Moto-ST at VIR - Race Report

Warning: this report is probably from some guy you never heard of,
running a crap endurance class, on a dog-slow bike (to coin a
phrase).

And oh, yeah, the pace car *DID* come out for four laps.

Enjoy!

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04.26.08

Howdy from the pits at Virginia International Raceway, where the
Screamin' Duc Racing crew is busy getting the Moto-ST Sport Twin
Ducati 800SS ready for tomorrow's race.

The team trickled in throughout the day yesterday (Friday) as George,
Justin, new potential team rider Chris and I registered, set up the
pits and did last minute tweaks to the racebike. Donnie, owner of team
sponsor Duc Pond Motosports of Winchester Va., had performed his
usual, everyday miracle -- completely rebuilding the bike when the
needed transmission parts arrived three days before we had to leave!

George, Justin and I labored from 7 p.m. Thursday until 2 a.m. Friday,
replacing the entire custom electrical system of the "A" bike with the
stock system off the "B" bike when electrical gremlins (this time a
non-functional fuel pump) showed up again, as they did repeatedly in
Daytona. That destroyed our plan to leave Thursday evening. We ended
up leaving at 7 a.m. on Friday.

Tech inspection went smoothly after an interminable wait for
registration. Doubly annoying because we’re required to pre-register
for every race a month before the race date!

This morning was Moto-ST's single practice session of 62 minutes,
followed by a 20 minute qualifying session. I went out first, anxious
because I had never ridden any part of the south side of the full
course that is being used this weekend. I rode slowly and tentatively
for a number of laps, gradually speeding up. About 25 minutes into
the session, I braked too hard for turn one, got the rear tire
WAAAAAAY up in the air and by the time I got it back down and under
control, missed BOTH my Turn 1 downshifts. It was too late and I was
way too deep and fast to make the turn. I kept the bike upright, went
straight off, slowed with the rear brake, downshifted and went to turn
back onto the track. I rolled on the throttle and immediately spun the
rear out and lowsided in the grass at 3mph! Back on track, the bike
seemed fine and I gradually sped back up. At 35 minutes, I came in and
handed the bike over to Jeff.

Jeff went out and rode, as he always does, quickly, neatly and
economically -- gradually getting up to speed. At the 62 minute mark,
the checkered flag waved and Jeff came in for gas. Five minutes later,
he went back out to qualify. Following a short red flag for an injured
rider, the 20 minute qualifying session ended and Jeff came back to
the cold pits. We are qualified 12th (yep, of 13) in Sport Twin,
within 2 seconds of the eighth place qualifier and with the
expectation of faster lap times with a minor change to the bike's
gearing.

The gearing change has been done, the bike cleaned up, new spec
Pirelli tires mounted, new front brake pads installed and, finally, NO
mechanical or electrical problems at all!

Tomorrow the shortened (two and one half hour) race starts at 9 a.m.
The rider order is Jeff, me, and then Jeff again. We look forward to a
complete race this time.

04.27.08

We finished tenth in class, the final money-paying position. We didn’t
miss a lap of
the race; have any mechanical problems, pit problems, rider problems
or crashes.
We only had three on-track incidents during the entire two and a half
hour race.

The day started out inauspiciously, with the pits and the racetrack
both soaking wet from Saturday night’s rain showers and thunder
storms. By 7:45 a.m. the team assembled in the Screamin’ Duc pits and
the skies were beginning to show patches of blue amid the grey clouds,
and a cool breeze was starting to dry the track surface. The drying
process was soon helped immensely by the Grand-Am GTP (?) prototype
cars screaming around during their morning practice session, which ran
to 8:55 a.m., five minutes prior to the scheduled start of our race!

Before the race, a Moto-ST official dropped by to inform us that
questions had been raised regarding the legality of our stock Ducati
800SS swingarm, and the dry clutch conversion that Donnie installed
after Daytona. We explained the legality of both components and no
further visits from officialdom were forthcoming.

While Jeff and I got into our leathers, the team assembled the hot pit
equipment, squeezing between the already emplaced Grand-Am car team
pit set-ups -- a set-up that dwarfed anything ever assembled by any
Moto-ST team.

Precisely at 9 a.m., Jeff and the rest of the Moto-ST field took to
the track behind the pace car. After two laps, the pace car pulled off
and the racing was under way. On a cold, damp track, with brand new,
unscuffed D.O.T. Pirelli radials on the bike, Jeff took things very
easy the first couple of laps, despite his reports by radio that the
bike was sliding all over the place! None the less, Jeff kept his head
and lowered his lap time every single lap for 15 consecutive laps. By
then, he was running close to his qualifying times on thoroughly
warmed up rubber and on a track that had a dry line all the way around
it. And, he had moved us from last place to tenth place in the
process.

At one point, Jeff reported that another rider blew his engine in
front of him while he was flat-out at 8,500 rpm in sixth gear on the
main straight. At which point the rider veered immediately and
decisively over to Jeff’s side of the racetrack, directly towards
Jeff, forcing him to squeeze over to the extreme edge of the
racetrack, flying along at 130 mph+ with 2-3 inches of pavement
between him and the grass and mud.

