Summary
SOAR Round 2 is in the books, and despite some mechanical gremlins I was able to record my first victory ever, winning the BOTT LW class after a great to-and-fro battle with Alex Radecki.
The Prairie Dog Racing endurance team had a thankfully uneventful race on Saturday, with no crashes or goof-ups in the pits. We finished 7th out of 11 teams in the GTU class.
Round 2
June 20/21 was "All Bike Weekend" at Grand Bend, which means that there were motorcycle drag races, a big Harley Show and Shine event, and of course the SOAR road racing series. It is quite a fun event, but one downside is that accommodating all of the cruisers means that the SOAR pit gets compressed to about half its normal size. It was a bit inconvenient, but in a way even more fun than normal, having everybody in such close proximity all weekend.
Allen came through for us and showed up with a "new" trailer - a proper camper in this case, not something previously used to haul livestock. It's kind of old and needs repairs, but Allen worked like a maniac in the days leading up to the event, getting it into serviceable shape. We were all grateful for the comfortable beds, the working fridge, etc. What a difference from sleeping in frost-covered tents during the previous round!
Round 2 was on the "Modified Track". This is the shortest layout at Grand Bend and, honestly, it's not my favourite. The slow sort of chicane section through turns 2 and 3 is a bit of a mystery to me - I have never found what I consider to be an efficient line through there. The layout also uses the entire back straight. That was a disadvantage for me last year when I was trying to run Rookie 600 on the Ducati, since all of the Japanese bikes would blow by me before the carousel. Running only the Lightweight Twins class this year it actually works in my favour since I have more power than most of my competition. But I still don't care for the layout.
I wasn't able to get away Friday to do the practice day with Allen and Steve, so I instead showed up Friday evening. I brought some monster rib steaks and Steve grilled them to perfection on the BBQ.
In the pits, everyone was nervous about the weather forecast - it was calling for decent weather Saturday, but almost certainly rain on Sunday. This put Allen in a quandary. He had got the BMW Boxer Cup Replica bike ready for racing this Round, but didn't have rain tires for it. He was reluctant to register for the BOTT LW sprint race, knowing that chances were better than even he would need to sit out the final. He was compulsively checking the weather forecast every 30 min, which at Grand Bend is about as useful as checking your horoscope.
Saturday
After a great sleep in the new trailer, we awoke to a nice morning but a weather forecast that had not improved at all for Sunday. Allen made the decision to not register for BOTT and loaded the BMW into his truck...thus ensuring that Sunday would be bright and sunny all day. Thanks Allen!
I took the Ducati thorugh tech as soon as it opened, but when I started it and put it into gear to leave tech, it threw on the engine light and stalled immediately. Started it again, same thing. And again. And again. Sh*t.
I put the tire warmers on in anticipation of solving the problem before morning practice. The computer didn't show any trouble codes on the ECU, so I scrambled (with generous help from Steve and Allen) to check everything we could think of, including the battery, injector leads, grounds...we eventually reasoned that it might be the old kickstand safety interlock, which I had jumped when I removed the kickstand. Steve suggested I take the endurance bike out for first practice while he and Allen worked on the jumper.
Practice went okay even if the brakes on the Gixxer were crap. When I came in, Steve and Allen told me that the Duc was running normally again. I told them dinner was on me.
I took the Ducati out for second practice and got quite comfortable. My target was to turn 58-s laps. I am not sure what I managed because the timing beacon ran out of batteries, but I felt in good shape for qualifying.
Below is a video of my afternoon qualifying race. I almost didn't post it because I collected some bugs on the camera lens during the warmup lap. However, I decided to put it up because there is some nice footage of Yarek Rutkowski in his first ever race. Yarek pitted beside us with his SV650 and had a great first race weekend. Always nice to gain another member of the SOAR family, especially one as pleasant as Yarek. Also great to fill out the BOTT LW field even more.
Disappointingly, the Bauer brothers didn't show up for Round 2, so I lost my best competition. That pretty much meant that I was going to be battling Alex Radecki on his 748, and Bob Tziougas on the SS1000ie. Unfortunately right after the start Bob came together with two other riders in Turn 2 and went down. He was mostly fine (tweaked his shoulder a bit) but couldn't make the restart. Here he is on the Ride of Shame (photo from Sheri Manuel).
They red-flagged the race to deal with Bob's mess, and then re-set us on the grid. As you can see from the video, I had a terrible restart, with almost everyone blowing by me before Turn 3. But very quickly I re-passed all of them, except Alex. Eventually I got him too, under braking into the carousel, giving me pole position for Sunday.
