Mike
06-24-2008, 08:29 AM
Joes race report.
In a message dated 6/23/2008 12:40:51 PM Pacific Daylight Time, Jopp43 writes:
This was a brand new track for us, as we had never raced here before. I had heard that it was a red clay car track, so that got my hopes up, as I have always liked the red clay tracks such as Hagerstown and Charlotte. It seems the red clay usually stays together really good, and makes for a slick, polished, smoothe surface.
Once I got to the track and went and walked around it, I could tell this was gonna be a fun one. My mechanics Rob and Larry had me two great Latus Harley Davidson XR750's www.Latus-HD.com ready for tonight. I had a real good time last weekend with Dayton and Peoria, and I was determined to keep the momentum rollin'. I still think the other racers got lucky in New York when we had some bike troubles, and now was the time I was going to come firing back.
I went out in my first non-times first practice and the bike felt pretty good, but we were definitely a little ways off on our gearing. So I came back in and we changed the gearing and went out for another shot, which this one would be our first qualifying time. The bike definitely was better, but I was still struggling a little bit down in turn four. I came in and seen I was 8th fastest, which was ok, but not where I wanted to be. So then we got ready to go out for our next and last qualifying session, but just as we fired the bike up to pull out on the track, we noticed that it was not pumping oil out the oil pump, as our clear oil line showed us that. We shut it down real quick, and Rob and Larry went to work on it. They found the problem, and had it fixed in just a few minutes, but I ended up missing my last session, which kind of had been the normal for me these last few races it seemed. Practice and qualifying had just not gone too smoothe this season so far, but I was ok with that, because I knew we had a pretty good set up in that last session, and I knew the last changes we had made were going the right direction, so lets race!
I would be in the first heat, as Mees was on pole being the fast qualifier, then Carr, myself and on down the line. As we were getting ready to line up, I told Mees " 100 bucks to turn one" , meaning whoever gets the holeshot gets $100. I knew he really likes to work on his starts too, but I didn't care, as I just felt a good start coming on. He wouldn't shake on the deal, so there was never an actual bet. At the flash of the green light, my bike was hooking up and the holeshot was mine as I came out of turn two with the lead. Dang, I wish he would have shook on that. hahaha Anyway, I ran it hard into turn three and I could tell right away that my bike was feeling great and working great too. I pushed it pretty hard for a few laps, but this track was kind of tricky, as in the middle of each corner it was pretty polished off and slick. Right in the middle of each corner, I would have my front end tuck under quite a bit on me, which makes you feel like you are gonna start to crash by loosing the front end out from under you. But on a slick track like this, that is normal at a high speed too, so my bike was doing exactly like I wanted it to, as you just had to really ride that fine line of saving it or not saving it each time it would do that. Each time it would do this, I would pick up the throttle a little bit, and this would make the bike stand up a little and track good off the corner. I could hear someone behind me fairly close the whole race, but I knew as long as I ran my lines and didn't make any mistakes, I would get to the finish first. Then the checkered flag flew and we got there first, followed by Mees and Carr. Bryan Smith won his heat, as did Coolbeth and Johnson. I ended up having the fastest heat of the night, so now we had pole for the final too. I wasn't too worried about having pole for the final, as all the spots on the front row for starting looked really good to me, but now we had first pick, so I'll take it.
Now for the final. I knew a good start was going to be critical, as it seemed from watching the other heat races and semis, that passing was pretty had. I mean there was plenty of good track surface to pass on as they had done a great job of preparing the track, but it seemed that a lot of people were going real fast tonight, and there was pretty much one fast line you wanted to be on. At the start, the light went green, and my bike wheelied a little bit, and this let Smith get by me with the lead, but right away exiting turn two, the red lights came on, as I guess Mees and Sammy Sweet had gotten together and went down in turn one. They both were pretty dang sore, as Sweet sat it out after that, but Mees decided to try it again. So we had a complete restart, and this time , I nailed it perfect, and kept the front wheel down just right. I had the lead going into turn one, but there was alot of real tacky track way lower than our racing line, plus it was pretty rough down there. Well, Smith decides he's going to try a bonzai move as I heard him grab a handful and he drove underneath me, way down low. But now he would have to make another turn once he got to the groove, which I was already on, and rolling fast. So once he blasted up to the groove, he had to turn the bike really hard and try and make it stick. Didn't happen! He broke it all sideways, which made me totally check up on the brakes to avoid running into the back of him, which let third place Coolbeth get a drive n both us out of turn two. I also got by Smith right there as he was just trying to save it and not get hit by a bunch of people when I went by too. Ya know, I don't mind a pass like that, as I have done them before too, but in my book, if ya can't make the pass stick, and you go from 1st to 3rd or wherever he went, then it was uncalled for. What comes around goes around right!, Now I won't feel bad when I have to do that to him someday.
