Just prior to setting off for Delaware, Brian picked up his latest toy, a brand new, honkingly huge, black, 7'x 16' bike trailer. We will be travelling in style this year.

We made it up to Camden, DE, at 7 pm or so, and as we pulled into the parking lot, I got my first look at the work Steve Long and the boys had done on my SV. The bike was not fully assembled because John Hovey was putting the finishing touches on the motor, but I was impressed already. The paint was exactly as I had requested and the new Hindle pipe looked great. Brad's FZR 400 was waiting in all its glory to be loaded on the trailer. Decked out in a new black paint scheme with yellow highlights, the Bradley Special gleamed with potent promise. We set to work installing the chocks and tie-down points into the trailer while they finished up my bike. A few beers, a few stories, and a few hours later, we said our goodbyes and headed back home.

March 25, 2000 - I took my bike to Whitt's Suzuki to let them get a look at it and figure out where they wanted to put their sticker. Everyone seemed interested in the bike, and the mechanics especially were curious about it. I answered some questions and met each of the staff. They seemed like a good bunch of guys, and they really seemed interested in the whole road racing thing. A couple of them owned nice, tricked-out Buells into which they've obviously invested a lot of time and care.

We parked the SV in front of the entrance to the showroom and it attracted people all afternoon. There's something about a racing vehicle that really gets people going. One guy spent almost two hours looking at it and asking me questions. I had a great time. I hope I talked the guy into buying an SV650. He won't regret it if he does.

April 5, 2000 - Chris Taylor, the general manager of Whitt's Suzuki, brought my fairings back to my house this evening. He had a shop logo made into a sticker and put it on each side of the upper. The guy who made the sticker obviously got into the design and artistry of it all; it looks killer. I'll post pictures as soon as I can.

My friend and neighbor, Matt Bennett, came over to help me set the race sag. I'm gathering my race stuff and Julie's stocking provisions for the weekend. The weather is not supposed to be very good, but we're crossing our fingers...

April 7, 8, 9, 2000

The weekend started off slowly when Brian got hung up in DE, while the Speed Werks guys put the finishing touches on his bikes. He made it to my house after an entire day of driving around, but seemed in pretty good spirits. He was definitely psyched about his new FZR400. Apparently it weighs around 300 lbs and puts out over 80 hp. It really is a gorgeous bike, with carbon fiber everywhere and a huge, beefy frame that looks like it came from a YZF750. We loaded the trailer carefully, taking great pains to make sure to throw the light stuff on top of the heavy stuff, and beat feet up to Summit Point. We arrived, met Brad Faas and his friend, Leonard Roy, set up the canopies, and unloaded the bikes and gear.

Julie and I decided to camp over on the outside of Turn 10. We had just begun to set up our tent when a Summit Point Orchard employee drove up in a battered pickup. He told us not to go into the orchard, "’cause we just put out a load a’ bees, an’ they’ll go after ye." Duly advised, we crawled onto the air mattress and fell asleep at around 2:30 AM.

Saturday Practice

Saturday dawned, clear and warm. As I exited the tent, I entertained a brief hope that we might beat the dismal forecast for later in the day, but I thought I could see a little line of darkness in the western horizon. I visited the porta-potty to take care of some bidness and, as I was fumbling around for the paper products, a bee stung me in the thumb. Not wanting to face the wrath of the rest of the nest, I quickly exited the plastic chamber and gingerly made for the bathroom at the end of the pit.

The rest of the boys were starting to stir so after they shook off the cobwebs we headed over to registration. We paid our money without thinking about it (the best way to get through that kind of thing), talked to some old friends we hadn’t seen in a while, and ran back to our canopy to prepare the bikes for tech inspection. I got put in with the Group 4 practice, 750cc Novices. I think they were trying to thin the groups a bit to make it safer for the riders. I got to relive the days on my old ZX-7, watching the new 750s quickly recede down the front straight as we exited Turn 10. I was all over them on the brakes and in the infield though, then the process would be repeated. It’s always interesting to get a practical view of the strengths and weaknesses of the various types and displacements of motorcycle. Practice went well. I managed to get to 1:31s which, while considerably slower then at the end of last year, was as fast as most of the faster guys were going this weekend. The notable exception was Dave Yaakov, a Summit Point lap record holder, who has the special ability to bend all space and time. 1:24s for old Dave and his SV650 in practice, with neither of them appearing to break a sweat.

