Some of you read this already on facebook but here's a report of the fun for the rest of you.
If your considering running any wera races I reccomend it. Fun fun fun
They have a schedule similar to ours where on friday they have a promoter practice then on saturday they have 2 morning sessions of sprint practice, where you get about 3-4 laps each session, they lasted about 8 mins.
then lunch then have "solo" 20 lap races which is broken up into classes according to bike size etc.... like our endurance races.
Sunday again like our schedule 2 morning practice sessions again about 8 mins a piece so about 3-4 laps if you go out right away. then a full day of sprint races that are I think 8 laps. broken down into supersport, and superbike, etc.. very similar to ours.
Any of the expert races have a novice wave behind them using the same bike displacements. It appeared as though they didn't really put heavy attention on the novice racing at all. the focus was the expert racing. I got the feeling as though they encourage novice to become expert as quickly as possible.
They did have separate novice races, but like i said they also let a wave of novices run right behind the open superbike experts in that race. as well as "Formula 1" their kind of ROR gto.
So imagine a novice grid going out at the same time as ROR o and ROR u.
There was no "color" commentary announcing or PA system, all calls were made over radio broadcast. so bring a radio and expect to hear just the facts from the announcer.
The only thing that I really didn't like was the very very limited amount of practice time. If your slow to learn a track, you will struggle, unless you ride on Promoter practice the day before.
I did not have the luxury of this, as I was driving all day friday to the track. It was a 16 hour drive from the springs driving a motorhome towing a small trailer with one bike. Total gas costs there and back for the RV were $560 is was about 1600 miles roundtrip. the RV average 8.76 mpg's There were no electrical hookups at the track, so bring a generator.
The general attittude and environment of the clubs officials was beyond cordial and laid back.
Tech inspection was very easy going, I mean, so easy going, I was a little concerned, but I am a stickler on that stuff since I have experience with that job. I guess they really expect everyone to be big boys and girls and totally responsible. There's no "hand holding". you need to manage yourself.
I drove all day friday and didn't get there til about 1:30am and slept in the parking lot, the gates opened at 6:00am and I rushed in set up and starting getting the bike ready for tech, safety wired etc...
Went into the regisgtration office (i did not pre register or call or anything) and was signed up in and out of there in 10 mins. I took my transponder from here and it worked fine.
this is saturday morn, and it was about 40 degrees out, very chilly and the track was cold as hell. so I spent the first 5 lap practice session cruising around trying to figure out the layout, never been there before.
then the second session, I spent picking out brake markers and reference points. trying not to go to fast as I still did not fully know which way the track went.
That's it, practice over. time for the race at 2 oclock. I only got 11 laps of practice, so I really just going to try and use this solo 20 lap race to learn the track. ended up finishing 10th, i think there was 20 people on the grid.
The next day was just like an mra sunday, up at 6 ready by seven and on the track at 8, only this morning the practice sessions are even shorter. the first session I got in 4 laps, the second session, i got in 3 laps. then lunch at 11 to 12 then the sprint races start.
heavy twins was the 3rd race and I was kinda excited for it but still keeping myself in check as the weekend is only for fun. I got 4th the guy who won the race was on a KTM and was later that day running right behind jeremy toye on his cbr1000, i was impressed by the speed of the ktm because if you know who toye is and how fast the guy you know what im saying. as I was coming in one of the officials was waving to me to come to him before I entered the pits so I go over and and im like wtf. he says awesome job, but you werent supposed to be in that race....dammmnit... he said that I was signed up for twins supersport, not superbike and the race i just did was a superbike race(no rules). so i had to go to the race office and straigten it out, I did sign up for superbike but it was some problem and i think they fixed it, i didn't really care as im not in it for points and contingency on 4th place is not even worth the headache. It was a little baffling as to why they have a supersport twins class as well, instead of grouping them in with the gsxrs in ss like we do. anyway they really didn't mind, because I started that race from the last row, so I really had no extra advantage and it was just a paperwork issue.
so that's it, I raced another race at the very end of the day but was so anxious to get on the road that I just tooled around in it and kept things shiny.
I also used a gps monitor all weekend that recorded the track map speeds and my heart rate as well as it has a heart rate monitor. Very cool to see what your hearts doing while on the track at specific points and on the grid while waiting then the start. I reccomend this if your into cardiovascular health at all and curious as to whats happening in your body. It's a garmin unit, google it.
So to cap it off, I wanted to go somewhere new and ride with no pressure. One of the few downsides of racing in the MRA for years and years is that you end up putting alot of extra stress on yourself during an MRA event because you know where you fall in the pecking order of lap times compared to everyone in the club and if you not riding to that level for whatever reason then you are extra hard on yourself, and extra extra hard on yourself if the guy your always behind starts to pick it up and you dont. When you are out with racers in a different club and you have no clue who they are and at track you've never ridden, you will have fun with no stress because your expectations of yourself are much lower. I highly reccomend racing with other clubs.
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Originally Posted by T Baggins
