"Vintage Guy"

At least half a dozen times in the last year, racers have come up to me in the pits asking to borrow items, ranging from a battery charger (loaned out to three separate persons on different occasions), radiator clamps, duct tape, bolts, nuts and safety wire.

I am always happy to help someone out, as are most racers and I know most would help me as well.  Recently though, it seems I am doing a lot more loaning than borrowing.  And many of the ones doing the asking are people driving late model diesel pick-ups with million dollar bling wheels towing Toy-haulers filled with several race bikes covered in sponsor stickers.  It strikes me as funny and ironic that these seemingly well-to-do racers with all the fancy gear are coming to the guy with the 20 year old van and 25 year old race bikes to borrow things they can't be bothered to pack.  What's even funnier is what they all say when I pull out the simple little necessity that escaped their packing list:

"I knew a vintage guy would have it."

How is one supposed to respond to this statement?  Is it a testament and compliment to the preparedness of the vintage racer?  Or is there a more backhanded meaning, i.e.: that we need more tools/parts/spares because our machines are more likely to break down, or that we look like a bunch of Okies travelling Jed Clampett style with the kitchen sink strapped to the hood?  Perhaps a little bit of both.

However you choose to look at it, one thing is clear, vintage motorcycles require more involvement from riders than modern counterparts.  Whether it is tracking down parts, doing plug chops and changing carburetor jetting, a vintage racer needs to be a perceptive rider, deft tuner and part-time alchemist.  Modern motorcycles have become appliances in their reliability yet complicated in their technology.  In many ways this is a good thing, allowing a rider to focus entirely on his job: riding the motorcycle.  But it also removes the rider from a certain intimacy with his machine.  Take it to the suspension guy for adjustments.  Have the tire guy mount and balance your tires.  Need your fueling remapped? Take it to another guy.  Time for an engine rebuild? There's another guy for that.  Paintjob? Got a guy for that too.  All that specialization removes an element of artistry and scholarship from the mix.

Not so the "vintage guys".  Many of them build their own engines and do all their own tuning.  They can lace wheels, degree cams, and mount tires as well as ride the damn thing at the very limits of sanity and obsolescence.  Years of knocking about at the racetrack have taught them a thing or two, hence the bins full of what appear to be redundant or useless items.

Remember that when you come up to one and ask to borrow something.  You could learn a lot from a "vintage guy".    

All my shit is old.  So fucking what?

Current Events

Speed of Arrival would like to interrupt the normally scheduled racing drivel on this blog to bring you this news flash:

Larrivee Roadracing will be there on the speedofarrival.com FZR489 and EX500, proudly representing our new sponsor: Sportbike Track Gear sportbiketrackgear.com .  Three days of great racing at the world class Road Atlanta roadcourse.  Come check it out!

Counting Chickens

The start of the race is decent, and I soon find myself up with a few of the Expert class stragglers, intending to throw them in the way of the other eager Novices stampeding behind me.  I lead my class and wonder if this might be an easier victory.  Joe is up in front  and I intend to follow, but he is pushing harder than I am willing to at this point and I decide it is better to win the race I am actually competing in than to crash trying to prove a point to him, again.

As has happened often in my racing career I find myself all alone in the middle.  The faster racers in the Expert class are gone, and the slower racers are behind me.  There is no one to chase and from what I can tell, no one chasing.  I circulate, turning in solid, if not speedy laps for about half the race.  If I can manage not to crash, I can take home a win.  I like the sound of that.

Immediately in answer to that thought or perhaps in payment for my momentary inattention, a young lad on a 250 Ninja rails up alongside of me, sporting the yellow plates denoting Novice, looking to make a pass.  Rudely awakened, I stretch the throttle cables a little farther and summon my horsepower advantage.  That is a term not often used when talking about an EX500, unless it is to say, I was beaten by the other bikes because they had a "horsepower advantage".  But in this case, against the 250s, I have the edge.

The adolescent decides not to make it easy for me.  I pass him on every straight, he manages to pass me on some of the faster corners, due to what appears to be a total lack of fear.  I am able to outbrake him in the slower corners, but damn, the fast sweeping stuff seems to be his forte.

Normally I would relish a battle such as this, but not now, so close to season's end.  While his young brain cannot yet comprehend the disaster that can happen in any instant on the track, my aging one knows full well, having watched racers die just as easily the last race of the year as on the first.  We battle lap after lap, passing one another so often it almost becomes predictable.

