Team Daemon races with the pros in Formula USA!
Find all of the weekends race results at the LRRS website here.
I went, I qualified, I raced, I survived!
It was a long weekend of racing, but a hell of a lot of fun! In preperation for the FUSA weekend at Pocono, I, along with Bruce, had spent Wednesday up at NHIS for the Bikeworx/Motomarket trackday. This turned out to be a great way to warm up for the weekend.
Sponsor/supporter/all around great person Jodi Solomon met me at my house early Thursday morning. After making sure we had everything we would need for the trip, we hit the road. We met up with Bruce at a rest area on the Mass Pike and from there we convoyed to Pocono. The trip down was mostly uneventfull, only interupted by the ocational downpour. We were optomistic, figuring if it was raining then, it would get it all done and the weekend would be clear.
We arrived at the track within 6 hours, signed in, registered, and proceded to unload all of out stuff into our garage. That is when we got the first taste of the circus that is Pocono. Keep in mind, this was the day before everone really arrived, so there were very few people there, the place was basically empty. Nontheless, we were imediately greated by security informing us that we could not park in front of our garage to unload, as it was a "firelane". I paused for a minute and took a look at the great big, empty, parking lot, shrugged, and moved the car 20 yards into the *marked* travel lane, that was valid parking, and proceded to unload. Go figure.
After unlading, and setting up the garage, we all moved over to to the camping area and set up our tents and the canopy. Watching Jodi try to put up her tent proved to be very amusing for both Bruce and myself (it was only the second time she had set it up).
Once we were all set-up, we left the track and made our way about 20 miles away to Nesquehoning, where we were going to spend the night. We found the house we were staying in, unloaded some of our stuff, then headed out in search of dinner, wich came in the form of a nice little diner. After dinner, it was back to the house for a little relaxation, and then an early night.
Around 9pm, we get a call from Kit, asking where the hell the racetrack was. We gave her directions to the the house, and estimated that she was still about an hour out. After about 2 hours, Kit still had not shown up. Being very tired, we all went to bed, figuring Kit will either find her way, call, or stop somewhere else for the night. At about midnight, we get a call from Kit. She is lost. My cell phones battery had died, so I walked out to the car to plug it in. As I'm crossing the street, Kit sees me (recognizes my T-shirt), and finally made it to the house. She quickly unloaded, and we are all back in bed within minutes.
Friday morning:
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We headed back to the track and got situated. I sign up for
practice, as does Bruce. Practice was supposed to start at 8am, but
due to organizational nightmares, the track did not go green until almost
10pm. About the same time, Kevin showed up and started to unload,
and to get ready for practice.
My first several practices went well. I remembered the track pretty well, so it did not take me too long to get used to it agian. Although, the speeds on the back straight did take me a little time to get used to.
I toggled back and forth between practicing with the LRRS group, and going out with the FUSA bikes. Some of the FUSA bikes would pass me on the back straight like I was going backwards! Even though I was running at over 150mph! I had opted to race in the "big" FUSA races, rather than the 106hp or the 126hp races, since the big race paid out through 15th position, and the others only paid out through 3rd. I figured I had a good chance of finishing in the top 15, even if I was on a 100hp supersport bike going up against the 170hp open class bikes.
After practice was done for the day, we all cleaned up, and headed out for dinner. We found a nice little resturaunt down the road and enjoyed a great meal. After dinner, it was back to the track where we all promptly passed out in our tents.
Saturday:
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Once again, we got off to a late start, with practices not starting
until after 8:30am. I went out for 1 LRRS practice session, then
I had a 30 minute FUSA qualifying session. I went out and tried to
get towed around the track by the faster riders, but whenever I would get
on the tail of a faster bike, I would loose them on the back straight.
They would walk away from me like I was going backwards. I did manage
to click off a few fast laps though, and came in with a best time of 1:53.
The fastest guys were doing time in the low 1:40's. Oye.
During the lunch break, Gary Rothwell performed. I watched the show for a bit, but he seemed to be off his game, so I left before the show was over to check out vender row.
After lunch, I had one more qualifying session. I knew I had to get my times down in order to qualify, as the 113% rule was in effect. Just my luck that Doug Pollan had selected this weekend to break the track record by running a 1:38 lap! I went out and put my head down. Because the day was running late (again), the second qualifying session was cut short to only 20 minutes.
