Picnic at Mt. Cheaha

Video from Barber

Well I recently learned that a nice guy named Kevin was taking video this past Saturday at Barber and it turns out he was riding behind me in one of the early sessions.

Kevin was nice enough to allow me to link the video on my blog. I was riding behind my friend UAJEFF from Birmingham. Jeff has really improved since I first rode with him a couple of years ago. I really enjoyed riding behind him for this session.

Thanks again to Kevin, B group number 51 from Lawrenceville, Georgia.

Finally back on track - NESBA at Barber - October 2008

After a long summer layoff I made it back to the track finally for a NESBA event at Barber Motorsports Park. After several years of doing 10 or more track days this was only my second one for 2008 and it felt great to be back out there.



We setup our pits in our usual favorite location, the bottom of the hill just to the right. Michelle loves this spot because it is quiet and close to the tower so easy access to everything.




Barber was lovely as ever with lots of flowers still blooming and just a hint of fall color. I'm sure it will be even better for the November event in a few weeks.

I had not ridden my bike since I did cornerworking for the California Superbike School back in July and to my surprise there seemed to be something in the fuel or carburetors that kept the bike from running smoothly. I finally got it to start but there was no low speed idle, I had to keep the revs up or it would stall. I filled it with fresh gas and let it run a long time and as the day went by it got more and more normal so my riding wasn't entirely ruined but it sure made me a bit nervous.

I managed to make a new friend this weekend and that pleased me. Pitted next to us was a really nice guy named Brian from southern Michigan. Brian was riding in intermediate on a big Kawasaki. He stayed with us for lunch and we had a good chat about riding and Michigan football.

It was also good to see some old friends like Joel from Nashville and Jeff (UAJEFF on the boards)from here in Birmingham. Also, my friend Gill Cutchen was there to do some control riding and get some laps on his new Triumph racebike.



There was a large group of riders there from Mississippi that were pitted across the paddock from us. I didn't get to meet any of them but they sure seemed to have a good time.




I also met a nice retired couple from Florida who were there with some really "old school" race bikes. As usual, half the fun of a track day is people watching.




Here are a few more miscellaneous pictures taken during the event.





Can't wait till November.

Jim

Finally back on track - WERA at Tally in June

After long layoff I finally got to race again at the little Talladega Grand Prix Raceway during the WERA regionals on June 15th.

My last track outing was a NESBA day at Barber in early March so I was really looking forward to getting back out there. My old black YZF600R was not running well so far this year. I cleaned the carburetors really well but couldn't get it to run. I'm not really sure what is going on with that old bike but I finally just gave up and moved all the race bits and bodywork over to my 02YZF which I knew would run just fine.

Originally, I had planned to not race the 02 since it is street legal with a title and I thought I might just put it back into street trim and sell it this summer. But for now at least I'm going to have to use it on the track until I have a chance to rebuild the old bike from the ground up.

Anyway, race weekend finally arrived and Michelle and I went over to Tally on Saturday night to setup pits then we went to Lincoln to visit with her aunt Boots and uncle Andy. We had a wonderful time visiting with them. They are such fun people who love to travel and had many stories to tell us about their latest adventures. Andy's health has not been the best lately so their travel has been curbed somewhat but it was fun to just sit outside by their pool and have a visit. I sure hope Andy's health will improve soon so they can get back on the road.

Raceday was hot and humid. I went out for both my morning practice sessions and everything seemed fine so I parked the bike and settled in to watch the afternoon's races. Senior Superbike wasn't until race 14 so I knew I had time to just relax and enjoy the other races. My friend Gill was there with his SV and his 1000 so he was in 4 races that I got to watch and that was fun. In one of the SV races he ran up front with Ricky Ford which was exciting but afterward he said that Ricky was just taking it easy on him.

Finally time for Senior Superbike came so I suited up and made the long trip from out pits to the new pit out at Tally which is on the new front stretch (we were pitted way up past the trees at the end of the old front stretch).

Senior Superbike is a combined expert/novice race with two waves. The middleweight novices are at the very back of the second wave so I don't have to worry about traffic behind me at the start. My started inside the second row in 4th position with Adam Schmidt and Dawn Holgate right in front of me in second and third.

I had been watching Chuck, the starter, and he was waving the green really quickly so when the first wave got the two board I really watched closely and sure enough when the one board went sideways he immediately went to green. So I knew I could get a good start if I just nailed it when the one board went sideways. I didn't have long to wait as Chuck stared at us the two board went to one then sideways and when it did I nailed the gas and got the best launch I ever have gotten in any race.

Even on my underpowered 600 I felt shot out of a cannon. I found myself splitting the front row and even catching the back of the heavyweight novices that were ahead of us. By the time I got to the first turn I wasn't even sure what position I was in because I was mixed in with the tail end of the heavyweights. I do remember that Dr. Schmidt passed me on the outside going through one and then Dawn Holgate got by on the inside coming out of one and they pulled away from me by a good second or two by the time we got to the bowl.

Headed into the bowl a couple of more riders outbraked me. I didn't know if these were some of the heavyweight guys getting by or maybe middleweight guys in my race who got by so I just settled in and ran my pace and hoped I wasn't dead last.

By lap three going into the 90's I could see the leaders of the Heavyweight expert class coming up the run to the bowl so I knew I was going to start getting lapped soon. Sure enough about two corners later Tim Hunt came by like I was out of gas. That guy is just fearless. By lap 5 I figured most of the experts had lapped me so I took a look behing coming out of the 90's and I saw a couple of bikes but couldn't tell if they were experts or novices. Then on lap 7 a novice bike went by me and I just figured I was getting lapped by the heavyweight novice leaders now but he didn't pull away from me. I realized that it must be someone in my race who had been following me so I picked up the pace a little and tried to catch him.

When we got the white flag I was only about a second behind him and by the 90's I had gotten close enough that I thought I could pass him at the end of the new backstretch. So I carried as much speed as I could through the final carousel turn, got on the gas as early as I dared and tried to get a run on him down the back stretch. If I could catch him by the end of the back stretch I was going to try to outbrake and if I couldn't I was going to take a wide entrance to the final corner and try to sneak under him on exit.

All those plans went out the window about halfway down the back stretch when one of the experts drafted past me and got between us going into the final turn. I took the widest entrance I could and got on the gas as quickly as I could but couldn't make up the ground and finished 0.6 behind at the line.

All in all a really fun race.

Montgomery Biscuit Baseball

I learned many things from my father. One of my favorite lessons was to love the game of baseball.

Daddy didn't just love baseball, he worshiped it and the elders of the church of baseball were Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reece. They held service every Saturday afternoon. It was called the NBC game of the week. Our pew was on the living room couch in front of our first Zenith color television.

Even today when I attend a baseball game I'm instantly transported back in time to that couch and those childhood memories of when life was as simple as a Saturday afternoon baseball game.

My most recent time travel was last Saturday night when Michelle and I drove down to Montgomery to watch the minor league Montgomery Biscuits play. Minor league baseball is just awesome. It doesn't have the flash of the big name big league players but instead it's a hometown atmosphere where you can relax and have some ballpark food and just soak in the atmosphere.



And believe you me, atmosphere is in abundance at any Biscuits game. Their stadium is in an old warehouse section of Montgomery near the waterfront and right by the train tracks. About 3 times a game you're interrupted by a train whistle and the gentle rumbling of the train and tracks just outside of left field. This time of year the sun sets over that left field wall and the views are spectacular.





The food at a biscuits game is unique as well. I can't think of anywhere else you can enjoy a game with a fresh biscuit covered with your choice of dark or light syrup. Michelle likes the light syrup but I'm a dark syrup man. Here in the south we tend to call it sorgum or cane syrup. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

I can't think of a much better way to spend a summer Saturday than this.
Thanks dad.

Barber 2008 - deja vu all over again for Roger Lee

I'm really starting to feel sorry for Roger Lee Hayden. Last year he and James Kerker had a coming together atop the hill at turn 4 which resulted in Roger Lee sliding under the airfence and breaking his leg pretty badly.

Fast forward to 2008 and we see Roger Lee involved in another incident. During practice Roger and Robertino Pietri of the Roadracingworld.com Suzuki team came together at the end of the backstretch and Roger Lee severely injured his left hand. Reports are that he may lose his little finger in a similar fashion as Troy Bayliss did last year at Donington.

All this bad luck at Barber is made worse by the fact that Roger was still smarting from his ZX10R throwing him off like a bronco in this year's Daytona superbike race. I wish Roger a speedy recovery. Country Boy is tough as nails, he'll be back.



Superbike race action

Michelle and I decided to camp at the track this year so we purchased a tent camping pass and setup shop on Thursday afternoon for the weekend. I'm really glad that we decided to camp as it made the whole weekend much more relaxing. The mornings were cool and the afternoons pleasant all weekend. In fact, except for some rain during the night on Friday, i'd say it was perfect weather for the races.

Some of our camping neighbors

One thing that was different about this year's AMA races was the presence of the Red Bull Rookies Cup. Their pit setup was quite impressive and they put on an excellent race on Sunday morning. I hope they keep doing this, it's good for the series.






