My teammate (Will Finnerty) and I made the decision late 2014 to compete in the entire 2015 ASRA Team Challenge series. The time has finally come to begin on this journey. First stop is Roebling Road Raceway which neither Will or I have ever been. So we made the trip down a day early to do a practice day. Along with Todd and Tony, we left Wednesday night to escape the snow. Arriving into beautiful Savannah on Thursday, we were greeted with amazing 80 degree weather. In 18 short hours we were at the race track Friday morning but not greeted by 80 degree weather. It was low 30’s like we had never left the north east. The cold winter had killed my battery so we had to jump the bike from Tony’s truck battery each session. Luckily Tony owns a Buell and having an extra source of juice to power up those thundering beast is a must. Eventually a new battery was purchased as we cannot have a dead battery for the Team Challenge.
Weather was looking up for Saturday and with the addition of Chai, Ben, and some other friends it was bound to be a good day. After noon it was 65 and sunny. First sprint up on the chopping block was Ultralight Superbike. This is always one of the best races and it started off great. First 4 laps was quite the battle and then the rear tire kept slipping. I knew the tire was in bad shape but couldn’t have been that bad. I decided to back off so I slipped from battling for 1st place back to 7th. Came back in and checked pressure…. yea.. I pulled the ultimate novice move. Didn’t check rear tire pressure. It was sitting at 45psi, about 23lbs too high. Time for redemption in Thunderbike. Horrible start and then it happened. I couldn’t downshift coming into turn 1. I was stuck in 6th gear and limped it through the race. I managed to catch 3rd place but crossed the line in 5th with 4th and 3rd within half a second.
The sprints weren’t the purpose of this weekend, it was all about the team challenge. So now I had to get to work sorting the clutch issue. Ripped the side cover off, took the plates, lathered them in oil, put them back in, and that pretty much seemed to fix the issue. Only question is why did it stop disengaging and would it make it through the team challenge race.
Bike makes it through practice no issues. So now it’s time for the show, 2 hour team challenge race. One of my main concerns before the race started was a slight issue with the overflow vent with the gas tank. It this came into play right away. I got a good start and passed quite a few middleweight machines. I had a few fantastic laps battling with Tommy Wilson who was riding an R6. I passed him around outside of turn 8 and felt his front wheel try to take my leg off. At this point I started to pay attention to the overflow. The long hose and over flow can quickly got filled up. I had to put in early on lap 13. We crimped the hose and sent Will on his way. Will was putting in some amazing laps and got us back in contention. We had lost 2 laps on the early pit stop. Then with absolute perfect timing as Will was pitting in the race got a red flag. This saved us from having to do another pit stop. 2nd row for the restart, I just put my head down and tried to do solid laps till the end and hope for a 3rd place. Turns out that red flag wasn’t the only lucky event to take place. The class leading Ducati ran into some mechanical issues and had to fall out of the race around lap 38. I got the good news that we had finished in 2nd. This was a big step in the right direction compared to last years disastrous first round at CMP. Congrats to my good friends Ben and Todd finishing third and Mike coming in 4th. Bike needs some adjustments but will be ready for CMP in a month.