I'm pissed, I don't want this fight, but I damn sure don't want to let him have the win.  Just when I think I've passed and gained enough distance to break him, he finds a way to make up ground.  White flag, last lap.  The rider executes a slightly hairball pass on the outside of me in turn 12, which he somehow sticks.  I have only a few corners left  to get him back.  It's late afternoon, the sun is in my eyes going from 13 into 14.  This has to happen in 15/16 because 17 might be too late.  I can't make it happen.  He is going to beat me, and I am about to accept it.

Something inside snaps and I chase him into the final corner knowing I am too far away to reasonably catch him.

Or am I?  I tuck all six feet, 175 pounds of me behind the windscreen and under the paint.  I lift my ass just slightly off the seat (because I read somewhere you get better aerodynamics doing this) and look for the kid's draft.  I pick it up about seven bike lengths behind him, I feel the tow.  I am closing.  This is going to be tight.  The flagman is waving the checkered flag.  I have to time this just right and pull out of the draft.

I make my move, pulling ahead and beating him to the stripe by .07 of a second.  I win.  It feels pretty good.

The Season Ends

The Clubman Novice Final will be my last race of 2014.  It is generally preferred to go out with a bang as opposed to a whimper, but so far the WERA GNF has proven to be an ass whooping for me.  Two DNFs and a fourth place are my current tally at Barber Motorsports Park on this late October weekend.

The season has taken its toll, physically, emotionally, financially and part of me is ready for it to be over.  Six months, thousands of highway miles and dozens of races where I have acted as rider, mechanic, chauffeur, pit crew and sponsor have my body and spirit ready for a rest.  As I wait to grid up, I am trying to find some grit and motivation, failing miserably.  Somehow giving yourself the "Once more into the breach dear friends" speech, just isn't cutting it.  At third call, motivation or no, it is time to go and in that moment I realize this thing is going to go on, with or without me.  Life is going to go on, with or without me, old age is running up behind, hard and fast.  I can accept defeat at the hands of these glory hungry teenagers on brightly colored plastic wrapped machines or perhaps, perhaps I can stir the dust from the old bones one more time.  And summon a reckoning...

Bouncing Back

The long day ends and I am thankful for body and bikes being in one piece.  The FZR issue turns out to be nothing more than a faulty switch, and while it is running again, I don't trust it yet.

I have bigger problems, namely my brain.  Yogi Berra said, "Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical."  The same holds true for racing, but add another half: financial.  And while money is always an issue, it is not my first immediate concern.  There is one race left for me tomorrow before the long trip home and somehow I have to get my mind right before then.  I will be riding the EX, because the FZR does not qualify for the class and truth be told I wouldn't have ridden it anyway, it is loaded in the dark confines of the van, a project for later times.

I won't be racing Joe or Kurt today either, but more than likely a gaggle of testosterone addled teenagers on 250 Ninjas and whatever else ends up in Clubman Novice.  Generally I rely on my horsepower advantage to get a lead on them and don't look back.  The nature of Barber Motorsports Park, with no long straightaways, makes this more difficult.  Normally I love a track like that, but when you are dealing with horny, hungry adolescents trying to make a name for themselves, I would rather be as far out in front of them as possible.  The last thing I want is a battle with a green-horned, starry eyed high-schooler with delusions of grandeur, as I am still, quite literally, nursing my wounds.

On the flip side, this is my last chance to salvage some results from the Grand National Finals.  I want to go home with more than a quarter sized hole in my elbow and a scratched up motorcycle.  Maybe I have some delusions of grandeur as well...

In good company: Mckee leads, Larrivee second, Kesler third and Ball in fourth.

  

Day of Defeat

With cold tires and bloody arm I head for the grid.  At least the bike bump-starts readily enough, I would not have had the fortitude or patience for running up and down the paddock pushing a reluctant motorcycle.  The V6 Lightweight race is next, meaning Joe and I will have a rematch.  I have every intention of coming out on top this time, as opposed to sliding across the tarmac.

I make the effort to get heat into the tires on the warm-up lap by pushing as hard as I dare.  I get a crappy start and find myself behind Joe on the EX and Scott McKee on his blisteringly fast FZR, third into Turn 1.

McKee will soon clear off leaving us like the turds we are, so this means all I have to do is follow Joe around and look for a place to pass.  In spite of this knowledge I simply cannot keep up with him.  It's as if he has miraculously gotten faster since the last race.  This is patently not the case.  The only thing that has happened is I have gotten slower.  The crash has surely rattled my confidence, and the lap times reflect it, losing 1 to 1.5 seconds a lap to Joe.  My mind starts fucking with me and I know it's over.  I remember seeing brand new tires on Joe's EX right before the V5 race and my thoughts wander back to my own tires, with several weekends on them.  And just like that I defeat myself.  A page is turned, the switch is flipped and somehow I accept defeat at the hands of Joe, again.

