Floribama Riders

First-time racer's view of Road Atlanta

With all great tragedies, you have to let the emotional healing process complete before the story-telling can begin. I don't go to a therapist, and I have not self-medicated with alcohol lately, so I prescribed a few evenings of crying into my pillow. It's been four nights, and I think I'm about ready.

I arrived in the pits for the 2008 WERA Cycle Jam motorcycle race on Friday afternoon, a little late, but with plenty of time to prepare for the following day. I found fellow Floribama Riders Brett and his mom, Coleen, pitted next to another FBR known as "Porky." A shakedown run revealed my bike was running on one cylinder. After a few discussions, I decided to test the front spark plug, so I had to drain and remove the radiator.

Brett was running practice sessions that day. He seemed concerned about his times, but we assured him everything was fine, and he would get up to speed as soon as he learned the track.

My spark plug looked like crap, and I needed another one, so I walked through the paddock and found a pit with a few SVs. Before I could ask about spark plugs, one of the riders said, "What have you been doing? Digging ditches?" His buddies cracked up. I had been working on the bike since 5 AM, wiping grease on anything handy--my jeans, my t-shirt, my weekend stubble-beard. You know things are not going well when a bunch of no-account motorcycle racers make fun of your personal hygeine.

Luckily, one of the fellows had a pair of fancy (iridium-tipped!) spark plugs that he was willing to sell at a reasonable price. I walked back to my pit and tried grounding the spark plug to the bike frame.

A clueless mechanic

"EEEYAH! ZOWIE"! No, the spark plug didn't work. Those are the sounds I made when I accidentally made myself part of the circuit. Grounding the spark plug a second time, taking care to avoid the metal bits, did not work either.

Henry arrived at some point in the middle of this drama. He set up his pit with efficiency, down to the little fake grass rug he uses to take the edge off the pavement heat. His race bike was shiny. I looked on with some admiration and some measure of resentment. Ok, it was mostly resentment. Thoroughly demoralized after a day of mechanical ineptitude, I started to think about dinner.

Then Linda arrived from Birmingham to help with the last of the pit setup. Henry said, "We'll wrap up here, and you can go take a shower." He seemed very concerned about my presentability for the Cracker Barrel, but real men shower when the work is complete. I ignored the hints and just changed my clothes.

Dinner was delicious, considering that I had not eaten anything all day. I drove back to the track and arrived at my pit to witness half a disaster. Road Atlanta had endured a moderate Georgia summer storm in our absence, and of course I had not tied down anything properly, so the EZ-Up canopy was halfway off the bike and down the hill. The t-shirt I had stuffed into the front cylinder spark plug hole was soaking wet, hanging by its collar from the exhaust. I cleaned up as much as I could and borrowed some tie-downs and a tarp from Brett's pit. I draped the tarp over the bed of the El Camino, tied on some water jugs to hold things down and crawled inside. Even with the water jugs, the tarp sagged in the middle and created a puddle, so I slept most of the night on my back with my knee propping up the tarp to create a sloped roof.

Saturday

I woke up at 6:45, emerging from the truck bed to see Henry's smiling face. A twinkle in his eye suggested he had something to do with my early awakening, but at least he didn't draw on my face with permanent marker.

I started back on the electrical problem, but I didn't really have a clue where the problem lay. Since the spark plugs were new, and the rear cylinder was sparking, it had to be either the spark plug wire, the ignition coil for that cylinder or the CDI/"brain box" that controls the ignition. I'll spare you the gory details of diagnosing, testing and re-diagnosing the problem.

Trust me that there was lots of head-scratching and periodic shocks, literally, as I repeatedly held the metal part of the spark plug by mistake. I missed tech inspection due to the fact that bike was in pieces, but I felt reasonably confident I could convince someone to take pity on me and pass the bike if I figured out the problem.

I knew it was lunch time because Coleen handed me a turkey sandwich. She was very kind, but she also mentioned stories that involved "decking" people who had wronged her or her family. She's such a kind soul, but evidently, you don't mess with her.

After lunch, I endured my most miserable experience of the weekend, walking down pit row, begging people for advice or a spare CDI or a ignition coil. I would accept any or all of the above. Nobody had the parts for the older SV, but I did get some advice. I felt like I was spreading misery and mechanical misfortune throughout the paddock.

Brett and Henry

My mechanics

I would be remiss if I did not pay homage to the folks who helped me through these issues.

Brett - Mechanically gifted and a patient teacher. On the one hand, I felt like I should be mentoring *him* because I'm at least 10 years his senior. On the other, I was lost in a morass of despair, and our relationship took on another tone.

