Witchkraft Racing: The Search for Speed

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2003 WERA :: Putnam Park – 5/31-01

WITCHKRAFT FLIES SOLO TO INDIANA

Prelude:

The season started off on the wrong foot for me. New bike, new series, new excitement for the upcoming race season. It all sounded good. It was late April, it was sunny, it was warm (enough) – birds were singing, bikes were running, gas was flowing .. and my engine was blowing up. All good up until that last point.

Fast forward to mid-May where WERA was hosting their first event at Grattan in some time. Three weeks and thousands of dollars later, I would finally get to ride the new bike. I had sold the Hawk I raced last year and bought a Suzuki SV650, which had more mojo and a better front suspension.

My dad and I put the rebuilt motor back into the bike late on Thursday night before Friday’s practice. I broke the motor in on Friday and raced it on Saturday and Sunday, where I did much better than expected. I was fortunate enough to win three races (LW Solo 20, HW Twins and LW Twins) in my first WERA event. While I still didn’t better my lap times from last year on the Hawk, I was really happy how well the bike had worked out so far.

WERA at Putnam Park:

With my dad going to Nelson Ledges to for the Fasttrax endurance race with Mike and Chuck (which was rained out unfortunately), and the rest of the Witchkraft crew tied to plans other than racing, that left me going solo to Putnam. My mom decided to come along for the trip, as she hadn’t made it out to any of our races yet this year.

Saturday:

My mom and I arrived at the track fairly early. After setting up shop and getting registered and tech’d, I was pretty much ready to go. Ex-MGP/GLRRA guys, Kevin (Koppen, #95) and Jason (#302) were pitted nearby, with the Carney racing boys not far off. Steve (George, #84), Nik (VonMatt, #688) and Mitch (Waldrep, #100) had made the trip out, which was cool. Scott (Trautman, #104) and Doug (Root, #510) were there as well. Always good to see some familiar faces.

The first practice session didn’t consist of much. I was pretty inexperienced at Putnam, so I was just looking to make sure I knew which turns went left, and which turns went right. A look down at my lap timer at the end of the first session revealed a 1:26 lap time. I figured that wasn’t very good.

The second session was a little better, but not much. The bike was still new to me, so I felt really weird out on the track. As I went around, “Man, where’s the Hawk and Grattan,” echoed in my head. To make things even better, as I was coming off the track and into the pits, the bike died. As I pushed the bike back to the pits, I was cycling through the rolodex of things I thought that could have caused the problem. After checking the gas and the battery, I crossed those two off the list of possible culprits. I then restarted the bike and it ran fine. Problem solved? I would soon find out.

Mediumweight Solo 20

The only reason I ran this race was for more track time. Without Friday practice and limited practice time in the morning, I needed something more to help get me up to speed. With my mom’s help, I got the tire warmers off and headed to hot pit lane. As I rolled to a stop, waiting to go out for the hot lap, the bike died – again. I looked down, tried to restart the bike (knowing with the small battery I had, that it wouldn’t) without success.

“Come on, don’t do this to me now.” It was like Back to the Future when the DeLorean stalls on Marty, while Doc Brown is down waiting by the clock tower for the 88.8 mph necessary to generate the proper “jiga-watts” to send Marty back to the future … kinda. :).

So I hopped off the bike and pushed it back down to the pits as fast as I could. I figured I would miss the race for sure. I got to the pits and asked this little kid if he could please hold the bike for me. As he held it up, I ran for the jumper cable that ran to the Jeep for starting the bike (gotta love total loss) and plugged it in. I grabbed the door handle to start the Jeep – and it was locked! I looked around frantically – where’s my mom?! I look up and saw her running as fast as she could from hot pit lane, seeing what I was trying to do. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her run that fast before, but as she got to the Jeep, she jumped in and started it, then I started the bike, quickly thanked the kid for holding the bike, and raced back up to hot pit lane. Luckily, a crashed bike was being cleared off the track, so I didn’t miss anything. Phew. I sat there, blipping the throttle to make sure the same thing didn’t happen again.

Once the race began, I tried keeping up with some of the 600′s, but they would just pull away from me on the straight. It didn’t really matter since I wasn’t racing this class seriously, but it did help get me in the right frame of mind for the Lightweight Solo 20 race that was coming up.

