<\/p>\n
We arrive in Daytona around 3am on Thursday morning.\u00a0 Riderman
\nhas long since gone to bed.\u00a0 It’s customary on these kinds of
\ntrips for
\nhim to go to sleep around 10 or so because we’re always conscious of
\nthe fact
\nthat he has to ride in the morning.
\nGenerally I stay awake and keep Riderdad company while he drives the RV
\nto wherever it is that we’re going.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
After a quick 3 hours of sleep in a Wal Mart parking lot,
\nit’s time to wake up, head to the track, and find our spot in the pits.\u00a0 Parking in the pits is very similar to mall
\nparking in that it is first come, first served.\u00a0 If you arrive late, you’re saddled with a crappy pit spot far
\naway from the track, and you end up paying for it all weekend long come
\npractice or qualifying or race time.
\nThis is doubly so at a place like Daytona where you might have to travel
\nupwards of half a mile to get to the race grid.<\/p>\n
In America, the two large club series of racing are the Club
\nChampionship Series (CCS) and the Western Eastern Racing Association
\n(WERA).\u00a0 Both host small regional events
\nall over the country as well as larger national events.\u00a0 CCS national events are known as the Formula
\nUSA (F-USA) series.\u00a0 In either series,
\nthe national championships are more sought after, they pay more money for a win
\nand the level of competition is about as high as you’ll see outside of AMA
\nprofessional racing.\u00a0 The prize purses
\non some weekends are even enough to coax a few of the smaller AMA teams out to
\nthe track to try and win.\u00a0 For those of
\nus whose teams don’t have significant factory support and who are on bikes that
\ndon’t cost $50,000 or $60,000, this is referred to as “cherry picking” because
\nit’s no contest for the factory guys. If they’re at the track, chances are
\nthey’re going to walk away with the $2,000 or $5,000 payout when they win the
\nrace.<\/p>\n
The two series are fairly similar, the larger of them being
\nCCS as it’s owned by Clear Channel.
\nAlthough it is a larger series, the events tend to be disorganized and
\ndisheveled making them highly frustrating when it comes time to be out on the
\ntrack.\u00a0 The most important difference
\nbetween CCS and WERA events is the way they organize the starting grid for race
\nday.\u00a0 In any CCS race, the riders are gridded
\nin the order that they signed up to compete in the race and as a result, the
\nriders starting on the first row were the first to register for that event and
\nare not necessarily the fastest riders on the track.\u00a0 However, WERA grids their races based on how many points a rider
\nhas, so the more races you’ve competed and done well in, the closer you’ll
\nstart to the front.\u00a0 F-USA grids all
\ntheir events based on qualifying times posted during sessions held the day
\nbefore races.\u00a0 In this respect, F-USA is
\na lot like AMA professional events.<\/p>\n
But the grids are not what we’re thinking about when we
\narrive at Daytona.\u00a0 Our goal for the
\nweekend is fairly simple:\u00a0 Just keep our
\nshit together the best we can.\u00a0 We still
\naren’t sure what exactly to expect.
\nWe’re having to do things to the bikes that even Riderman is not
\nentirely familiar with, and unfamiliarity when you’re on a tight schedule is
\nintimidating and scary.\u00a0 It is very
\nimportant that we get everything right if we want to keep the bikes rubber side
\ndown.<\/p>\n
Our problems at Daytona begin with the first races on Immediately, I am not at ease.\u00a0 I know Riderman and I know how The race begins, the pack tears off and, for the next minute First lap complete, I spot Riderman coming out of NASCAR 4 The following race was when it happened.\u00a0 When it does happen, it’s one of those Sometimes when it happens, it’s right in front of you and We start to mill around and we can’t hear anything coming Also, Riderman thinks he may have broken his foot and Injuries sustained in a crash are sometimes slow to indicate When Saturday rolls around, Riderman’s feeling better, And so it was for the rest of the weekend.\u00a0 I installed an exhaust system on the 750 and
\nFriday.\u00a0 While we thought we signed up
\nearly for the CCS races, we apparently had not, as Riderman was gridded back on
\nthe 14th<\/sup> row.\u00a0 Not only does
\nthis mean that Riderman has over 50 motorcycles in front of him from the get
\ngo, it puts him at the back of the second wave of riders on the start.\u00a0 When there are more than 30 or so
\nmotorcycles in any given race, they stagger the start so that there are only 15
\nraving lunatics screaming into the first turn at the same time instead of 45 or
\n50.\u00a0 This means that the second wave of
\nriders has to start the race a full 10 seconds behind the first.<\/p>\n
\nhe gets in these situations.\u00a0 In a race with only 12 laps, he’s
\ngot a
\nlimited amount of time to work his way through the slower riders and up
\ntowards
\nthe front of the pack into positions where he’ll finish with a
\npayout.\u00a0 I know as I watch him wrenching the throttle
\non the grid that this is exactly what he’s thinking as well.
\nHe’ll take chances and ride as hard as he
\ncan.<\/p>\n
\nand a half, as the dust settles around us, I’m standing clutching my
\nstopwatch, looking at bare race track.\u00a0 We all stand and listen to
\nthe whine of the
\nbikes as they zig zag through the course behind us.\u00a0 During any
\ngiven race, I’d say we probably get to witness about a
\nminute’s worth of actual racing and the rest of the time we’re just
\ntrying to
\nhear the announcer’s call as he watches the pack move through the
\ncourse.\u00a0 We also have to keep an eye on the flags so
\nthat we know if there’s been an accident.<\/p>\n
\nat over 180 miles an hour.\u00a0 He explained
\nto me earlier in the weekend that the force of gravity is so greatly magnified
\nbecause of the high speed on that banked turn that trying to keep his chest off
\nthe gas tank strained his back muscles and caused all of the blood to rush out
\nof his head.\u00a0 Being dizzy at that speed
\nis never a good idea, so he decided after his first time out to rest his chest
\non the tank rather than face the dizzyness.