This is not how the story is supposed to end, rather a tale of a heroic comeback after a crash, vanquishing the foes and standing triumphant.  This is not one of those stories.

The choice to settle for third place is not an easy one, it goes against my better nature, but somehow I know that it is just not in me to fight anymore today.  And third ain't so bad....

The problem with settling is that you usually end up with less than you bargained for.  After mounting an unsuccessful, half-hearted attack against Joe for the first lap, I dial it back a notch and just bide my time turning laps until the checkers.  The last lap comes and I prepare to take third place.  Fate has another outcome in mind.

As I approach Charlotte's Web for the last time today, I hear the angry hum of a four cylinder engine on my left.  As I begin to head for the apex of the turn, a red motorcycle takes the inside line and passes me.  And just like that Fate, laughing and grinning, smacks me right in the mouth and shows what happens when you stop fighting, even for a second.

This rider had been stalking me, lap after lap, quietly assessing and biding his time, never showing a wheel, knowing I couldn't hear his motor over my noisy twin.

And he beats me, handily shoving yours truly back to the fourth spot, but it feels like 44th.

The day ends for me as ignominiously as it began.  2 DNFs and a lousy 4th place.  It never gets any easier.

Kurt Kesler, stalking me, waiting to take third.

Compartmentalize

My first instinct is to remount the bike and finish the race.  Third place is so far behind that I know I can salvage second.  A quick look over the machine reveals a bent shift lever and some minor scuffing, otherwise good to go.  I can feel what I believe to be sweat running down my left elbow/arm into my glove, but I shelve that for thought later.  Just as I am about to hop back on the EX, a corner worker runs up to me and stops me from going back out.

The rules clearly state that if you crash, your race is over.  And this makes perfect sense, who wants a possibly damaged, leaking motorcycle circulating a racetrack with a pilot who may not even know he is injured?  Of course in the heat of battle, with less than one lap to go and only a few corners left to salvage some sort of finish, your perspective and interpretation of this rule may change slightly.

The race ends with me on the sidelines, feeling gut-punched.  It's my first racetrack crash in a long time, and while I completely accept the fact that it is going to happen, the timing couldn't have been shittier.  Crashing out while leading at the Grand National Finals?  What a kick in the nuts.

The cornerworker looks over the bike at the end of the race and determines it is safe to ride back to the pits.  I arrive knowing the bike will have to be fixed and then go through tech inspection all over again.

I have to shove the adrenaline, disappointment, anger, frustration and fear down into some dark corner to allow my mind to think clearly and fix the bike.  I replace the shift lever, straighten the clip-on bar and shove the hand grip back into place.  Everything else is fine.  The left side engine cover is a little scuffed up, but thankfully the original bike builder prepared for this contingency by welding aluminum crash pads on the side of the cover (thank you Ken Baer, wherever you are!), and this prevented it from wearing a hole and spilling oil everywhere.  There is precious little time left before the V5 race to get the EX re-inspected and back on the tire warmers.

I bumpstart the EX and ride through the paddock as quickly as I dare to Tech.  I explain to one official I need a re-tech, she directs me to another official who is right in the middle of a conversation.  After about 30 seconds it becomes painfully obvious that this is a personal conversation that the official intends to complete before even looking at my bike.  The two are laughing and joking, while first call for my race draws ever closer.  I finally can wait no longer.

"Excuse me, sorry, but I need a re-tech, my race is coming up next."

"Just a minute, buddy."

I absolutely fucking hate being called buddy.  I shove this feeling down in that dark corner with the rest of them knowing that getting snarky with the officials will not help anything.  They hold all the cards.  Agonizingly slowly the official wraps up his conversation and then turns to me like he has no idea what I need.  He starts to say something about the belly pan needing to be off, I explain that everything is perfectly visible without removing the pan and that every WERA tech inspection has allowed it.  Thankfully he does not argue and I soon have that precious little sticker on my fairing that will re-grant me access to the race track.

There is no time for the tire warmers as we are already at first call.  As I am pulling my gloves on I notice for the first time there is blood on my hand.  That must be what I thought was sweat dripping from my elbow.  I look and can see the crash has worn a hole through the left elbow of the leathers.  I am bleeding, but not too bad.  I hastily duct tape over the hole and then shove a paper towel up against my elbow to stop the blood.  That smarts.

The shenanigans of the last few hours have left me winded and angry, but still working to maintain focus.  I am trying to be Zen, but Hulk mad.

This is as far as Joe got away from me, before the crash.