Saturday Racing

As is often the case at Summit Point, the morning’s balmy weather proved a cruel tease. Around 11:45, the clouds began to roll in, the winds picked up, and the temperature started dropping. By 12:20 it was pouring rain with truly dangerous winds whipping the course. George Mood, the WERA Race Marshall, called a rider’s meeting at which is was decided to shorten the races to basically half of the normal lap count. The race grids, which were sparse (as is typical at the very beginning of racing season), were fairly well decimated by the rain and wind. Most races took the green flag with seven or eight idiots ready to creep around the track at stall speed. I lined up with my fellow lightweight idiots at about 3 PM, and rode to a soggy, wind-smacked, and miserable 5^th place, one in front of last.

Julie and I decided to go home for the night as the wind had upended our tent, letting the rain soak everything inside. I slept fitfully, worried about the wind and my bike and the snow they were calling for on Sunday. When I got up at 4 AM, it was indeed snowing.

Sunday Practice

On our way up to Summit Point, I get lit up by a State Trooper. I pull way over immediately and keep both hands on the wheel. He motions me back to his car, so I run back expecting the worst. He rolls down his window.

"68 mile an hour!" he says, glaring at me.

"Yessir," I say sheepishly, trying to look sorry.

"You wanna tell me where yer tryin’ to go in such a hurry?"

"Uhh, sir, officer, I’m heading to the race track."

"The race track!" he yells, "well isn’t that just what I wanna hear!? You might as well tell me yer tryin’ to get to a fire ‘r somethin’!!

He stares hard at me, fingering his ticket book and pen, watching me sweat.

"Do you know what the speed limit is at the race track?" he says.

I’m about to answer him when he corrects himself, much to my relief.

"I mean ‘between here and the race track.’"

"55 miles per hour, sir," I say.

"That’s right. Now why don’t you try to keep it there?"

I run back to my car as he peels off. The rest of the trip is uneventful.

When we arrived, the rest of the guys were picking up pieces of tent and canopy that the wind had rudely scattered. Brad’s tent had been blown across the track to rest near the Al Wilcox Start/Finish Line. The canopy had come down at some point during the night, banging up Brian’s spare FZR. It was still very cold and the wind seemed to be intensifying.

I went out for my first practice and was impressed with the wind. I had never felt anything like it. As I headed down the front straight, just after the scoring tower, a large gust blew me three feet off of my line. When I corrected, the wind let up momentarily causing me to drift suddenly back. This was a large frosty glass of "Suck." Cresting the hill in Turn 3, I felt as if the wind would push me backward or yank me off of the bike. The Short Chute was a howling wind tunnel. I found it impossible to hold a consistent line anywhere on the track. I rolled back into the pit, battered and tired from just 15 minutes of practice. I felt it was going to be a long day. If I had only known… Julie had my lap times and when I heard them I was discouraged. 1:34s were the best I could manage. The other guys had similar stories from their practices. Most agreed that these were among the strangest conditions they had experienced at Summit, and that is saying a lot.

I rolled onto the track for my second session, determined to do better. I had lowered the air pressure in my tires to help them heat more quickly, but I took it easy for two laps before beginning to roll heavy. Presently, a YZF600 passed me down the straight, going at a pretty good clip. I watched the rider for a few corners, and he seemed to be smooth and capable, so I resolved to "stalk and pass" if I could. I had a great time for a few laps, in spite of the wind. I’d lose him on the front straight, then reel him in through the back section, getting closer each time. The exercise was really helping me work the winter kinks out. I resolved to try and pass him in Eight or Nine, since I could see he was weaker in those turns (and in the infield in general) than I. Closing quickly in Six, I set myself to drive behind and inside him through Seven then around him in Eight. I pulled hard on the gas exiting Seven, leaned it into Eight, still on the gas, and lost the front end.

