A first time Novice race report

[JCoulter]

WARNING: This is long… I mean really long… no, longer than that…. Yeah, THAT long. You have been warned.

Friday Evening:
I left my house in Arlington at 6pm with my wife (Gwen) and three kids, hoping to get to the racetrack and drop off my bike and trailer with some friends that would be staying overnight at the track prior to heading to my mother’s place in Puyallup. She lives much closer to Pacific Raceways than I do, so staying with her seemed to make the most sense and would allow me the best opportunity to get some sleep before getting to the track at 6:30 AM. It also provided a place for Gwen and the kids to spend the day until my race. I figured that I could have the bike dropped off and be at Mom’s by 8pm where she had Chinese food waiting.

Traffic had other plans for me however, as I didn’t end up getting to the racetrack until 8:00 PM due to an incident in Kent that had traffic making a rather strange detour. By the time I got to the track, all of the people I had expected to see were already gone for the night, or in their trailers. Fortunately Mario Alvarez (Adrenalin Freaks Trackdays) was hard at work getting Little Mario’s bike prepped for the next day’s racing. He was happy to let me drop of my bike in his pit area, allowing me to not have to worry about leaving my bike on the trailer in front of my mom’s house. Thank You Mario!!

I finally arrived at almost 9:00 PM, with three very grumpy, very hungry kids. We got the kids situated, dished up dinner, then unloaded the truck for the weekend before finally getting the chance to eat myself. By the time the kids got baths and into bed, it was 11pm and I was exhausted. With a 5:00 AM alarm programmed, I was just about on par for my normal trackday allotment of sleep.

Saturday:
I rolled out of bed at 5am, cursing the alarm clock and the dresser that jumped out of nowhere, straight into the path of my little toe on my left foot. A quick shower and I was out the door…. to the pouring rain. DANGIT. I have racing slicks on the trackbike… oh well, I also have a set of rain tires, so I can deal, but I had really wanted to have my first race on a dry track.

Starbucks provided my morning fuel, while Safeway filled the tanks of the Excursion and the extra gas can for the bike. I was only planning on filling the gas can, but I couldn’t pass up diesel at 4.49/gallon. It scares me a little that I get excited when I see diesel under 4.50, when just last year I was cursing it for being above 2.50. Oh well, life goes on.

I finally got to the track at 6:30 and got in line to enter the track at 7am. As a first-time Novice I knew that there would be a number of things that I would inevitably screw up and I wanted to be ready for the 9am Novice practice session. Things went pretty quickly as soon as the track entrance opened and I quickly found a pit spot near my Novice Mentor Mike Levenson. I figured it would be good to have him nearby in the event that I had stupid questions.

I walked around the pits to get my bearings and verified that I needed to register first, then get tech inspection. Registration went quickly thanks to a great volunteer staff and it didn’t take long before I had my riding gear in hand on my way to tech inspection. WMRRA requires that both your riding gear and your bike pass a technical inspection. Gear inspection was a breeze and my newly repaired leathers had no issues. Thanks Victoria A!!!

I dropped my gear back into the truck and went to grab my bike from Mario’s pits. I wheeled the bike to the Tech Inspector who quickly found an issue with my bike. No safety wire on the three bolts that attach the exhaust hanger to the bike and exhaust can. The inspector passed me on my assurance that they would be corrected and he would be allowed to re-inspect the bike after I had made corrections. He even provided recommendations on how to best safety wire the bolts in question. Thanks again to another group of volunteers that make racing in Washington possible!!

Okay, I finally have everything past inspection and it is time to deal with the most pressing issue of the day. RAIN, but not enough. I can’t run racing slicks in the rain, but I can’t run rain tires in the dry as they will overheat and quickly fall apart. I make the decision to swap to the rains, as the weatherman called for showers throughout the day, but I have nowhere to perform the swap without getting everything wet as I don’t have a canopy yet. Fortunately for me Geoff Lambert has three of them and was kind enough to let me share his pit area. I rolled my bike out of Mario’s pit just as the person whose spot I was taking was starting to get anxious about the strange bike blocking his area. I can’t thank Mario or Geoff enough for letting me park with them. Geoff let me use his tools, relax in his hospitality area and keep dry under his canopies. A novice could not ask for more.