After about 15 minutes, I came into the hot pit to see how I was doing. Bruce informed me I was still running 1:53's with 1 1:52. I had about 5 minuted left in qualifying! I went back out for another 2 or 3 laps, pushing as hard as I could, but I couldn't break the 1:52 mark.
I was a little dissapointed. I was hoping to break into the 40's, but that did not seem to be in the cards. I waited for the qualifying times to be posted, but they never were due a timing error. Shit. I figured I did not make the 113% cut-off, so I was resigned to the fact that I would not be racing the next day.
After the day of racing was done, we fired up the grill and had
a nice little dinner in the garage. After dinner, a few of us headed
over to the "Music Jam" that was happening behind the grandstands.
We checked out the contest to become a trophy girl (it's AMAZING how some
woman will let themselves be objectified), watched a bit of the bands,
then called it a night.
Sunday:
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I went out for my last LRRS practice session of the weekend, I
was fealing good. Finally, the results from the FUSA qualifying were posted.
My best time was a 1:52, but it was good enough to qualify! I was
on the last row, but I wasn't last!
I went out with the last FUSA practice, and started fillowing some of the faster bikes. They were no longer walking away from me on the back straight, they were faster, but I was able to make up time on the brakes and through the tight sections of the track. I knew I could still go faster going into turn 1 and turn 6, and there was time to be made in the infield, but I was fealing good.
FUSA Race #1:
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I was gridded on the last row. But I was not gridded last.
As we got staged, I felt like a real racer, with Jodi and Bruce there with
me, Jodi holding the umbrella over me, and Bruce making sure the bike was
good to go. We went out on the warmup lap, and re-gridded for the
start. The green flag flew, and we were off. I got a good start,
but was held up in traffic going into turn 1, getting pushed wide.
I managed to get around a few bikes going into turn 2, and a few more in
3, but then the track starts to open up, and my horsepower handicap started
to come into play. On the back straight, a few of the bigger bikes
got past me, but I was able to hold my own in the tight stuff.
At the end of lap 1 I was running in something like 25th place. I put my head down, determined to move up a few places. I was able to pass a few bikes in the infield, but they would get it back on the back straight. Very annoying. After a few laps, the field sorted itself out, and I was running alone. My pit board showed me that I was making time on the bikes behind me with each lap,+6, +7, +8, etc. and I could see I was catching up to the bikes in front. I pushed it harder and harder, going into turn 1 and 6 faster and faster each lap. About 1/2 throught he race, I went into turn 6 too fast, and had to abort the turn, overshooting it. It took me a few seconds to turn around and re-enter, but that was enough to let a few bikes by. To make matters worse, soon after, on the back straight, I felt my right contact pop out of my eye. I was now 1/2 blind. This slowed me down a bit, but I could see well enough to continue. With about 3 laps to go, the leaders started lapping me, I tried to stay out of their way while at the same time, not slowing myself down too much.
Finally the checker came out, much quicker than I expected, actually, and I finished the race in 24th position! Out of 31 bikes, that's not bad! I finished ahead of Eric Wood, Mike Barns, and a few other fast riders. Granted, they crashed, but in order to finish first, you must first finish!
MWGP:
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My next race was an LRRS race, MPGP. I felt like I had a
really good chance of doing well in this race. At the start of the
race, a bike kicked out a cone into traffic, causing a lot of swerving.
I had to get on the brakes hard to avoid running into the back of a bike
that almost stopped. This put me near the back of the pack.
But on lap 2, the red flag came out due to 2 bikes getting tangles in turn
2. We all headed back to pre-grid, but were told to go back to our
pits, as it would be a while, since the downed rider was to be med-flighted
out. (The rider, Mike Niska, was OK and released the next day).
This caused about an hour delay. Once the situation was taken care of, we regridded and went out for the second time. I got a much better start, and went into turn 1 around mid-pack. I was able to pick my way through a few riders, but was never quite able to really get going in the short 5 lap race, and had to settle for a 14th place finish.
FUSA Race #2:
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For the second FUSA race, I was gridded on the 7th row, 2 rows
up from race #1, and in front of some very fast riders, like Mike Barnes
and Eric Wood. I got another good start and was able to go into turn
1 in about mid-pack, but once again, my lack of hp put me at a disadvantage,
as I would helplessly watch bikes pass me and pull away on both the front
a rear straights.