Prairie Dogs Endurance
Wow, is SOAR endurance racing ever taking off! Someone said there were 23 bikes set up at the start. The results only show 19, but sometimes teams don't turn in their time sheets, so there may indeed have been 23. Here are the bikes all set up for the LeMans-style start, where the riders have to run across the track to their machines, start them and then take off.
Steve did the first stint as always, but was about second last coming past the pits the first lap, and following that his lap times were well off his normal pace. Allen and I didn't know if this performance was related to the quantity of Jamieson's Irish Whiskey he disposed of the previous night, or if there was something wrong with the bike (other than the stuff that is always wrong with it). At the end of his stint he said he wasn't comfortable and had had a few minor slides. I had done some suspension adjustments after morning practice because the forks had been pogo-ing on me with really inadequate rebound, so now I was wondering if I had made a mess of it. As it turns out, neither Allen nor I had any issues during our shifts. Observing this, Steve figured it must have all been in his head, got on the bike for his second stint and immediately was back up to his normal pace.
The race was otherwise pretty uneventful. Ken came by the pits but, remembering my accusation of how he jinxed us in Round 1, just kept walking muttering "I'm not saying anything to you guys". With the McAdam Curse thus lifted, our fuel stop and rider changes all went smooth as silk, except for the one stint where I apparently missed four pit boards in a row. Oops.
In the end we finished 7th out of 11 teams in GTU. Not terrible, but still a bit disappointing. We all recognize that we need to get faster, but in addition to that we should work on the equipment a bit. First priority is to swap out the gawd-awful master cylinder. Into the carousel I was braking at least a hundred feet earlier on the Gixxer than I would be on the Duc. No amount of brake bleeding, fluid changes or pad upgrades can fix it (we have tried).
Sunday
There were a few sprinkles overnight and the skies were a bit spooky in the morning, but by the end of morning practice it was nothing but sun. Awesome.
The Ducati was being temperamental again, behaving the same as Saturday morning, but this time I couldn't even get the ECU to talk to the computer. Apparently the problem wasn't the kiskstand interlock afterall. Once again, it seemed to heal itself after a while. By the time it was working properly again it was only 15 minutes to my first practice session and the warmers weren't on yet, so I decided to skip the first round rather than go out on half-cold tires.
Second practice session went fine, but there was so much traffic I didn't have any opportunity to set any fast laps.
I spent the rest of the morning watching the sprint races. Once again, Amateur 600 had a huge number of entries - 27 I think. There were at least three crashes. The worst was my friend Brody Coveduck, who had another rider highside in front of him. Brody really had no options and ended up driving over the fallen bike. Brody came out of it mostly unscathed himself, but his beautiful black and gold Triumph 675 is pretty messed up. Fortunately there doesn't seem to be much damage to any expensive parts except the tank, so we are hoping to see him in action again for Round 3.
For the BOTT LW race I opted to take the outside position even though I had qualified on pole. I felt like this would put me in a better position going into Turn 1. This may have been a good decision because, as you can see in the video, even though my start was still pretty bad I didn't lose as many places as normal.
The race was exciting. Traffic in the form of slower Lost Era HW bikes really affected our race in BOTT LW. Bob was starting at the back and was never a factor, and I managed to get past Alex early to take the lead. However, I was then stuck behind a LE machine and was desperate to pass, in order to put some distance between myself and Alex. I made a terrible decision forcing the issue going into the carousel and nearly took out the LE guy from behind. I just managed to save the situation and in the end I doubt he even knew I was there, so no harm no foul I guess...but I need to make better decisions in the future. Anyway I ran off as a result and Alex got by, so I had the fun of hunting him down again and passing him, all the while both of us negotiating traffic. I ended up winning, taking my first victory ever.
What's Next?
At the beginning of the season it looked like I would need to miss Round 3, but I have been able to rearrange my summer schedule to avoid this. So, with only three rounds to go in the series, I am in really good shape to win the BOTT LW title this year. Alex, Jordan and Dylan have all missed a race, and the way the points are structured this makes it mathematically impossible for anyone to beat me so long as I can always finish fourth or better, stay within two positions of Bob every race, and avoid getting get a DNS or DNF. At this point it is not so much a battle with the competition, it is a battle with the bike's electrical gremlins that could cause a DNS, and my own on-track decision-making which can always lead to a DNF.
More importantly, check out this cool PDR cookie that Allen's wife Tracy made:
