Infineon - Survived my first high speed crash!
Friday practice at Infineon I felt GOOD. I mean really, really good. Second practice session of the day and I was already hitting my fastest time at Infineon. I have never done that before, it usually takes me 3 to 4 sessions to hit race pace. My suspension felt a little weird, but it usually does--I'm on an EX250, aka a wet noodle.
I took out the bike we were going to use for the 4-hour endurance race in the next session and I was able to get the same lap times on it. And the bike felt AWESOME. I get this weird wobble on my bike getting on the gas hard out of the esses, didn't feel it on the endurance bike. I often feel the front end chatter hard under hard braking. Not on the endurance bike. And the two were set up almost completely identically. My friend (and fellow 250P racer) Richard Lesher donated his "B" bike for the endurance race cause and it's got all the goodies mine does, plus one. Richard figured out a way to weld the stock EX250 rotors onto EX500 wheels so the bike can have 17 inch wheels instead of 16 and run some REAL rubber! Tires aside, the endurance bike had Aftershocks re-worked forks and an Ohlins rear shock--just like mine. The tires shouldn't have made that much difference.
So I decided to have the forks checked out by Dave Moss and his Catalyst Reaction Suspension. He found bad fork oil in my forks and said it needed to be replaced immediately. He also suggested going with a much heavier oil. I said let's try it. I also figured that since my front wheel was off. I'd get my new tires mounted. Took off the rear and dropped 'em off at the Dunlop trailer.
When I came back to check the progress, Dave was running around and super busy. I think he likes it like that though. My bike was almost all back together. But Dave said my front brake pads were shot. I guess since I'm getting faster, I'm going through stuff MUCH more quickly now. I had a spare set and Dave said he'd put them on. I was so grateful. Looked like I was gonna get a session on my "new" bike--new tires, newly reworked forks and new brake pads.
I went out REAL slow. Trying to scrub in the tires and heat up the brake pads gradually. After two laps, it started to feel pretty good. The tires were sticking, the brakes felt nice and the suspension felt awesome. I started to crank it up to race pace. I came around to my favorite turn, T6, the Carosel. It is my fastest place on the track. I usually take it in 6th gear at almost full speed. I always upshift while going up the hill to the entrance, still accelerating, then brake just a bit at the top to settle in to the turn. This time I went to tap the brakes and felt nothing, I mean NOTHING. NO BRAKES. My stomach was in my throat. What do I do?
I thought about riding it out for a second, but there is a wall at the bottom of the turn, a very dangerous wall. I decided to try to slow down as much as possible and go off the track. Downshift! Rear brake! Rear brake! Rear brake! I hit the dirt pretty hard, still going very fast. First check, I was ok. I tried to pick my bike up, but I wasn't in a real bad place--I'd managed to keep it up for a pretty long time and get far off the track. The corner worker was there in an instant. I told him I had no brakes, and goes "Well, here's why." The caliper was hanging by the brake cable, it wasn't even attached to the rotor. Damn.
Ok, lesson learned. I need to check all the stuff on my bike myself. I shoulda noticed the caliper wasn't safety wired. I will never, ever forget again. I have a bunch of bruises all over my legs and my calf feels weird where the foot peg jammed into it, but my leathers and helmet and body survived the crash very well. I was VERY lucky.
Dave felt understandably bad and offered to put my bike all back together. The damage was relatively minor. Bent handle bar (easily replaced, Vik had one in his spares kit). Bent rearset and rear brake lever, which my fellow 250P racer Sean Corbin lent me a replacement for. Also a pretty badly crimped mid-pipe in my exhaust. But it wasn't completely closed off, so it would *probably* be ok for one race. Dave and Zap (??? I think that was his name, I took a vicodin) worked feverishly to put it all back to right, including a new donated complete brake system also from Sean (you rock Sean, I owe you big time). Bike looked ok and I went to bed. Big thanks to Dave and Zap (?) for coming to my rescue too.
Took the bike out for morning practice on Saturday. It felt boggy and weird, like it wanted to stall. On the track, I had no acceleration, the bike was very loud and just felt bad. I came in, pissed off.
I asked my friend Sam to help me uncrimp the pipe. We managed to get most of the crunchies out of it, and even though it was still bent, it looked ok. We started it up, and it still sounded weird. Sam said, "That doesn't sound like it's the pipe, it sounds like the intake." Sure enough, the carb boots had come unseated. Me and Sam and another 250P racer Bob Simmons FINALLY got the boots back on. I was pretty sure it would be ok now.
In the meantime, I decided to get another session in on the endurance bike. I HAD to clear my head and get my crash out of it. I took the endurance bike out and it felt good, until the THROTTLE ASSEMBLY CAME OFF in my hand. I was SO MAD!! I seriously couldn't believe it, another stupid screw up. I somehow managed to jam it back on and held it on. I decided to finish the lap and come in. Then I ran out of gas. Could it get any worse? Now, to defend myself here, I was told for the endurance bike, all I needed to do was ride and not worry about the bike at all, but the lesson I learned about my brakes was repeating (LOUDLY) in my head. I made it back in ok, put the bike on reserve and held the throttle in place. But, was I in a bad mood.
I tried to put it all out of my head and get to business, the endurance race was next. I somehow shook it off and the endurance race turned out to be just what I needed. We had a BLAST. It was so much fun. Richard, John Anner and I were the top finishing EX250, finishing fourth in class to a 250 two-stroke, a 125 and a 400. We missed third by 6 laps--101 laps in all. We took 29th place overall, beating 14 other teams! It was a truly amazing experience. Huge thanks to our crew cheif Allan Dunham and our pit crew Sean Corbin (yes, he helped out again!). I can't wait to do it again next year.
As for the 250P race itself, my bike was fine. It actually felt really good--especially the brakes and the suspension (it is MUCH better now, Thanks Dave). I managed to take another second off my best race time (after already taking off 2 in the endurance race), 3.5 seconds faster total. The race was red flagged though, due to a bad crash in T2 (heal fast Fredrik). All in all a good weekend, with lots of lessons learned and lots of strength gained. I feel like I am now a much better racer.