I got the rain tires swapped onto the bike, but I had missed the 9am novice practice. No worries, we have another practice session at 10:30, so I should still have time to get warmed up on the bike and test out the new rain tires. By 10:15 I am beginning to realize that I have a problem however. That stupid weatherman lied to me. There are no showers, there is only clouds and a quickly drying racetrack. No time to swap back to the slicks, I head out at 10:30 to see if the track has enough moisture to ride the rain tires. Three slow laps tells the story, I am going to ruin my tires if I try to get any worthwhile practice. I roll back to my pits to relax before my 2:10 race.

At this point, I am still thinking that the weatherman may know a thing to two and I will still be okay on the rain tires, but this proves to be a false assumption and by 12:30 the weather looks mighty fine indeed. So I start the process of swapping back only the slicks to allow myself enough time to put them on the tire warmers prior to the race. There was a 750 Supersport race, then a vintage class race, then the Novice heat so I wanted to have the tire warmers started by the time the 750s hit the track. This time things went my way and I got everything swapped and tire warmers on just as the 750s left the starting line. Woohooo, I get to go watch the race.

My family had also just arrived, so Gwen, the kids and I, along with my brother, his wife, their three kids, mom and my grandfather all settled in to watch the action. By the time we had settled ourselves, we were at the perfect vantage point to see someone hit the ground hard coming out of turn eight. CRAP… this is not what I want my family to see just before I race in my first race ever. Some of them have never even seen me ride a bike, must less attempt to ride one fast. The race is stopped and the rider is sent by helicopter to Harborview, resulting in a nearly 2 hour delay and a complete rework of the schedule. I now get to wait for two vintage classes to race before the novice heat and they have reduced the length of the heat from 8 laps to 6 laps. I had unplugged the tire warmers to prevent the tires from overheating and now had to get everything back up to temperature before the race. It is nearly 3:50 when the vintage 250/160 racers hit the track. One race to go, then it is my turn. Slicks are heating nicely, I am relaxed, in my gear… ready. Yup, I am ready…. WTF IS THAT… RAIN??? You have got to be kidding me. Now? Why Now? AAAAAHHHHHHHHH

I am no longer relaxed… now I am freaking out like when they took the Whopper away at Burger King and filmed people’s reaction. Pretty serious stuff I tell ya.

No time to swap tires, might not even be enough rain to worry about… but I am worried. I don’t like this one bit. Nope, not at all. Oh well, there is the whistle, it is time for my group to get on track. Off come the warmers, front stand comes out from under the bike, rear stand out, bike in gear, away I go through track entrance and down the access road. Stop before entering the track… wait… wait…. Finally we head out for the warmup lap. Stupid rain is still coming down, but the track seems okay… not too bad, maybe everything will be okay. Through 2, 3, 4, 5…. Why is there a bike in the middle of the track with no rider??? Why is there a rider sliding down the track with no bike??? Crud, the rain is slippery after all… and I am on slicks. I am scared again.

Shrug it off… just go slow…. It’s only your life on the line… AHHH… shut up. Up to the starting grid… row 8, position 3.. 28th on the grid. Crappy place to start, probably going to stall and get smashed… stupid rain… CRAP, the green flag is moving it is time to GO!!!! On the throttle and through turn one. Not too fast, it is wet, my visor is misting over. No windshield wipers here, wipe away the rain with my hand as I accelerate out of turn two and head down the hill into turn three. Take it easy… don’t crash. I make some passes around slower traffic and am moving up nicely, but not where I want to be.

By the end of lap two the rain is gone completely and the dry line has formed around the track, but I am 21 seconds from the leader. Now it is time to get serious and pass some of the traffic that is fast, but not that fast. I turn up the pace and get around a couple of people down the hill into turn three. I run quick times, but I can’t seem to get clear of traffic long enough to really run the times that I am capable of. This is frustrating, but I guess that is part of racing. Better to learn how to pass now than to move up to Expert and have little experience at it.