\nWhen I spot him, he’s tucked down low underneath the windscreen and he’s
\nfollowing the draft of a chain of bikes through the tri-oval and then he is
\ngone for another minute and a half.
\nHe’s moved from fifty-some-odd into 24th<\/sup> or 25th<\/sup>.\u00a0 In the first lap alone, he’s passed about 30
\nbikes.\u00a0 Seriously… this guy is
\nfast.\u00a0 Eventually, Riderman would finish
\nthe race in 7th<\/sup> place.<\/p>\n
\nfeelings that you never quite get used to.
\nIt’s an uneasy rock that forms at the pit of your gut.\u00a0 You’ll be standing on pit wall and, every
\nminute or so, the field zips by and ,for a few brief seconds, we get a glimpse
\nof Riderman.\u00a0 If he’s battling for a
\nposition, it sometimes takes several glimpses to see that, yes… he’s catching up!\u00a0 Or sometimes it’s “He’s losing
\nhim and needs to speed up!”\u00a0 Our senses
\nof perception as to how a race is going are limited to two things: The brief
\nglimpses we see of our rider and the times we’re reading on the stopwatches we
\nhave in hand.\u00a0 We’re using both of them
\nto the best of our ability.<\/p>\n
\nit’s like being sucker punched squarely in the stomach.\u00a0 More frequently than not, it happens the way
\nit did in that second race at Daytona and it’s hard to tell which is worse. \u00a0You watch him turn laps for a while and then,
\npoof, suddenly you see the guy he was chasing, but there’s no Riderman behind
\nhim.\u00a0 Something’s happened… maybe he
\njust went into a turn too fast and is lagging behind.\u00a0 You linger at the wall for a little bit, hoping that he’s going
\nto come around that turn eventually.
\nSoon, it’s a good 30 or 40 seconds past the time when he should have
\ngone by and that’s when it’s pretty certain: He crashed.<\/p>\n
\nfrom the announcer and the race hasn’t been red flagged, so it must not be a
\nbad crash, right?\u00a0 While Riderdad continues milling about the
\npit, I run back to the race trailer to see if a crash truck has pulled up with
\nRiderman and his bike.\u00a0 I round the corner
\nand relief briefly washes over me.
\nThere’s Riderman standing next to his crashed bike.\u00a0 He is standing.\u00a0 His limbs are intact.\u00a0 He
\nis awake and aware.\u00a0 Immediately after
\nthat, it’s: What did I do?\u00a0 What did I
\nforget?\u00a0 The front end of the motorcycle
\nis pretty much destroyed.\u00a0 The steering
\ndamper is bent.\u00a0 What didn’t I
\nsqueeze?\u00a0 The brake lever is bent into
\nsome kind of perverted J shape.\u00a0 The
\nbodywork is all but destroyed.\u00a0 What
\ndidn’t I tighten?\u00a0 The wind screen is
\ngone.\u00a0 The exhaust can is dented and the
\nentire machine is now filled with Florida sand.<\/p>\n
\npossibly his hand… he can barely even stand up straight.\u00a0 But, he’s okay… he’s alive and he’s not
\nbeing carted away in the flashy bus.\u00a0 I
\nrush to the pits to find Riderdad and let him know everything’s okay.<\/p>\n
\nhow severe they actually are.\u00a0 The
\nadrenaline can sometimes mask serious bone breaks for 10 or 15 minutes, so it’s
\nno surprise when Riderman slowly begins to become more and more
\nincapacitated.\u00a0 Eventually, he is unable
\nto walk.\u00a0 He decides that he’s injured
\nbadly enough to sit out all his races and practice sessions the next day and
\nspend that time getting the bikes back into shape.<\/p>\n
\nalthough he has a pronounced limp.\u00a0 We
\nscrounge around the pits for a new fairing stay (the aluminum piece up front
\nthat holds the instrument cluster and windscreen in place) and get the bike
\nback together the best we can.\u00a0 In the
\npast, we’ve used Bic pens and electrical tape to keep the front end together,
\nso Friday’s damage proves just a minor inconvenience.\u00a0 The parts that are too damaged on the 600 to repair or find
\nreplacements for are the brake lever and the upper piece of bodywork, so we
\ndecide that there is enough time between the races on Sunday to swap the
\nfunctional parts from the 750 back and forth between both bikes.<\/p>\n
\ncrossed every goddamn finger and toe I had when he went out on the track with
\nit Miraculously, we qualified and got a 6th<\/sup> and a 7th<\/sup>
\nplace in the races on Sunday.\u00a0 Heading
\nhome, we were definitely proud of ourselves.
\nWe’d made it through the weekend and had made top 10 showings in all the
\nraces we were able to compete in.\u00a0 Not
\ntoo shabby… now it was time to focus on round two in Jennings, Florida at
\nJennings GP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[352],"tags":[362,353],"class_list":["post-2566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gsarchive","tag-articles-by-hooded-nubbins","tag-gs-archive-2004-2008"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2566"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2737,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2566\/revisions\/2737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}