we have a much better bike than we did for the first two rounds. The light at the end of the tunnel is still burning strong. Thanks to Thermosman for building us a great set of forks, as well as Klaus for the beautiful YSS piggyback shocks and Hyperpro steering damper. Taming a heavy superbike around the bumpy tarmac of Gingerman is no easy task and both worked flawlessly. New brake lines and pads from Spiegler were great, as well as the trick LSL superbike bars and clamps. I can't wait to race the bike again. The next time out we're going to be on one of the absolute best tracks in North America.
See you on the grid....