Brett encouraged me to be patient, to use the multimeter and think about the problem. I was Robert Downey, Jr. as the older brother in a downward spiral, while Brett played the solid, supportive younger sibling trying to get things back on track. Picture Tobey McGuire in one of his more earnest roles.

David - Good with advice, but a little gun shy because his own son, Brett, feels very independent and does not accept much help. I think David learned over the course of the weekend that my resolve for self-sufficiency is different (weaker, jelly-like by comparison) than his son's.

Henry - He offered advice but kept his distance from the electrical diagnosis process. Smart man!

Dumb luck after lunch

Some time after lunch, I tried cranking the bike again. After a few seconds of cranking I yelled, "Holy crap!" No, it wasn't the bike shocking me again. The front cylinder was showing a spark!

I tried to process the enormity of the moment. I had spent the past three days trying to get the bike to spark off the front cylinder. I had dragged all my friends into the process. I had humiliated myself in front of the entire WERA paddock. Now the problem was fixed. And I had no idea why.

I realized that I could possibly still make the Solo 16 race in the afternoon if an incredibly nice WERA official would pass my bike for tech inspection. I had to put it back together first and clean up the loose ends. I had drilled all the holes, but some wiring remained.

ILean before the race

Henry quickly indentified everything that would not pass tech. Henry put RTV silicone on the oil gallery plugs, David wired some bolts and Brett pitched in everywhere and helped keep me calm.

I rode over to the WERA pit out and asked nicely if the fellow would inspect the bike. He asked whether I had run practice at the track, and I said no. He said he could not let me run that day, but they would refund the race and allow me to run the next day after I got in some practice. I put on my best puppy dog face and tried to charm and wheedle as best I could to no avail. The guy wasn't budging.

I felt pretty dejected. To make up for missing the Saturday solo, I signed up for a third race on Sunday. I was really grumpy, but in retrospect, the WERA official made the right choice.

Somewhere in there, Brett and Henry raced V6 LW, with Brett placing 5th and Henry in 6th. Brett rode Hawkenstein, an 80 HP Honda Hawk, while Henry rode a Hawk with substantially less oomph. Still, Henry has a ton of experience, so we all enjoy poking fun at him for losing to a whippersnapper who's running his second race weekend.  :)

My mood improved seeing Brett and Henry have so much fun. My bike was ready, I was signed up for a bunch of races and I was ready for a meal with good friends. Since my mechanical efforts had finally succeeded, I deserved a shower and took one.

Furry Cubans gone wild!

Saturday night, the group met at a Mexican restaurant for good company, a fun atmosphere, so-so food and enormous margaritas. But again, I had not eaten most of the day, so it tasted great. Everyone was in high spirits. Henry broke into Spanish and encouraged the mariachi band to play his favorite Cuban song.

I felt so jazzed when I got back to the pits that I put a finishing touch on the bike, installing my lap timer. I didn't really need to see the lap times on the dash, and I probably didn't want to, but it felt nice to wrap that up. I crawled into the bed of the El Camino excited for the morning.

Sunday, racing!

Sunday morning, I brought the bike to tech and passed without a single question. I was cleared to race! Brett and Henry went out with me in the only practice run of the day, Brett in front and Henry trailing behind. That was a huge help. Thanks guys!

I truly felt my grasshopper status when I noticed my clutch lever moving up and down in some of the corners. I thought it was a loose lever mount, which would have been fine, but it turned out to be the whole clip-on handlebar. Yikes, that can cause a problem if it comes out of the mount and you lose your left bar. This was running through my mind as we approached a quick left-right transition in the Turn 3-4 chicane. I completely flubbed the corner, and Brett pulled away, just maintaining the proper speed. Henry must have been frustrated behind me.

I felt genuinely scared several times in that 20-minute session. In my track day experience, I had never felt bikes pass by my elbow with such a difference in speed. Everyone else knew what they were doing, and most importantly, they knew which way the track went. I wanted to pull into the pits, attend to the handlebar and cry to my mommy, but I knew I didn't have much time to practice, so I stayed out there and kept an eye on the bar position. My best lap was around 2:05, which is not horrible considering I was seeing the track for the first time in person.

