May 20 CORCS Round #3 at RAM Off-Road Park

Had high reasonable hopes for my second race with CORCS at RAM the last weekend, I have ridden RAM before and felt very comfortable around the track.  Arriving at the track early we were able to watch the A/B Class race and the course looked reasonably easy and I was getting pretty excited for the race. 

Sighting lap around the course was pretty event-less, although the course had more surprises for the racers than were visible from the parking lot...  (lots of steep climbs and descents and sand).  Got a good long drink of water, turned on my video goggle cam, and lined up on the starting grid.

I took off slow from the line to avoid the craziness of the first quarter lap, started out well, just hung with the back of the pack until the first obstacle, a downhill tight sharp right in a rut, got through but didn't clutch enough and stalled the bike coming out of the narrow turn.  Ended up stuck there trying to start the bike for over a minute (which feels like an eternity) while everyone was flying past from the waves that started behind the C Open class.

Once I got going again got into a decent groove and felt pretty good for the next couple of laps, minus a couple small crashes/stalls (got cut down on those).

The sand was a bit rough, I also made the mistake of putting a bit too much tire pressure in before the race, I think this affected my confidence in the sand as I was loosing the front tire often which led to many near crashes.  I did though clear my first tabletop (maybe a 10-12 footer) which was pretty fun!

Lap 3 I got tangled up with a faster rider that was lapping me, which led to another crash for me and I burned my knee picking the bike up on the exhaust side, fortunately wasn't too bad.  After this I started getting even more tired and worn out and found myself having more and more close calls.  I took a lengthy break after lap 3 to get some water and just get my head right again.

I went back out on my 4th lap and didn't get too far, on a tight up hill switchback I lost the rear real bad, it came around and launched me off a 3-4 foot ledge!  The bike landed upside down (don't remember how I landed) and broke off the front brake lever and the handlebars were tweaked crooked.  Fortunately there were some safety crew members near by who guided me back to the pits off the race track.  I wasn't too worse for wear, just caught one of the bar ends with my stomach on my way over the ledge which left a nasty bruise/welt on my gut for quite a while, and my hands were a bit tender for a couple days, must've tried to brace my fall with my hands (not smart I know!).

So that ended my race very short, but it was a telling race and I've got some work to do.  Looking at posted lap times the one lap I didn't crash/stall I ran somewhat competitively in the 65-75% range of the C Open Class.  I just need to be more consistent.  I am also looking at revalving my suspension, the MX suspension on the RMZ is so harsh that I believe that contributes quite a bit to my fatigue during the race which leads to sloppiness and ultimately crashes. 

Looking forward to the next race! 

April 22 CORCS Race #2 Fountain Creek Motorsports Park

Well time finally came for my first race in over two years and my first ever race on dirt!  I just purchased my 2005 Suzuki RMZ 250 a month ago with the intentions of racing supermoto only, but saw a CORCS (Colorado Off-Road Championship Series) flyer at the bike shop and figured "Why not?  I have the dirt wheels, might as well try it." 
My dirt riding experience consists of a few trips some local MX tracks and several mountain trail outings on my Kawasaki KDX trail bike, I had only ridden my RMZ once prior to the race.  But I had felt very good on the RMZ the one trip out to the RAM MX track.  I figured with my experience I could easily follow some of the slow guys in the C class...
At the track we were allowed one sighting lap of the 6 mile course at 11AM and then the race would start at 11:30AM and run for 1 1/2 hours, as many laps as you can do.  The sighting lap didn't go to well, someone stalled and crashed in a sandy banked turn, I stopped and stalled behind him trying to avoid him, and the RMZ did not want to start.  Took what seemed like forever to get it kick started again and by then I was way behind everyone and already tired from all the kicking.  I was also not used to the course layout, it consisted of small 3" x 3" signs on trees with arrows and colored ribbon marking the course in some areas, something my eyes weren't accustomed to picking out.  I crashed once and ran way of course several times blowing past turns that I didn't see in time without anyone to follow.  This was not starting out well, I finally made it to the starting grid tired when the race was just about to start, so much for a breather...
A short description of the track:  It is 6 miles through the trees beside Fountain creek.  Of those 6 miles at least 5 miles are tight single track and at least half of those are whoops (I hate whoops).  It also included two 1/4 mile sections of long deep sand washes alongside the creek.