But now Coolbeth had the lead, and I was in second, and for the first lap I closed it right up on him. Ooh, I was feeling good about now, and for the next 5 or 6 laps, I was all over him, trying to find a way past. He was making quite a few little mistakes here and there, but I just was not ready to capitalize on them yet I could hear bikes behind us still, so I knew they were back there still, but they did not sound too close. Then around lap 8 or so, I seen that Kenny's rear disc was just glowing red hot. About the same time, I was noticing that my rear brake was fading a little too, so seeing his disc cherry red, made me think about trying to save my brakes as much as possible, and wondering if mine were red hot too?. I think this slowed me down a little bit, thinking about his and my brakes, as he inched away a few bike lengths during the middle section of the race. Now around the halfway, and I could tell we had gotten away from whoever was behind me, so I knew I had to close the gap back up on Kenny. A little here, then he's get me a little there. We were both real even it seemed. Then the five lap to go board came out, and I started pushing it really hard to close this gap back up. On the last two laps I got real close, but Kenny ended up coming home with the win, and myself second, and then a surprise as Sam Halbert got third. I ended up 1.06 seconds behind Coolbeth at the finish, then Halbert another 2.5 seconds behind me. Kenny is really tough on these clay tracks, but I seen some definite weeks spots tonight, and I will be way more ready next time. I really think that if Smith had not done that to me in turn one on the start, that I would have won this race tonight. But I'll just go onto this next weekend, as it's a big one, a double header. We have a Friday night 1/2 mile red clay car track national in Bedford Pennsylvania, then a 1/2 mile cushion national in Lima Ohio the next day. Two totally different style tracks, back to back, and it's gonna be fun!
Tonight moved me up to third in the points, and I can smell the blood once again!
Until next time, G'Day! Joe
In a message dated 6/23/2008 12:40:51 PM Pacific Daylight Time, Jopp43 writes:
This was a brand new track for us, as we had never raced here before. I had heard that it was a red clay car track, so that got my hopes up, as I have always liked the red clay tracks such as Hagerstown and Charlotte. It seems the red clay usually stays together really good, and makes for a slick, polished, smoothe surface.
Once I got to the track and went and walked around it, I could tell this was gonna be a fun one. My mechanics Rob and Larry had me two great Latus Harley Davidson XR750's www.Latus-HD.com ready for tonight. I had a real good time last weekend with Dayton and Peoria, and I was determined to keep the momentum rollin'. I still think the other racers got lucky in New York when we had some bike troubles, and now was the time I was going to come firing back.
I went out in my first non-times first practice and the bike felt pretty good, but we were definitely a little ways off on our gearing. So I came back in and we changed the gearing and went out for another shot, which this one would be our first qualifying time. The bike definitely was better, but I was still struggling a little bit down in turn four. I came in and seen I was 8th fastest, which was ok, but not where I wanted to be. So then we got ready to go out for our next and last qualifying session, but just as we fired the bike up to pull out on the track, we noticed that it was not pumping oil out the oil pump, as our clear oil line showed us that. We shut it down real quick, and Rob and Larry went to work on it. They found the problem, and had it fixed in just a few minutes, but I ended up missing my last session, which kind of had been the normal for me these last few races it seemed. Practice and qualifying had just not gone too smoothe this season so far, but I was ok with that, because I knew we had a pretty good set up in that last session, and I knew the last changes we had made were going the right direction, so lets race!