As usual with the AMA lately, the support races provided the bulk of the excitement this weekend. John Haner and Aaron Yates had a great race in superstock with Yates eventually coming out on top. Supersport was an epic battle between Yamaha teammates Ben Bostrom and Josh Herrin with Josh taking a dramatic win with a last corner pass on Ben. (personal note.....Josh Herrin passed me close once in practice three years ago, he was 14 years old at the time and I had just turned 50)

This year even formula extreme proved to be exciting with Jake Zemke and teammate Josh Hayes banging bodywork until Josh tossed his bike going up the hill after the backstretch. It was good to see Zemke back on the box after he was discarded by Honda like an old t-shirt you don't want to wear anymore. Ironic, isn't it, Jake took a victory this weekend and Mighel wasn't even close all weekend. Maybe Honda is wondering if a Hodgeson, Zemke duo would have been the way to go.

In conclusion, here are my highlights of the weekend:

1. Red Bull Rookies Cup debut race....a complete success
2. Supersport...Josh Herrin proves he's the real deal
3. Supersport...Ben Bostrom continues a well deserved resergence to his career
4. Superstock...Haner proves it isn't going to be just a "Jordan" cup all year.
5. Superbike...Hodgeson, I just love this guy, a real "racer", handed Miguel his ass all weekend.

I didn't take many pictures this year but here are a few more:

Tally National - rider takes a spill

The WERA National series visited Talladega Grand Prix Raceway this past weekend so I decided to go over and watch Gill run the lightweight races.

While I was there I got parts of a crash on video. This rider is Wes Humphryes and I believe the race is 750 Novice. Anyway, looks like Wes wasn't injured.

Changes come to Road Atlanta

Road Atlanta is a favorite venue of most southeast motorcycle roadracers and now some much needed, and controvertial, changes are being made in the interest of motorcycle racing safety. The original track is being kept and will be used for cars but from now on motorcycles will have to contend with two new features designed to slow the bikes down in two critical areas.



The first change is the addition of a new chicane between turns 3-4. This should slow bikes down in the surprisingly high-speed esses which lead to a tricky, slippery and dangerous uphill turn 5.



The second, and most controvertial, change is an entirely new pit-in, turn 12 complex which completely bypasses the ultra high-speed downhill old turn 12. It also bypasses the big concrete wall at the exit to old turn 12 which nearly took the life of Miguel Duhamel in a testing crash last fall.

Only time will tell how these changes will affect bike racing at RA. Safety is always a good thing and these changes will surely slow the bikes but may introduce more dangers of their own. At least they will be slower speed dangers.

Jim

Heavyweight twin for Gill

My friend Gill picked up a new racebike over the winter. He has been preping the bodywork with fresh paint and sent me some pictures recently of the finished product. Really looks great doesn't it?

Gill has been racing lightweight in WERA on an SV650 and hopefully now he can also run some heavyweight twin stuff as well.

He brought the bike out to a recent trackday at Barber and it looks even better in person than in pictures and the sound of that big V-twin is awesome.

Off season fun -- Jim and Michelle go camping !!!!

Well it has been an interesting off season to say the least. Late November and early December were spent tearing my race bike down and ordering parts for next season. By mid month we were ready for some much needed recreation and, thanks to Michelle's sister Beverly, we got the opportunity.

Beverly is an avid motorcycle rider and loves to take her Harley on long trips. To help with that task she just purchased a Jayco toyhauler. To break it in she planned a trip to Stone Mountain Park near Atlanta to enjoy the Christmas lights and holiday laser show.

Stone Mountain has a great camping area with everything from primitive campsites to full on RV hookups. Beverly had her new Jayco and her friends Ralph and Jackie were going along with their fifth-wheel motorhome. Michelle and I were invited to go along too and we decided we wanted to do something different. We decided to tent camp.

Ralph and Jackie's fifth wheel, Beverly's Jayco in the middle and our Explorer

So the plans were made. We purchased a tent, practiced setting it up and packed all the stuff we'd need for the weekend. Little did we know that it would be the coldest weekend of the year and to top it off it rained. But the tent stayed nice and dry and we had heaters for the cold and it was really a fun and relatively comfortable weekend.

Our home away from home

Ralph loves to cook and he made sure we were well fed. Their rig is huge so there was room for all of us to gather for food and fun. The first night we watched the movie "RV" and it was hilarious. Next day we took in the park and enjoyed the thousands and thousands of Christmas lights. I can definately see myself going back next year.

Stone Mountain Park has a huge man made lake. They have these "duck boats" that drive around the park then go out on the water. We decided to take a ride and we got a little out of control.