When the race ends I find myself in 10th place with a best laptime of 1:38.0, over three seconds off of the pace that I know I can do but pretty good for the amount of traffic I had to deal with. Still I am disappointed with seeing that number next to my name. I wanted a 1:34.x 

[JCoulter]

Sunday:
Up early again on Sunday, but not as early because there is no need to go through Registration or Tech Inspection again. I just have to be at the track for the 8:30 mandatory rider’s meeting. We have the meeting and then Novice Practice gets under way at 9:00. I head out to practice and do four slow laps, as the tires were not on the warmers and I didn’t want to crash. I just wanted to warm up the suspension fluids and make sure that the transponder was catching my laptimes correctly. I rolled over to the get my suspension tweaked by Barry at Dunlop/GP Suspension North. He deems the suspension to his liking and I roll back to my pits to relax before my 4:00 race.

My family arrives at 3:10, just as I am starting to get my tire warmers on and get into my gear, so it is a quick “hello” before they head up to the Grandstands to watch my race. There is a crash in one of the races before the Novice Heat, so we are delayed until 4:15, but I am ready this time. The weather is good and the bike is ready. I WILL get my laptimes into respectable numbers today, I can feel it. I check the grid board one last time before heading out and verify that it has changed from the first posting. The wave start has pushed me back to row 9, position 2. 32nd position for those of you who are counting, another crappy grid position*, as more people came out to race due to the change in the weather. I don’t care though, I AM READY.

We head out for the warmup lap and this time there are no crashes, just a nice smooth lap before coming around to grid… except for a tiny little problem. Someone is already sitting in my grid position when I come around. He moves back a row, but there are still five people left in the row, which is supposed to have four in it. Total disorder, as it would seem that some people didn’t check their grid positions again after the morning so they weren’t aware that things had changed. Oh well, who cares, I AM READY.

Grid board comes up, Grid board goes sideways, First wave goes…. One, two, three, Green flag drops and the second wave heads out. I am hard on the gas and moving through traffic. I catch the tail end of the first wave before we pass the first corner and I am charging as hard as I can while dealing with the throngs of riders weaving around me. I pass people in nearly every corner, determined to find some clear space and lay down the laps that I know I can do. The first lap comes to an end and I am feeling really good. I pass the start/finish line and pass a rider on the outside of turn one, then slide past two more on the entrance of turn two. I hit the first apex of the double apex turn and start to roll on the throttle…. But nothing happens. WTF??? False Neutral??? Click the transmission up one gear and very slowly release the clutch, hoping to not lose too much time. Back on the throttle…. Still nothing.

I raise my hand to warn the riders behind me that I am having a problem and start to drift outside to let rider past me on the inside. A rider slides around me on the outside as I check over my shoulder. Two more riders are stacked up on my outside, so I hold my line while they get past. As soon as they are gone, I verify that I am clear and ease out to the outside edge of the track at the exit of turn two. I slow the bike and ease it off into the gravel to prevent myself from being in the way and park it in front of the corner worker’s station. Now, as safely out of the way as I can hope to get, I attempt to restart the bike. It turns over… but refuses to start. CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!

I look over at the corner worker to let him know that my motor has stopped and see that he has a RED flag in the air. I look back across turn two and see carnage; multiple bikes and riders in the gravel. This doesn’t look good at all. Yelling up to the corner worker I inquire, “Did I cause that”? My fear is that when my motor stopped I either blew the engine and spread oil, or slowed so quickly that a rider behind me grabbed too much brake and crashed, taking out another rider.

“No,” comes the reply from the corner worker. “The first crasher was blowing smoke and dumped oil all over the track and caused it”

I breathe a sigh of relief, thankful that my misfortune has not led to the misfortune of others. I try to start the bike again, but I get the same result. The corner worker, Scott, radios into Track Control to let them know that I am a mechanical failure and will need a transport back to the pits. He is told that the crash truck is busy and that I will have to wait. No biggie, I run track control for a trackday company, I know how this works. Besides, if me standing around holding my bike up means that one more race gets to run, then I am all for it. No one else should lose track time because my engine went boom. The volunteer WMRRA staff bustle around like bees for the next ten minutes, cleaning the mess that has been left on the track.