About 1/2 way through the race, Jason passed me and I tried to keep up with him for a lap or two. We were coming out of turn 7 (the bus stop), when he lost the front end and went off into the grass. As I went by, I could see him slamming his hand down on the ground (while he was still sliding) in frustration. He was alright and the bike didn’t suffer too much damage, so that was good.

I pulled in a few laps early and looked down at my lap timer – 1:21′s. Still not sure how good that was for an SV, but it was better than the morning’s lap times.

Lightweight Solo 20

I was fairly nervous for this race. After talking with Jerry (VanHorn, #301), I knew he was a local fast guy and definitely one of the faster amateurs there. Not to mention all the other guys (and gals) who had the “home track” advantage that I had enjoyed at Grattan the previous round. My expectations were to try and finish in the top 5 and see how things would go. Mainly, this would be another long practice session before Sunday’s races.

I was gridded on the outside of the 3rd row. I tried to position myself as best as possible, so I could go around people in front of me if necessary. WERA’s grids are pretty tight, which is nice for passing people on the start. However, it can make for a precarious situation if someone in front of you has a bad start, or stalls their bike.

As I kept blipping the throttle to make sure I didn’t stall, the “1″ board went sideways and the green flag flew. I was off and had a great start and I jumped past the 2nd row and 1st row of bikes and headed to turn 1 leading. As I came onto the straight for the first time, I got the sign from my mom that I had a big lead, which I couldn’t believe. As laps 2 and 3 went by, I came up to lap traffic (already?), which was a result of the 2 wave start in the race. I got by a few people and as the laps counted down, I was still getting the “big lead” sign. A look at the lap timer showed I was doing consistent 1:20′s and had dipped into the :19′s on one lap. “Where is everybody?” “Where’s Jerry?” “What’s going on?” This didn’t make sense.

With about 5 laps to go, my “big lead” sign wasn’t so big anymore. I’m not sure how many bikes were in the race, but there was lap traffic everywhere – and I wasn’t getting through it well. I wasn’t comfortable passing people – especially when I didn’t know the track or the riders I was trying to pass. I had a couple 1:21 and 1:22 laps, where I knew someone was gaining on me. To make matters worse, my tires were about done (they were from last year, and I ran a full round at Grattan on them – go figure).

This was best illustrated when I tried passing a lapper on the outside of turn 3 (a right hander, leading to a long left), where I was forced to run *way* wide through the left and onto the marbles and sealer strips. The rear tire gave me a nice, “what the hell are you doing,” gesture as it slid, what felt like 2 feet out from under me (I’m sure it was only an inch or so). And that’s what did it – because as I got to the hairpin on that lap, I had the unpleasant surprise of someone passing me on the inside – #130 on a Hawk.

My immediate thought was to try and keep up with him and not let him pull away on me. I followed him onto the straight and was able to draft/motor by him and lead into turn 1. Wayne (the pilot as I later found out) passed me again in the hairpin, as I ran the bike too deep trying to brake and downshift all at the same time. I followed him again onto the straight and made another pass (from riding a Hawk, I wasn’t used to passing people on the straight – what a nice change). Sometime after that, Wayne passed me again somewhere and I passed him back going into turn 5 I believe. I kept him behind me through the hairpin and led as we raced by the white flag.

The last lap was rough. We came onto a lapper and I had to check up in order to pass him. This apparently gave Wayne the time he needed to latch onto me as we came to the hairpin for the last time. I ran a pretty good line through the hairpin, but as I came out of it, Wayne pulled alongside me on the right – as we were approaching Dead Bear (turn 8, which is a long left). We were about even going into turn 8, but I braked early and Wayne was able to pass me on the outside. He did have some good motor in his Hawk and I knew my chances of passing him before the finish line were slim. I followed him through the last two turns and onto the straight away, where I finished 2nd.

2nd was still a good finish – better than I had expected. Although, after leading a race like that, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed. If I could have gotten through traffic better, especially on the last lap, things might have been different.

After dicing with Wayne, I did consistent :19′s and one :18, so the improvement was definitely nice. I later found out that Jerry had to retire early due to his tire losing pressure. I later went and talked to Wayne, congratulating him on a good race.