The race of 50+ riders in the C class started out with a huge dust cloud.  I just hung back and tried not to get in anyone's way.  Passing was very rough in the opening 1/2 a lap as is required in tight single track riding, this was a bit of a surprise and a bit unnerving.
The race quickly turned from trying to stay with anyone to just making it to the finish.  I had several miscues including my unprotected brake lever catching thick reeds at least once a lap, lurching me to a stop and me frustratingly pulling the stupid things off my front brake lever (bark busters a must before the next race!).  I also noticed a problem with my throttle I hadn't noticed in my previous ride at the MX track on the RMZ (which was higher speed), the throttle stop seemed to be raised, this caused the bike to barely engine brake and actually accelerate at low speeds in first gear, this would literally push me into the corners as I was easing off the brakes, not a good feeling!  I crashed a couple times due to this.  I was able to resolve it after the first lap by turning down the knob on the carb in the gas/water pit area.  This helped a lot with being able to properly engine brake into the corners.
The next and biggest problem was fatigue, I just wasn't prepared for the physical demands of this type of riding, I had never done any single track riding and never near as many whoops.  After the first two laps I could hardly bear to stand on the bike, which forced me to go even slower...

After the third lap with the running time at 1hr 10 minutes I pitted for a breather and some water.  The bike stalled on me while idling.  I kicked and kicked and would get it for a bit only for it to stall, I was getting so hot I took my helmet and gloves off, but then it would start and stall when I'd take my hand off the throttle to put my helmet on...  After 5+ minutes of this I said "screw it" and pushed my bike back to my truck...
It was a very humbling experience, and I ended up second to last (pitty the poor guy behind me).  But I gained a good understanding of what harescrambles and offroad racing are all about.  I plan to get more practice (and bark busters) and get back out there to the next race!  The next race is at RAM offroad park where I've ridden once, it is a bit more open and few if any trees, so I'm hoping to fare a bit better...  We'll see...

May 9 MRA Race #2 High Plains Raceway

Friday went well, packed up the truck, waited 'til Erin got off work and then headed out to Byer, CO. Also note my trusty rusty "new" generator. Got to the track just before it got dark and got the tent setup. Night was alright minus the crazy wind that pulled the stakes out of the ground, the cold windy rain while I was re-staking, and the ultra bumpy ground...

Woke up early Saturday morning, very early, to an overcast windy day, but at least the ground was drying fast. Started scrambling to get the pit in order and get ready for tech. Got in line at tech and realized I'd forgotten my helmet (they check the manufacture date), and then got back to tech to see the line had swelled. Once on the stand my rear brake didn't pass, guess I hadn't checked it very well when I put on the jimmy-rigged brake fluid reservoir. Rushed back to my pit and had to go bum/borrow some brake fluid and a drain hose to bleed the brake line. Got that done just in time to get back through tech and the lowers put back on just before the rider's meeting.

First time out on the track was a bit unnerving, High Plains Raceway (HPR) is a very technical track with elevation, blind corners, and 15 or 16 corners (depends how you count)! My first session around the track I kept forgetting what corner was coming up before the blind corners, so I'd slow way down, and then look both ways to try and figure out where I was going... It was actually pretty comical... Compared to some of the guys who'd been there before I was absolutely crawling! Before sessions I spent some time visualizing the track and all the corners in my mind. Second session out was much better, only got confused a few times... Also was able to pick the pace up and get into a bit of groove, and started passing some other riders. Third session out was a blast! I had a real good feel for the track, and starting working on making up time on the "balls to the wall" corners. One moment that really stood out was passing a guy on a Ducati 1198S that I'd met the night before on the outside in corner 7, a 4th gear uphill drifting right corner! It's pretty intense to keep the throttle pinned at high speeds all the while leaned over hard looking up the hill at the horizon. I ended up on the time sheet running a 2:11 best laptime. I didn't really know if that was good, but it was a big improvement on the first two sessions!

I only had one race Saturday afternoon, the 30 minute Lightweight GP Endurance race. This strategy was to save a bit of cash each race weekened, until I get back to a decent race pace and can start challenging for a bit of contigency cash. So we had lunch, and watched some of the fast guys race. It was pretty cool, Jason DiSalvo was in town racing, and one other AMA guy and the MRA fast guy regulars were running amazingly fast!

Finally it was race time! This race turned out to be an absolute blast! There were 6 guys signed up but for whatever reason there were only 4 of us on the grid, well us plus the 31 Middleweight guys ahead of us that start 30 seconds ahead of us. One of the guys, Moham, in the Lightweight is pretty untouchable (super fast), another guy who is pretty slow, and another guy on a 250cc two-stroke and a sweet PBR leather jacket who was running 5 seconds quicker than me last race weekend at Pueblo.

