2015 #3 CCS/ASRA – New Jersey Motorsports Park

There is one giant issue when settings goals and that is if you fail to reach them you leave the track feeling less accomplished. For awhile with racing I’ve never tried to set goals and just enjoy every second of the weekend no matter what happens. Whether that be bike set up, bike failure, bad lap times, or unable to fully partake in the drinking games in the evening. Instead this weekend goals were set and not met. Those were to hit a 1:30 lap time and get the new bike suspension closer to what I want.

The weekend started off Friday night arriving at New Jersey Motorsports Park around 8:30. John was kind enough to paint the new bike’s race skins so those needed mounted along with a some new throttle cables. Practice went decent but had some front end chatter. Both front and rear Pirelli tires are from the Roebling Road Team Challenge race and also endurance practice and sprint races at Carolina so they are beyond done. Mike at Metric Devil Motor slapped on a new SC2 front slick before race #1 but for some dumb reason I decided to stick with the old rear tire. Bumped up the pressure on the front tire from 32 to 35 psi and front chatter went away. First race was Thunderbike. Continuing my hole shot trend, grabbed it and lead the first couple laps before young gun Ben Smith and veteran Bart DeFrancesco would take the lead from me. Crossed the line in 3rd not far behind those two. Front end still not feeling the way I want it but the front tire looked perfect so decided not to touch a thing. Rear traction was an issue but hard to complain when I’m trying to get every last lap out of this thing. If you are going for race wins, you can’t cheap out on buying tires. My decision to cheap out and stick with the current rear rubber would haunt me.

Race 2 would be UL Superbike. Another hole shot and again lead the first couple laps before Ben Smith would get by me coming into Turn 1. Sadly the same lap he would tuck the front end and crash out of the race. Brian McGlade would then get by me with 2 laps to go and that is how we would finish. Bart was right next to me at the line so that 2nd place could have easily been a 3rd place.
 ccs ultralight superbike

Next we had ASRA qualifying. This basically turned into a mini race between George, Rapple and I. I think we may have forgot it was qualifying but non the less it was fun. I qualified 3rd for the ASRA Thunderbike race.

From Road Racing World

Next out were the ASRA ThunderBike competitors and the Suzuki SV 650 riders were out in force at NJMP. At the drop of the green flag it was a five-bike battle, with ASRA Team Challenge racer Sam Wiest in the lead followed by George Demetropolis, Bart DeFrancesco, Brian Rapple and Adrian Hackett. While Wiest held the point for the first four laps, the battle for second eventually pushed DeFrancesco to the front for the next three laps but when the checkered flag flew, it was first time ASRA winner Brian Rapple with the victory. The margin for Rapple over runner-up Adrian Hackett was a scant 0.072 seconds followed by DeFrancesco in third, Wiest in fourth and Demetropolis rounding out the top 5 just 0.903 seconds behind the winner.