As I ingested the dulcet tones of scraping aluminum and fiberglass, I tried to piece together the events of the last second and a half. As far as I could remember, I had entered no differently than in the last several laps. I had not received the slightest hint of anything amiss in the previous runs over this particular stretch of pavement, and I couldn’t figure out why I should be tumbling along the infield at such a rapid rate of speed directly at the Turn Eight tire wall. I saw dirt, sky, dirt, tirewall, and, finally, fence and frightened corner worker running toward me. I wiggled my fingers and toes just to be sure and jumped up, giving her the "I’m OK" motion. I walked over to the fence and leaned heavily on it to collect my thoughts. A spectator came over to ask if I was all right and I told him I was. I asked the corner worker if she had seen what happened. She said she had and that it looked like I had suddenly lost the front end while accelerating. This matched my assessment so I tried to figure out why. There was no oil or fluid evident, I hadn’t gone to the dirty edge of the track and caught slick mud, and there was no other debris of any kind visible. I began to wonder if the wind had caused my crash. I still haven’t figured out what to think.

Anyway, now I had some work to do if I wanted any chance of racing in the afternoon. I rode the crash truck back with another unfortunate victim of a separate incident. When I got back to our pit, Julie was there to meet me as calm as always. That really helped because I was frazzled. I spent a few minutes answering the inevitable question, then started to work. Todd Funk, a fellow racer who looked to be taking a pass on this weekend, was one of the first guys to really examine the bike. He imediatley began a realistic assessment of the damage and started to outline a plan to repair it. That got me in the spirit, and Julie began to write down the parts that needed to be replaced. Soon, I was running around the pit buying parts, fabricating parts, detaching and reattaching parts to make the grid for race one. Chris Guillory, an old friend from the Army and the man who taught me to ride a motorcycle, showed up to watch and was pressed into service. A lot of other people helped, chipping in when they had time away from their own efforts. The list of people to whom I owe any success I had this weekend: Julie Moran, Chris Guillory, Danny Thompson, Leonard Roy, Steve Clark, Brian Roach, Brad Faas, The Speed Werks Crew. My thanks to all of you, without whom I would have been lost.

Sunday Race

I managed to get the bike ready in time for race 11, C-Superbike. I knew I didn’t have a realistic chance of winning, but I figured this would give me a good chance to test the integrity of our repairs. I got a decent start, and was working into a rythym when the shift linkage came undone. Unable to shift, I threw my arm up to signal anyone behind me and clutched to a stop outside of Turn 5. A cornerworker held the bike while I finger tightened the linkage. I remounted in time to take the checker and wound up in 19^th place. More importantly, I’d figured out what was going to shake loose so I could repair it and ride the next race in confidence. The problem was that the next race, Heavyweight Twins, was right after C-Superbike. I screamed into the pit, begged some of Brian Roach’s friends to hold the bike, grabbed a wrench and tightened. I made it back out just in time to take the warm up lap and gridded about thirty seconds after everyone else. The green flag came almost instantly and I motored into Turn One in the lead. I stayed there through the last lap. On the cooldown lap, I waved to Julie, Chris, and my parents who had watched from Turn Eight. They all waved and gave me the "Number One" sign and I felt like a king.

My final race was Lightweight Twins. I blew the start but still wound up first into Turn One. I didn’t feel anyone behind so I concentrated on smooth, consistent laps. That lasted until Mark Blackman blew by me into coming out of Ten. He was riding an Aprilia 250 that seemed to have an advantage on the straights. I calmed myself and began to stalk. He was a very smooth rider, but I felt that he was weak in the infield section and resolved to stay on him until the last lap, then pass him in the Six-Seven combo. Al Wilcox threw the white flag, Blackmun had a slight lapse coming out of Three, I went around him in Four and held the lead through Ten where he rode off trying to hang. Steve Long and John Hovey from Speed Werks met me at Pit In, laughing and pounding me on the back. That made me feel like a racer for a minute. Thanks guys! When I got back to the pit Julie and Chris were laughing and we all blabbed about the race for a while…

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