I got a decent launch and was only behind Moham going into turn one. The sneaky two-stroke was no where to be scene but two-strokes always launch slow, so I kept pushing out of fear he was coming for me! I started catching slow Middleweight guys half way through the first lap, and out of the aforementioned fear of the lurking two-stroke I made every effort to pass the slow Middleweight guys as fast as possible. A handful of times I passed two guys in a single corner! As the laps went by I kept feeling better and better, I was leaning further and braking later. I could really tell I was pushing hard when I starting slidding a couple times, and blew past a couple brake points which led to a few pucker moments, all good fun!

The race kept getting better, after getting past the really slow Middleweight riders I started gaining on some decent Middleweight guys. I caught two separate guys that took me over a lap each to find a way to get around them. I think the second guy could hear me coming because he kept looking back at me... haha! After the race I went to bench-race with one of those guys, he said he could really hear my v-twin behind him and got a bit scared, I was glad to hear that because it was a long standing theory of mine that v-twins can easily be heard by 600s and it can scare them into making mistakes... So anyway, kept going and brought it home in 2nd, granted, only out of 4, but it felt really good to beat someone who had spanked me two weeks ago in Pueblo. And also, what was pretty cool was that I actually passed just over half of the Middleweight field, so from starting from 30 seconds back and being vastly outpowered I passed up to 15th place in the Middleweight race out of 31 riders! Also, checked my race times afterwards and saw I'd run a 2:05! 6 seconds quicker than my best practice time!

I can't wait to get back to HPR!!!

April 25 MRA Race #1 Pueblo

After a one year hiatus from racing and even trackdays I'd decided to get back into racing for 2009 and try to compete in as many race weekends as possible. Here is a recap from my first race weekend:

Friday April 24, 2009

Well, the Friday before race weekend the bike looked like the above... And actually that pic I took after I'd already driven downtown to get my forks after that'd been refreshed. So suffice it to say the bike was far from ready... Which is unfortunate because I was hoping to do the trackday Friday afternoon to get me up to speed, because up until now I'd never even ridden my new bike!

Around 10am I was running around loading things up in order to get to Pueblo by 1pm where I was meeting my painting guy who I was depending on to have all my bodywork painted and ready to go, nothing like the last minute.

On the road with all my stuff (well not quite all as I'd find out). I get down to Pueblo only a few minutes late, meet my painting guy, Jim Wallace (great guy), and we start putting the bike back together.

Sweet, the bodywork is looking pretty good, everything is coming together! Now for the stickers!

Nice! And the bike even starts after putting gas in the tank! Notice the "S" on the bike, it is a Suzuki symbol that my wife, Erin, put togther with some pencil scetching that has my name, race number, and a lil heart hidden in it! Thanks, Love! It looks amazing up close.

The remainder of Friday I spent getting some new Michelin Power One race tires mounting and getting the assistance of Vanmar racing to help me set the sag on the bike. The previous owner from CCS Midwest had one the lightweight class 3 of the last 4 years out there and it showed in how well the bike was set up. All I did was take out a little bit of rebound from the front and rear as he was about 20lbs heavier than me.

Also Friday, I met Russell, a 34-year veteran of MRA racing who pits on a nice 5th wheel. But luckily for me he was also nice enough to let me bum some wattage from his generator to run my tire warmers for the races as I don't have a generator yet... I think we had to run about 100 foot of extension cords to reach my pit... haha!

Oh, and I forgot my bag with sandwich buns, granola bars, and chips. So I had meat/cheese sandwiches (minus the bread) for supper...

And after a quick call to my wife it was off to bed in the cozy bed of my Chevy...

Saturday April 25, 2009

Saturday morning was wake up, eat some freeze dried eggs, get the bike through tech, attend riders meeting, squeeze into leathers, and hit the track for the three Saturday morning practice sessions. I don't know what the temp was this morning but the first session with very cold! My poor hands had a tough time going from full throttle to hard on the brakes, they just didn't work well or quickly...!


First sessions went as well as can be expected for being as rusty as I was, but slowly but surely I brought the pace up a bit and by the end of the third session I was routinely passing several slower 600 riders.


Lunch time came around and my fan club was just showing up: Wife, Erin; in-laws Ken and Faye, Cousin Dan, Shawn, Britt, and Chris. We had a good picnic lunch and they even brought my a #452 Happy Birthday cake, even though my birthday isn't until May 5... It was yummy cake!