As the race progressed, I was chasing one bike in front of me, another 600. I would close on him bit by bit, but I could never get close enough to go for the pass. This is how it went for the last several laps, and how it finished. I finished 20th. Better than race 1, but not as well as I had hoped for.
Once my race was done, I started packing up, so that we would be ready to hit the road as soon as we could. I took a brief break to watch Kevin run his last race of the day, run almost in the dark as the day ran very late, but after that, just concentrated on getting packed up. We were on the road by 8pm, and home by 3am.
I would like to thank everyone who came to watch, Mike D., Dave P., Blake J., Eric, etc. and especially thank Jodi "sponsor of the year" Solomon for all her help and company during the entire weekend. Not only does she sponsor the team, but she shopped, cooked, fed, and made sure the entire team was taken care of all weekend long!
I would like to also thank the rest of the team for all their help
and support during the weekend and finally, but by no means least, all
of our sponsors who
made the whole weekend possible!
This weekend started earlier than usual. Paul and I were instructors at the Team Lady Luck track day held on Wednesday at NHIS. This also gave me the chance to scrub in new tires, brake rotors and chain. I spent much of the day on my M900 and its extra grunt over the Skorpion was noticeable. I hope to get that fixed over the winter...
Thursday morning I dropped the kids at my sister's house and met up with Paul and Jodi for the trek down to PA. Forecast called for rain and we had it on and off for much of the trip. Thanks to our HJC radios we were able to stay in touch the entire way. We made pretty good time and got to the track in time to unload and set up camp. Having never been to Pocono my first impression was, "this place is HUGE!". The course we'd be running is a mile longer than NHIS and doesn't even use the whole track. We weren't allowed to stay Thursday night and there wouldn't be any security so we left the minimal amount of stuff (bike and trailer) and headed to Laura's grandmother's house for the night.
Friday morning was grey and foggy which pretty much sets the tone for the whole day. Without going into detail I'll just sum up by saying that the Pocono organization sucked. Practice didn't get started until 10am (it was scheduled to start at 8am). I was out in the first practice which consisted of experts under 750cc. There were only three practice groups, mine, pros and experts 750 and over, and amateurs. Having never been to Pocono and not even knowing which way the track went made for a very cautious practice. Being out there with bikes having more than double my horsepower made for a some what intimidating practice. Having over 100 bikes on course at the same time made for a crazy practice.
I came in from the first practice wondering what the heck I was doing here. The second practice wasn't much better. It felt even more crowded and I while I now knew which way the track went, I still didn't know how to go fast. I didn't feel at all comfortable and pulled in early. Third practice was red flagged twice and then ended. I think I got about 3 laps in. It wasn't until the fourth and last practice session that I started feeling comfortable. I was still getting smoked but I wasn't going backwards quite as fast. All told I think I got about 15 laps of practice in. Not a heck of a lot.
All my races were scheduled for Sunday so I had one practice session
Saturday morning and I was done for the day. This was a normal LRRS
practice session (jr/ex red) so it was a lot more sane and I had a fairly
good session. The rest of the day was spent helping the rest of the
team as needed and watching various corners to try and learn something
about the track.
GTL - Sunday Race 1B: 13th place
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Although I certainly had room for improvement in the infield sections,
any gains I did make there were quickly lost on the straights. I
managed to get down to the 2:10 range.
GP Singles - Sunday Race 5: 2nd place (trophy)
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Looking at the grid sheet I saw that only Larry, Brian, and myself
made up the junior field. When I got out to the starting grid Larry
and Brian were nowhere to be seen! We get under way and by the time
I'm about half way down the back straight Larry comes by and quickly puts
distance between us. It turns out that he was a little late to the
grid and had to start from pit road. I knew I wasn't going to be
able to catch him and unless Brian showed up to make a race of it I could
take it easy. Which I did.
LW Sportsman - Sunday Race 9: DNS
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I opted out of this race. Besides the fact that it wasn't
going to run until about 7pm, my first two races proved that I wasn't very
competitive here. I decided to start packing up before this race
even started.
Paul, Kit, Jodi and I started the trek home around 8 or 8:30p. One stop for dinner and I pulled into my driveway about 2:30am. I was still wide awake and managed to unload my truck before going to sleep.
While this wasn't my best performance of the season and Pocono staff
and organization leave much to be desired, it was nice to race on a different
track and I'll be back next year. Hopefully with a little more horsepower
on tap!
Coming Soon!
Coming Soon!