Scott helps me push my dead bike over to the inside of turn two to keep me out of harm’s way and the Novice riders grid up to start again. Only five laps this time though, not the eight that we would have had. I get the distinct privilege of watching my fellow riders blaze by me at 120mph while I stand, holding my useless lump of machine because it has no kickstand. (For those of you that are not racers, racebikes are required to have kickstands removed) As the lead rider flies by on his second lap, the red flag comes out again. Three riders are down in turn two from the residual oil that has come back up through the kitty litter. One crashed on the first lap of the restart and two more hit the asphalt on the second lap. We are told that the Novice heat is cancelled and the cleanup efforts begin anew. This time the crash truck comes out for me and I get the ride of shame, holding my bike in the back of a pickup truck, past all of my fellow racers.

I get back to the pit area and my wife and kids are waiting for me, wanting to know if I crashed. No, just a mechanical failure I tell them. I am so disappointed that I can barely stand it. Everything seemed so perfect and now I am looking at engine work that will cost god knows how much. Not what I was wanting for the day… but then I remind myself that there are other riders that now have bikes in various states of demolished that did nothing wrong other than be in the wrong spot at the wrong time. It could be worse, but it could have been so much better. :)

We loaded up and hit the road, first to Mom’s for a quick bite to eat and to grab our stuff, then on to home. A late night by the time we finally rolled into Arlington, but I was happy to be home.

Thanks to everyone that made this weekend as enjoyable as possible.
My Wife, Gwen, without whom I could not survive.
My Kids, for believing in me without fail.
My Mom, for letting me crash at her place and feeding my family
Geoff Lambert, for providing friendship and shelter to a no-good, f’ing Novice ;o)
Mario Alvarez of Adrenalin Freaks trackdays for babysitting my bike overnight
Barry Wressell of KFG Dunlop/GP Suspension North for rebuilding my forks and helping me with tire pressures on my slicks
Rick Salmon of SB Motorsports for his unending patience with enduring five years of my inane questions while supporting 2Fast Trackdays
2Fast Trackdays (http://2-fast.org), where I learned that I was not as fast as I thought I was, but anything was possible with perseverance and practice.
And All the WMRRA staff that make this whole thing happen

Thanks,
Joe Coulter
WMRRA #976
2Fast Track Control

*In Novice, you are gridded based upon the time and date that you registered for the heat. Because I took the second round of the Novice Race School, I didn’t get my racing license until Tuesday before the race weekend. This just gave me enough time to register for the race at all, so any hope of a decent grid position was out the window before I even registered.

[Lauralynne]

great report - what's the damage to the bike?

[Hypnotiq]

tl;dr

Congrats Joe.

[jkaiser]

Good job avoiding your fellow racers. Loosing your engine in T2 is a really bad deal, sounds like you handled it well. Better luck next time...

[JCoulter]

great report - what's the damage to the bike?

Not sure. I spoke with Barry today and explained the behavior. He said it may very well be the fuel pump, so I am going to have that looked at first. I'll post up with any answers I get.

[geddyt]

You know, there are a lot of riders in this club, and at first it seemed funny that a handful of people would post their race report in a forum containing many people that were there also and could have posted theirs as well. "Who's THIS guy/gal think he/she is!?" And yet, I read every single one and love them. Everyone's got their own experience out there and I love to hear it.

Good writeup and keep 'em coming. Hopefully it stays at just a handful of writers because any more and I might never get anything done at work!

[Allister Squid #121]

Hey nice report... I read the whole thing... :bigsmile:

The first race weekend is soo HUGE!!! Good job!!!

Welcome, you are now a motorcycle racer.

It's a small group of nutters and whackjobs going way too fast and having some laughs along the way.

Welcome to you, and ALL the novices.

Enjoy the trip.

[MadManx]

That was a great write up. That was also my first time out with a bunch of whackjobs..
Too bad my writing skills suck, otherwise I would write my own report.

[Will]

I saw you off to the side and wondered what happened. It was pretty clear you were OK and the bike hadn't gone down. Great writeup. Yep, it's long but worth the read.