Round three of the 2015 SOAR series July 10-12 was a brutal, incredibly crashy weekend where it seemed like nothing could go right. I avoided the carnage and, despite a big mistake fighting for the lead, still managed a third place in the BOTT LW race. The Prairie Dogs continue to improve and are moving up the ranks of the GTU Endurance class.
(photo: Sheri Manuel)
Round 3
Round 3 was held on the "Reverse Screaming Alien" layout at the Grand Bend Motorplex. This was the annual Steve Shreeve / Jeff Waller Memorial Weekend, which includes a BBQ, band and fireworks show Saturday evening, then the traditional silly pit-bike race event Sunday at lunch.
It was a great pleasure to have my daughter Caterina, 10, and my nephew Nicolo, 17, who was visiting from Italy, along for the weekend. Nico is pretty enthusiastic about the recent success of his Ducati-racing Zio and was really into the whole thing.
I wasn't able to attend the Friday practice day this round, but had a good bit of experience on this layout from a track day back in 2013. Looking back at my records, my previous best lap time was a 1:12.5.
I was entering this round with a healthy lead in the BOTT LW class, and was determined not to make any mistakes that would jeopardize my chances of winning the championship. All I needed to do to keep myself in a good position was to not have a mechanical DNS, or a crash leading to a DNF.
Friday Evening
We met the rest of the Prairie Dog Racing team, Allen and Steve, at the track Friday evening and started hearing stories that would unfortunately set the tone for the rest of the weekend.
Apparently the Friday practice day, especially the "slow" group, had been a complete Gong Show. People showing up late and missing the rider's meeting, then doing idiotic stuff like exiting the track improperly, stopping on the main straight, re-entering the track against marshals' orders and even (get this!) riding at full speed past four red flags and a crash site while the track crew was trying to mobilize the ambulance to attend to the fallen rider.
SOAR principal Ken McAdam was having kittens. Ken is always serious when it comes to safety, but if you make a mistake, when he speaks to you about it (which is always immediately), the conversation is 100% constructive. Not about bawling you out, it is about getting you to understand what you did wrong, why it is dangerous, and making sure you completely understand the correct procedure. Then, on with your day and it's water under the bridge.
To make him actually furious, you have to be a special kind of stupid.
Saturday Practice
I had arrived too late Friday to register or tech the bike, so there was quite a lot to do Saturday morning if I was going to get two practice sessions in before qualifying. Unfortunately we all had such a good sleep in Allen's trailer (which he had completely gutted and put back together since the last round, in order to rebuild the floor structure!), that I didn't wake up until a quarter to eight! Eek! Big panic. Got registered and teched quick but then the bike was doing the same old thing where it would throw the engine light on and stall. At least this time I knew if I warmed it up long enough it would eventually work properly.
The rider's meeting was kind of long since Ken had some "comments" to share regarding the previous day's shenanigans, and there was also a long discussion about the endurance racing procedures. My group was supposed to go out for practice first and there we were, burning up all that time, and my tire warmers weren't on yet...
This stuff gets stressful when you aren't properly prepared. I had just returned from a 5000-km road trip with Caterina and Nico two days prior, and hadn't had the time to really get all my ducks in a row for this round. My lack of preparation was starting to show and we hadn't even hit the track yet.
Anyway I did make it out for first practice with maybe less heat on the tires that I would have liked. Nico was recording my lap times and I was slow. 1:14.2. Jordan Renshaw was doing 1:13.8 on his KTM 390.
Second practice I started to feel it, and managed a few low 1:11s. Better.
Qualifying
The qualifying races were a bit nuts. Lots of crashes, one quite serious resulting in a leg injury and a long delay.
The BOTT LW field was a decent size again this round - 11 entries. Considering that three of the regulars didn't show up (Alex Radecki and the Bauer boys), this was very encouraging. Also, Allen was finally on the grid with his BMW 1100 Boxer Cup Replica.
After some complaints from Bob Tziougras and others, the organizers agreed to give us a two-wave start. The lost era heavyweight bikes would start in front of us while we stood still on the grid, and then after a 20-s delay we would be released. The idea is that we then don't get tangled up with the other class right away, and can race amongst ourselves for at least some of the laps.
Since I had the points lead I was starting on pole for the 6-lap qualifier, and it went according to plan. As you can see from the video, Jordan, Bob and Don all passed me on the start, but I was able to work my way past each of them again, eventually passing Bob on the last lap to claim pole position for Sunday's final, plus five points in the championship.
Allen finished eighth. He was riding the bike well but its lack of top-end power made it hard for him to pass other bikes and then stay ahead of them. Hopefully a little motor work will eventually help with that.
Prairie Dogs Endurance
We had a successful and mostly uneventful endurance race, finishing fifth out of eleven teams in the GTU class. It was another big turnout, with 26 teams total.
I don't know if it was the heat or what, but the race was crashy - four red flags, which I think is more than we had all last year in endurance. Between those crashes and the ones earlier in qualifying, we sent the emergency department in Exeter five broken collar bones in one day! They must have been losing their minds.
Thankfully the PDR team managed to avoid all of that. We found it curious that Allen was on the track every time they threw they red flag, but he claims he was never anywhere near the incidents.
As you can see from the photos, Glen McTavish is just a bottle of Nair away from making a pretty attractive umbrella girl. Cat and Nico handled lap recording and pit boards.
Saturday night was great fun, with a free BBQ, awesome band, and the fireworks show. The SOAR organizers really do make the memorial weekend into something special.
Sunday Morning
I managed to get myself out of bed at a decent time on Sunday. When I took the cover off the bike I noticed that the left heel guard was broken. The thing is butter soft and had been bent back into shape so many times that it had finally snapped at one of the mounting points. Steve got on it for me and figured out a way to trim it, drill a new hole, flip it and remount it. Perfect.