At about the 25 lap mark in the race, Jeff radioed in that he was low
on fuel. I got my helmet and gloves on. Next time around, Jeff came in
and pitted. The team swarmed over the wall, fire extinguisher at the
ready, bike up on the rear stand, Jeff off the bike and radio
disconnected, quick-fill dump can inserted, and dumped a full tank of
gas in about 25 seconds. (We REALLY need to get a quick-fill set-up
worthy of the name!) I got on the bike, hooked up my radio, got a
quick radio check from crew chief Justin and headed out on track.

Let me point out that OUR volunteer pit crew had NO penalties, NO
warnings and NO “discussions” with race officials during the practice
and qualifying on Saturday
or the race today. This is in sharp contrast to some of the pit crews
around us, including some elaborately dressed and equipped
professional teams, who seemed
to be collecting 10 and 20 second “stop and go” penalties for the
riders every time we turned around!

Strange feeling, getting on a warmed up racebike with heated tires,
and going out on track with about 30 other riders who are, in the
overused terminology of MotoGP race reporting “absoLUTely FLYing!” By
turn three I had my knee down on the pavement and by my second full
lap, I was fully up to speed. Well, I was up to *my* speed any way!
One lap later, I had a bad moment when a faster GST bike coming up
from behind me on the brakes for the Oak Tree corner smashed into the
left side of my bike, bouncing both of us off the racing line and
truly destroying my entry into the corner. Then, to add insult to
injury, on the way OUT of the corner the rider looked back at me, and
instead of the traditional apologetic wave for his mistake, he shook
his head at me as if *I* had done something wrong when he ran into me!

I settled down and put in my laps, gradually bringing down my lap
times while still learning the track. The south course of VIR was new
territory to me, with all of 35 minutes of practice on it Saturday.
Late in my stint, a rider crashed in front of me at the top of the
roller coaster. He slid from left to right across the grass and back
onto the racetrack surface directly in front of me, forcing me further
and further right to avoid him and his bike, until I too, ran out of
racetrack, went off onto the grass, still dodging, juking and trying
to keep from hitting him. Somehow, off the brakes, bouncing through
the wet grass and mud, I managed to thread my way between him and his
rapidly slowing bike and ride down the hill on the grass and rejoin
the racetrack between turns 15 and 16. Shaken and still not quite
believing that I hadn’t crashed too, I rode slowly for three quarters
of a lap until I was convinced all the mud had been scraped clean from
my tires.

Pretty soon, the low fuel light on the dashboard flashed to “on”. I
radioed into the pits that I was coming in for gas and a rider change.
When I came in, the same pit stop scene that I had witnessed before
played itself out with Jeff’s and my roles reversed. Again, we had no
drama, accidents, spills or missteps, just the crew professionally
going about their assigned tasks with precision and control. It was
COOL! George and Justin had everything perfectly laid out and under
control in our constrained and crowded pit. I settled back, took off
my helmet, gulped down some blessedly cold water and learned that I
had managed to maintain the team’s position in the race, despite
averaging 6-7 seconds per lap slower than Jeff’s times.

Jeff finished out the race for us, demonstrating the speed, smoothness
and control that caused us to invite him to join our team in the first
place. We had our first completed Moto-ST event in the bag!

Special thanks to sponsor and owner of Duc Pond Motosports, Donnie,
for burning the midnight oil and rebuilding the entire engine from
scratch in three days before the event! Special thanks also to Justin
and Mike and Chris for their terrific performance and teamwork in the
pits, both hot and cold. Thank you to Shelly and Trinity for your
support of Jeff, and to Randy for the great DVD videos he made of the
team photography from Daytona. Thanks to George for treating the team
to dinner on Thursday night and lunch today -- for taking care of the
fuel and tire accounts at the racetrack, for consistently meeting with
and managing the interface with the Moto-ST officials and for letting
them know that we're working WITH them, rather than AGAINST them.
Thanks to our website manager Kimberly for the lightning fast web
updates. Thanks to Gene and Tony from CAM for riding down, braving the
rain, coming out in the wee early morning and cheering the team on –
it was great to see you guys!

It’s nice to be bringing home a racebike that hasn’t been crashed, had
its transmission grenaded or any electrical or overheating issues.
Heck, it’s even been CLEANED (thanks Justin!). That will hopefully
make it a little less frenetic getting ready for our next event, the
Road America Moto-ST round at Elkhart Lake, Wis., where we’ll be the
undercard, not to a bunch of cars, but to the AMA Superbike round
there.

 

Cool! Thanks for the report. It blows away all the tired arguing about
politics and the MotoGP midget-dwarf-rider-infestation.

-Moo

 

Thanks for the positive feedback.

Tim

 

that didn't mean *you*

I did!

Posts from actual racers about actual races are the best
(although way to few...) part of this NG.

Keep up the good work & keep us informed too.

Bruce

 

I did. As someone else said - nice to see a post from a racer. I did
4 years of endurance in the UK, all 6 and 8 hour races, and it brings
it back. I'm amazed that you guys use radios, tho - must be the only
motorcycle racing class in the world that uses them!