After lunch it was time for business, Saturday consisted of: Novice GTU, Lightweight GP, and Lightweight Endurance.




First up, NovGTU, I was excited because I was on the 4th row out of over 30 riders! My excitement soon was swept away... The NovGTU class is novices with bikes up to 4 cylinder 600s, my poor 650 twin was outgunned by upwards of 30+ hp to alot of the competition, which didn't fare well with Pueblo's 1/2 mile straightaway!!! On every one of the 7 laps I'd get passed by at least 1 or 2 bikes down the straight, I managed to pass a few back on the brakes into turn 1 but than they'd just get me again the next lap... I also didn't have quite enough speed to pass in the corners, this is where my rust was showing... Overall I finished 25th out of 30+ after starting on the 4th row...



Second up was Lightweight GP which was right after NovGTU, so no time to come in and pit. I had Erin meet me at pre-grid with a bottle of water for me... It's not as easy to drink out of a big mouth bottle with a helmet on so the plan didn't quite work... haha! So out for another 7 lap race! I got a very bad launch in this race and fell back to 7th outta 9 going into turn one. I managed to pass one on the brakes into turn 1, then passed a second in the next half lap. By the time I got clear the four front runners were pretty much out of sight, they were faster than the Lightweight GP guys I remembered from 2007, that or I was a lot slower... So it turned into a very boring thirsty race, the next 6 laps I saw no one and no one came near me. After crossing the finish line I looked back a few times and no one was within 15 seconds of me, I guess I was a one man midpack... Overall result was 5th out of 9.

Last of the day was Lightweight endurance which is just a 30 minute race, hardly an endurance but that's was they call, it's around 16 - 17 laps. This race proved to be quite a bit of fun, in the endurance race they run Middleweight and Lightweight together in waves. So off goes the Middleweight guys and then after 10-15 seconds they let us Lightweight guys take off. The fun in this was it allowed us to get to pass all the slow Middleweight guys! I passed a ton of guys in the tight turn 7, the only 2nd gear corner of the track, it also happened to be where my fan club was watching from, so they probably thought I was half-way decent... haha! Overall I finished 3rd out of 5 in class, and even got a cool 3rd place thing.

We finished the day off packing up valuables in the truck and locking the bike under the canopy. We at in Pueblo and then drove home for the night to sleep in a bed.

Sunday April 26, 2009

Woke up Sunday morning and drove down to Pueblo. Today I had two Sunday morning practices and one race in the afternoon, SuperTwins GTU. I missed the 8:30am practice because I slept in too long, but hey, sleep is good. When I got to my pit I did a suspension chance I'd thought of the night before, I dropped the front a few mm and then added on turn of rebound to compensate for the added weight I put on the front by lowering it. I was looking forward to practice to test the change. So I added some gas to the bike and then headed out for my only practice session. After getting on to the track I braked hard into turn 1 and got splashed with something, "What the heck! It's sunny, what is this rain?!?" The same thing happened when I braked into turn 2, at this point I looked down to discover I'd forgotten to put my gas cap on!!! Dummy!!! So I slowly road back into pit, put the gas cap on, but by the time i got back out I only got 2 hot laps, not near enough to really get a feel for the changes I'd made... Oh well, I'll find out during the race!

Waited around and watched some good racing until my time to race.

SuperTwins GTU turned out to be quite fun, I got a pretty good launch and was going into turn 1 in 4th place only to get passed on entry by a Ducati 749. Now this is one of the moments I was kicking myself about later, the guy that passed me ran wide and I'd already backed off and didn't attempt to dive back underneath. This to me summed up the entire weekend and was a wake up call to me that I was rusty, non-aggressive, and not comfortable riding super close to people. The next lap or two I was relatively slow getting up to speed but the last half of the race I was gaining a lot on that same Ducati 749. It's a lot of fun to have a rabbit out in front to chase! But in the end I didn't have enough to catch him, but still had a lot of fun chasing! I ended up with another 5th out of 9.

In the end a pretty good weekend, I'm solidly running midpack and managed to improve by 3 seconds from first race Saturday to last race on Sunday. The downside was that in three of my races I was on person on the grid away from Michelin money...! My 3rd out of 5 only pays if there are 6 riders on the grid, and my two 5th out of 9 only pay with 10 riders on the grid... Oh well... Next race weekend is coming up quick and I can't wait!