Well - we bit the bullet and signed up for our race licenses and a 3-hour endurance race with
FastTrax at the Nelson Ledges race track in Ohio. It was quite an amazing day to say the least.
We got off to a rough start, with a road closure on our way to the track, and navigating some rough terrain thru several back roads on the way to the track. After arriving late, and scrambling thru tech inspection, we made it on time to the first practice session. But, our bad luck continued on, since Ian's bike started blowing smoke, which caused him to get black-flagged on the first lap, so he had to pit in. I continued thru practice on my SV650 - while Ian and Paul diligently worked on Ian's beautiful bike to resolve the smoke issue.
After a lot of work of cleaning up any excess oil and the oil filter (and several paper towels, and a coffee mug catch-can later) - we headed out for practice session 2.
The bad luck continued - as the bike persisted on spewing more smoke. Of course, this provokes black flag #2 for Ian (I think his new nick-name should be "black-flag Ian"
So, after 2 practice sessions, Ian has logged a total of 2 laps - yikes. (not to mention all the work that Ian and Paul had to put into the bike, scrambling to resolve the issue - making an already stressful day, all the more stressful).
But, by now - we've decided that the bike is just fine, the only problem is that there's too much oil in the filter - and decided to try a practice session without the filter. This resolved the smoking problem - but made another problem arise... lack of power.
Now we're 3 practices sessions into the day, and Ian still hasn't had 1 good practice session yet.
Luckily, after lunch - Ian's bike seemed to be running smoke free (and black-flag free
) and we both passed the race school.
But - not knowing if his bike would make it thru the race without a black flag... we had registered my bike for the race. By the time our last practice session was over, we had no time to change the registration from my bike to Ian's - so we figured, no big deal... we'll just use my bike for the race, and swap his new tires with my old tires. So we looked at the clock to see how much time we had to swap the tires before the race - and to our surprise... the race was starting in 20 minutes! Crap! No time for a tire swap - so we used my bike with the old tires.
Well - the race was strenuous after a day like that. We decided to run 30-minute stints, and take a nice-and-easy wreck-free pace. By the end of each 30 minute stint, we were completely exhausted - but at least we had "Coach Paul" there to get us pumped up for the next stint. During 2 of the pit stops, we had to re-fuel, and let me tell you - the re-fueling process seemed to take forever! I'm not sure how long it took to pour 4 gallons of gas, but I can tell you - it felt like it took 30 minutes!
Overall, the race was fantastic! No red flags, and no waiving yellow flags. And, at times - I felt like I was the only racer on the track (with all the riders being spaced out along the 2-mile course).
By the time we were finished - after running 3 hours at a constant pace, with no major issues on the bike (aside from a tach that stopped working, and a broken fairing bracket, which we had an emergency zip-tie operation on) we were completely surprised to have come in 3rd place in the light-weight class!
It was a great experience, and the guys at FastTrax run a great organization.
Hope to see some of you guys down there at Nelson Ledges!