Things quieted down from 10-12, and I ate my favorite camping meal, baked beans from a can. My friends Heather and Tim showed up around 1 PM, just in time for my Formula 2 race. Heather brought lots of energy, saying, "Yay John!" as I suited up for the race. You can't underestimate the value of having someone say, "Yay you!" once in a while. Tim will run *his* first race at Road Atlanta in a few weeks, using a Nissan NX2000 car. He has run plenty of track days at Road A, but I think he was observing my experience of a first-time racer. I did not help matters by answering Heather's questions, "How do you feel? Are you excited?" with the statement, "I want to pee my pants. Does WERA require a catch tank for that?"

Formula 2

All my FBR friends lined the way to pit road, cheering me on for my first race in Formula 2. The race began well, with me passing two or three people off the start on the left side of the track, just like Ryan had suggested. I felt a little bad because I knew I probably would hold up traffic, but it's racing, and I guess some people need to work on their starts. Those people quickly passed me back, and I tried to focus on riding well.

I had no clue what my position was, but evidently, I came in 8th out of 9 riders in my class with a best lap of 2:01.702. The guys at the front actually lapped me toward the end of the race, and that was scary as heck. Imagine you're on the street, riding down a road at speed with a sharp corner looming ahead. You have to turn to make the corner, but you can hear a shrieking pack of bikes closing in on your tail with a 20 MPH difference in speed--and you have no mirrors. What would any reasonable person do? Probably pull off the road, but you're not supposed to do that in racing. I kept my elbows in and tried to think small. Aaah!

Brett and Henry in Clubman

Brett and Henry ran Clubman, and they both placed 3rd in their respective classes! Heather, Tim and I were watching from Turn 1, and our friends looked really on their game. Henry put in a best lap in the 1:58s, giving me something to shoot for.

Brett waiting to pass

LWT SS and LWT SB

In my next race, Lightweight Superstock, I expected to do better because the bikes must remain close to stock. I was runing with stock everything, including the airbox, carburetors and muffler. Even my tires were streetgoing Michelin Pilot Powers that had seen three or four track days. Of course, I'm not pushing to the limits of the tires yet, but still.

Brett and Henry were running the same race, and Brett started behind me in the second wave. We had fun running around the track for a while, and eventually he passed me going into Turn 6. I think he waited some time until he could get a super-clean pass, and I appreciate that.

Then it started to rain, and I completely chickened out and slowed down. I remember entering Turn 6 and getting lapped on the left by a rider who rode off the pavement. I moved to the right, gave a ton of room and tiptoed through 7, which was slick in the rain. I never got Turn 7 right all day, which is evidently an important corner because it leads to the fast part of the track.

In my last race, Lightweight Twins Superbike, I ran ok (for me) with a best lap of 2:01.889. In spite of the 80-90 degree heat through the weekend, I did not feel tired. Physically, three races are pretty easy if you don't put in so much practice! Somehow I think that's not the smart way to win races though. You can see our results here.

Thanks

My assistant mechanics, Brett, Henry and David, performed superbly. More importantly Brett and Henry put up with my shenanigans. The last thing you need on a race day is more stress, and I was wound tighter than a WFO throttle cable the entire weekend. Coleen and Linda were supportive all weekend, as was fellow FBR Porky in the next pit. Coleen got creative with my FBR nickname of Ice T. She called me "Sweet T," which I think is much more appropriate.

Matatoro FBR Lloyd checked in on Sunday and offered the following helpful advice: "So are you sure you're opening the gas all the way?" I can't tell if he was serious or pulling my leg. My impressive race results for the weekend, 8th, 12th and 12th, I dedicate to you, buddy.  :)

Camping in the bed of the El Camino

Heather and Tim provided a much-needed dose of energy Sunday afternoon. Another FBR, Ryan, spent a full hour with me on the phone prior to the weekend, reviewing his old race footage and helping me "learn" the track before I showed up in person. I still felt lost out there, but the fact that my first-ever practice session showed times only 4 seconds off my race pace was due in large part to his advice. (Of course, I should be pushing harder in the races, but that's for next time.)

I met a ton of helpful people in the WERA paddock, and I was a little overwhelmed and don't have a lot of the names. Brad of MSP Cycles offered advice, and I have subsequently dropped off my bike at his shop. They didn't look at me too funny when I said, "Everything I did to prepare this bike for racing last weekend? Can you fix what I fixed?"

My biggest shout out goes to the Floribama Riders. This is a great club, and I would not be racing today if I had not attended the first FBR Barber track day years ago. If you're in the Southeast and you're into sport-touring and are thinking about trying a track day, this is the club for you. Speaking of which, we've got another one coming up at Barber Motorsports Park on Saturday, July 26. Sign up, and you can ride as well as me, or more likely, better.

I am the grasshopper.