Morning practice went fine and Nico timed me on a bunch of low 11s and maybe some high 10s. As usual, the laps spent on the endurance bike the day before had been useful.
Pit Bike Race
Over the lunch break they held the pit bike race. The costumes were as crazy as ever, and it looked like it was shaping up to be a lot of fun.
This is where shit really started to get weird.
And I don't mean the costumes.
About 10 seconds after starting the event, they suddenly stop it because someone has fallen. No biggie - somebody fell off a minibike at low speed, probably scraped their elbow, right?
Wrong. The person was in fact badly injured, and they have to end the event and bring in the ambulance. Word soon spreads that it is Kyle Newman who has fallen. Kyle...one of the best young riders in the series, holder of the novice #1 plate by virtue of having won the rookie 600 series last season. Kyle, the regular podium contender in the Novice 600 series, who rides with skill and courage on a lost era machine, every round beating dozens of guys on modern machinery. Kyle....Kyle is lying on the asphalt with his femur broken in two places.
In a dress.
You can't make this stuff up.
So, another very long delay while they wait for the road ambulance to show up. Everyone is sitting around in the pits with nothing to do but think about what the hell is going on this weekend, and getting more and more depressed. Then, David Renshaw, Jordan's dad, comes by on a dirtbike on the gravel road beside our pit area. He stops, looks at us, and says
"Look, I''m going to be the next one!"
then rides 5 m, pops a wheelie, turns hard left towards Allen's truck, and crashes.
Only scrapes and cuts for David, but at this point the whole Universe is screaming at me DON'T GET ON THE BIKE!!!! PACK UP AND GO HOME!!!! My daughter is looking at me all freaked out and saying "promise me you won't get hurt Daddy".
But if I pack up and go home, I will get no points, and I will hand Bob Tsiougraz the BOTT LW championship.
And that simply can not happen. Obviously.
Sunday BOTT LW Final
In spite of the protestations of the Universe, nothing really bad happened during the BOTT LW final, except for the fact that my camera stopped working, leaving me with no video. The race itself was pretty interesting, and the video below was taken by Steve Mitchell.
Let's start with Steve. None of us had ever heard of him. After the race he told me that he had just built the bike (an SV650). It had bodywork off of something else, making it look like a four cylinder. In fact, at 8:30 in the video you can see the starter trying to wave him up into the front group, thinking he was one of the Lost Era Heavyweight competitors.
The start was goofy. The first pack got off fine, but when the starter put his hand behind his back to extinguish the red light for our group, instead of waiting a few seconds he dropped the control box on the ground, causing the light to go out immediately (you can see him off to the right in the video at 9:12).
Bob caught on quicker than the rest of us what had happened and got the hole shot, followed by me and then Don on the R1200S.
I had gone into the race telling myself not to take any chances - a win wasn't necessary to keep a good lead in the points, I just needed to not finish too far behind Bob. Which doesn't explain why, on only the second lap, I got greedy and tried to outbrake him at the end of the straight. Instead, I ended up missing the corner completely and straight-lining it (10:52). What was I thinking?
So that's all of me that you will see on the video, but let me explain what happened after that. By the time I rode down the access road to the designated reentry point between turns 4 and 5, I had lost a good 20 s, and pretty much the whole field had passed me. With tons of clear track in front, I put my head down and started turning better and better lap times. Nico clocked me on high 10s, then low tens, and finally one or two laps in the 9s. From memory, I caught up to Allen and Dean Hammond first and got by quickly, then a lap or two later passed Yarek Rutkowski on the back straight. A little later yet I came upon Don Morris and made a slightly sketchy pass on him on the brakes in the same place I had run off on lap two. Next I caught up to Jordan Renshaw and passed him just with motor on the front straight before the dogleg.
Meanwhile, Steve had passed Bob for the lead (nice pass at 17:15 in the video), but Bob had no idea! He didn't recognize the bike, and figured it was one of the LE guys.
After getting by Jordan I had tons of open track again, and just kept laying down the best times I could. Then, just after turning off the back straight, who do I see in the distance, but Bob! I couldn't believe it. I thought he was in the lead and so chased him down as quickly as possible. I don't remember exactly where I passed him, but it was on the last lap or the second last. At that point I thought I was leading.
The last half of the last lap is where it really got interesting. At 22:43 in the video, just after the white flag, a rider crashes in front of Steve entering the carousel. It doesn't affect him though and he carries on, catching up to Allen and Dean on the back straight, who are a lap down. With five corners to go, I come up quick behind Steve who is being slowed up by Allen and Dean. With everything getting backed up I was worried that Bob would find a way by me and retake the "lead". On the short straight just before the triple-apex left they call Big Daddy, I actually pulled right up alongside Steve thinking about making the pass, then decided not to risk it and backed out of it (you can't see me in the video but it was at about 23:27). I had no idea that that pass would have been for first place! Anyway, by the time we came around to the start-finish straight, I decided to go to the right around the traffic, but there was no room. Bob chose the left and just got me at the line - maybe by a wheel.
After the cool-down lap, Bob goes to collect his checkered flag, but is told to carry on, he didn't win. That too is on the video (25:45).
So, in retrospect, I am pretty ashamed of myself for a) making a stupid move that likely cost me a win, and b) not being smart enough to even know who my competitors were on the track. On the plus side, I did turn some pretty great laps when I needed to make up time, and in terms of my points position I managed to do what was necessary.
Next time Steve Mitchell won't have the advantage of running incognito, but regardless, it is wonderful to have one more competitive rider in the BOTT LW class!
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