I would be in the first heat, as Mees was on pole being the fast qualifier, then Carr, myself and on down the line. As we were getting ready to line up, I told Mees " 100 bucks to turn one" , meaning whoever gets the holeshot gets $100. I knew he really likes to work on his starts too, but I didn't care, as I just felt a good start coming on. He wouldn't shake on the deal, so there was never an actual bet. At the flash of the green light, my bike was hooking up and the holeshot was mine as I came out of turn two with the lead. Dang, I wish he would have shook on that. hahaha Anyway, I ran it hard into turn three and I could tell right away that my bike was feeling great and working great too. I pushed it pretty hard for a few laps, but this track was kind of tricky, as in the middle of each corner it was pretty polished off and slick. Right in the middle of each corner, I would have my front end tuck under quite a bit on me, which makes you feel like you are gonna start to crash by loosing the front end out from under you. But on a slick track like this, that is normal at a high speed too, so my bike was doing exactly like I wanted it to, as you just had to really ride that fine line of saving it or not saving it each time it would do that. Each time it would do this, I would pick up the throttle a little bit, and this would make the bike stand up a little and track good off the corner. I could hear someone behind me fairly close the whole race, but I knew as long as I ran my lines and didn't make any mistakes, I would get to the finish first. Then the checkered flag flew and we got there first, followed by Mees and Carr. Bryan Smith won his heat, as did Coolbeth and Johnson. I ended up having the fastest heat of the night, so now we had pole for the final too. I wasn't too worried about having pole for the final, as all the spots on the front row for starting looked really good to me, but now we had first pick, so I'll take it.
Now for the final. I knew a good start was going to be critical, as it seemed from watching the other heat races and semis, that passing was pretty had. I mean there was plenty of good track surface to pass on as they had done a great job of preparing the track, but it seemed that a lot of people were going real fast tonight, and there was pretty much one fast line you wanted to be on. At the start, the light went green, and my bike wheelied a little bit, and this let Smith get by me with the lead, but right away exiting turn two, the red lights came on, as I guess Mees and Sammy Sweet had gotten together and went down in turn one. They both were pretty dang sore, as Sweet sat it out after that, but Mees decided to try it again. So we had a complete restart, and this time , I nailed it perfect, and kept the front wheel down just right. I had the lead going into turn one, but there was alot of real tacky track way lower than our racing line, plus it was pretty rough down there. Well, Smith decides he's going to try a bonzai move as I heard him grab a handful and he drove underneath me, way down low. But now he would have to make another turn once he got to the groove, which I was already on, and rolling fast. So once he blasted up to the groove, he had to turn the bike really hard and try and make it stick. Didn't happen! He broke it all sideways, which made me totally check up on the brakes to avoid running into the back of him, which let third place Coolbeth get a drive n both us out of turn two. I also got by Smith right there as he was just trying to save it and not get hit by a bunch of people when I went by too. Ya know, I don't mind a pass like that, as I have done them before too, but in my book, if ya can't make the pass stick, and you go from 1st to 3rd or wherever he went, then it was uncalled for. What comes around goes around right!, Now I won't feel bad when I have to do that to him someday.
But now Coolbeth had the lead, and I was in second, and for the first lap I closed it right up on him. Ooh, I was feeling good about now, and for the next 5 or 6 laps, I was all over him, trying to find a way past. He was making quite a few little mistakes here and there, but I just was not ready to capitalize on them yet I could hear bikes behind us still, so I knew they were back there still, but they did not sound too close. Then around lap 8 or so, I seen that Kenny's rear disc was just glowing red hot. About the same time, I was noticing that my rear brake was fading a little too, so seeing his disc cherry red, made me think about trying to save my brakes as much as possible, and wondering if mine were red hot too?. I think this slowed me down a little bit, thinking about his and my brakes, as he inched away a few bike lengths during the middle section of the race. Now around the halfway, and I could tell we had gotten away from whoever was behind me, so I knew I had to close the gap back up on Kenny. A little here, then he's get me a little there. We were both real even it seemed. Then the five lap to go board came out, and I started pushing it really hard to close this gap back up. On the last two laps I got real close, but Kenny ended up coming home with the win, and myself second, and then a surprise as Sam Halbert got third. I ended up 1.06 seconds behind Coolbeth at the finish, then Halbert another 2.5 seconds behind me. Kenny is really tough on these clay tracks, but I seen some definite weeks spots tonight, and I will be way more ready next time. I really think that if Smith had not done that to me in turn one on the start, that I would have won this race tonight. But I'll just go onto this next weekend, as it's a big one, a double header. We have a Friday night 1/2 mile red clay car track national in Bedford Pennsylvania, then a 1/2 mile cushion national in Lima Ohio the next day. Two totally different style tracks, back to back, and it's gonna be fun!
Tonight moved me up to third in the points, and I can smell the blood once again!
Until next time, G'Day! Joe