Sunday:

I had new tires mounted and ready to go. After going over what happened on Saturday and how I could further improve for Sunday, I realized that running the SV in 2nd gear through the hairpin was not the way to go. Going through it in 3rd gear during the morning practice yielded better results. If I had only known that yesterday, Wayne might not have pulled alongside me coming out of the hairpin on the last lap .. :)

Formula 2

I jumped the start. Stupid, stupid, stupid. It didn’t even help me – it in fact made my start worse because as I checked up after jumping, the green flag went – so I had a delayed start. The torque of the SV helped me get past everyone into turn 1 though, where I again had the lead. After the 2nd lap, I saw a WERA official showing me a white board with my number on it, indicating that they knew I had jumped the start. I got my leg out well before the hairpin to make sure whoever was behind me knew that I was getting off the track.

I came screaming down pit-lane and as I approached the WERA official, I was stomping on the rear brake (I couldn’t fully pull in the front brake, as I was blipping the throttle to make sure the bike didn’t stall) and the rear tire slid to a stop, where the WERA official then let me go.

As I got back out on the track, I had no idea where I was positioned, so I tried to pass as many people as I could. I was able to catch a few bikes every lap, although mostly on the straight. Again, I wasn’t comfortable passing at certain parts of the track, so I would wait until the straightaway to pass them. I didn’t even see the white flag, but as the checkered flag came out, I ended up finishing 8th. There was a group of three bikes in front of me, that I thought I could have passed if I had one more lap. Ah well.

Heavyweight Twins

Making sure I didn’t jump the start again, the green flag went and I had a clean start. I was lucky again, where I was in the lead going into turn 1. A few laps went by, when I was passed on the straightaway by someone on a TL1000 (#119 I think). At that point, I figured I would just have to settle and finish behind him, but for the next couple of laps, I was actually able to keep up with him. I would try and close the distance between us through the turns and he would stretch out the lead on the straight.

With about 2 laps to go, I was close enough, where I was able to pass him going into the hairpin. I led to the straight, when he again passed me going into turn 1. He led for the next lap and on the last lap, I passed him again in the hairpin. “I might actually win this!,” I thought to myself, as we exited the hairpin. As I went into Dead Bear, I again braked too early and ran too tight of a line, where he passed me on the outside like I was standing still. I followed him to the checkered flag, where I had to settle for 2nd place. Dead Bear is definitely my worst turn. Two times I gave up the lead position on the last lap there. Definitely room for improvement. On the bright side, I was consistently doing 1:17′s that race.

Lightweight Twins

I was gridded on the front row and had another solid start. I led into turn 1 and then for the next 2 or 3 laps, before the race was red flagged. As I looked behind me, I saw Jerry not too far behind. I came onto hot pit lane and stopped where my mom was and asked her what had happened. It turned out that #22 had crashed between turns 9 and 10, taking Nik (#688) out in the process. A crap situation – Nik was less than happy, but he was alright and I don’t think the bike was totally mangled.

On the restart of the race, I led the first lap. I started looking behind me coming out of the hairpin, where I saw Jerry and Wayne just coming through turn 6 (the kink), so I felt that I had a decent lead. I was pretty relaxed (translation: “tired”) and felt like I was doing faster lap times than when I was trying to push hard.

As I came out of the hairpin with 3 laps to go, I saw that Wayne had passed Jerry. I tried to stay consistent for the remaining laps. On the next lap, the race was red flagged again. I looked behind me and didn’t see anyone. I didn’t know what the deal was. As I came around turn 9, I saw Wayne pushing his bike through the grass, as he had gone down. I came into the pits and WERA said they were calling that a race. So I won – not under ideal conditions, but a win nonetheless.

I went and talked to Wayne after the race. He was okay, but the bike looked pretty much totalled. He said he accidentally downshifted going into turn 9, which caused the crash. The bike apparently slid onto the grass and the proceeded to flip about 4 times, end over end. Ouch.

Conclusion:

Overall, the weekend went much better than planned. An 8th, two 2nd’s and one win. I got down to a 1:15.3, which I think is a pretty quick time around Putnam on an SV. I still have a lot of learning to do on the bike, as well as the track, so I’ll be looking forward to my next trip to Indiana. The stalling problem with the carbs seems to be tied to the pilot jets being too small. Between my flatslide carbs that need to be cleaned and the stock carbs, I’ll be messing with carburetors the next couple of weeks and probably end up wishing I had an ’03 SV with fuel injection.

As always, it was good to meet some new people at the track. Wayne (#130, Roon), John (#314, Lord), Pete (#469, Lindquist) and Jason (#22, Smith) to name a few. Looking forward to seeing everyone later this season.

Wednesday, January 1st, 2003 | POSTED AT: 12:01 PM
FILED UNDER: Race Reports