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WERA Round 2 – Grattan Raceway Recap

We had a good weekend. I crashed, got hurt and hurt the bike. What?? Yeah you might not agree after reading that. What happened after the crash though is what made it a good weekend. Racing's all about goals, obstacles and whether or not you can overcome them. We were faced with a good one this time around ..

My dad, Bob and I arrived at the track early Friday morning for practice. Eric (Johnston) and Dave (Grey) were there, along with soon-to-be-arriving Nik (Von Matt). We were setup and all were pitted together.  Doug was out riding his bike for the day with Jim (Cottrell), and then joining us for the remainder of the weekend.

The day started off well, as we were into the low 1:25 range by lunch, less than a second off my fastest time from last year. I had an epiphany earlier in the week about the gearing we had been running at Grattan. It was all wrong. I talked to several people including Garry, all of who confirmed that basically our gearing was too tall for Grattan – especially in the counter-clockwise direction we were running. We went shorter and that proved to be a good move.

As the morning had gone well, the afternoon was a bit of a disappointment. We made a number of changes to the bike to try and make it better, but they didn't help and left us short of the goal we had wanted of lap times in the 1:24 range by the end of the day. Part of the problem was that I couldn't decipher the changes as well at Grattan, compared to Nelson Ledges. At Nelson, I felt I could tell if a change we made was better or worse right away. It was tougher to do that at Grattan, given how each turn has different characteristics, elevation and is overall a very technical track. In the past with the SV, if the bike handled well at Grattan, it seemed to do well everywhere else. Now on the R6, we had a really good setup at Nelson (given that was our first event of the season) and were now trying to use that at Grattan. It wasn't easy. Although for that matter, nothing in the 600 class seems to come easy.

The silver lining of Friday afternoon showed Saturday morning. We figured out some of the things we had done that definitely didn't work (both damping and geometry-wise), and had an idea for some stuff that might.  Jim also provided a good idea Friday night that proved beneficial. This was even after he had a few beers (thanks Jim). The practice sessions Saturday clicked off and we tried a couple more things, all which seemed to help us learn a little more about the bike, but not necessarily go faster.

By the end of practice, the tires were sliding slightly in several spots. My dad, Doug and I talked about possibly putting on new rubber before the race, but decided to stick with what we had. The tires didn't have that many laps on them; plus it would be good practice to get more comfortable with the bike sliding around in a race that wasn't for points.

In the Middleweight Solo, I had a decent start and was 4th coming out of the hairpin, behind Brent (Bennett), Jonas (McCluskey) and Jeff (Kovack). Jeff and I had a great dice for 3-4 laps. We passed each other back and forth a number of times. I had a blast. I finally made a pass stick in the hairpin where he wasn't able to get back by right away like he had been. By now Brent and Jonas had checked out, so I ran around by myself for the next 5-7 laps. Matt Lapham caught me just past the halfway mark, riding extremely well. That put me back to 4th place. I had several moments in the winding laps with the rear tire sliding pretty badly. Going into 10B, the hairpin, the esses, and T3. The rear end felt like it was on ice coming out of T1, sliding onto the front straightaway, which was kind of cool, but not too confidence-inspiring. We finished 4th and I felt really good about the race.  We had set a new personal best lap with a 1:24.1 – not bad considering the tires and that I had a death grip on the bars most of the race.

Doug had noticed a couple things Sunday morning while watching me ride and provided some good tips; all things that most racers would know, but with everything that's going on while riding, can be easy to forget. The main thing was that I had apparently forgotten to simply bend my arms while on the bike. I was stiff-arming the bike, which was not only making me expend more energy, it was making my arms part of the suspension – not good. The morning practice sessions continued and were cold, but we made a couple slight changes that helped improve the bike. The bike was hooking up and cornering around the track extremely well. We were right at the times we had done in the Saturday race, and I was really looking forward to the races.

This is the part where I crashed.  It was on the first lap of the first race of the day. I was gridded on the front row and had an awful start. Bikes were buzzing by me and as we went through 10B and 10A, I had a good drive down into the hairpin where I had hoped to make up a few spots. Evidently a lot of other guys had the same idea, so the entrance to the hairpin was about 5 bikes wide (it's normally a 1-2 line corner). As I was more or less dive bombing into the hairpin, there simply wasn't enough room for me to fit, I was quickly realizing. I was on the very inside left of the track, and bikes in front of me were spreading out, where I didn't have any place to go. As I stared at the grass quickly approaching, I didn't have many options. I either had to hit the bikes in front of me, or go through the grass. And once I decided to go through the grass, there wasn't anywhere to go from there. The first obstacle is that there's a guardrail just past the turn which isn't very enticing. However the more apparent and serious issue is that the hairpin turns left back onto itself - so going through the grass would put me right back on the track where 10-15 bikes were going to be charging through. Needless to say, not good options. I was hard on the brakes all the way up to the grass, and did all I could do once on it – brake and hope I stopped. I knew braking on the grass wouldn't work and while I didn't consciously think it at the time, I knew slowing down enough to avoid the above two options meant the bike and I had to go down. With all the speed I was carrying, as soon as I hit the grass the bike went down and threw me off into the ground with it.

Once back in the pits, we all took note of the damage. The subframe was cracked in two pieces all the way down. The front fairing stay was mangled. The exhaust can was now at a 90-degree angle, nearly in two pieces. The bodywork seemed to have soaked up most of the other damage though. The frame, forks, swingarm and other important parts were all mostly untouched. My dad and Doug immediately began taking parts off and started fixing the bike. The response from everyone we knew in the paddock was awesome. People were jumping in and helping fix the bike, bringing parts, looking for parts, doing anything they could do to help. It would have surely been easy to call it quits after crashing, but the vibe from everyone getting the bike put back together made that impossible. Gina and my mom made sure I had Motrin and constant ice for my left shoulder (fortunately, this wasn't the one I had surgery on). My right shoulder and knee were sore as well, but nothing too serious.   After the focused frenzy of getting the bike together, we ended up only missing one race and were ready to go for the 3rd and 4th races.

Both of those races went nearly as well as they could have. Going in I didn't think I'd even match my times from Saturday, but I dropped nearly a second, putting in a 1:23.2 as my best lap. I didn't feel great and the bike of course felt different after the crash (which may have been in my head), but I finished both races in the top 10. Several riders passed me that I felt I could have beaten, but I definitely picked up speed in a couple spots that I'll be able to use next time. In the race that I did my best lap in, I was slightly held up by another rider and couldn't make a pass on him. If I could have done that and had a clear track, I'm confident we would have been into the 22's. And without crashing, I think we would have gotten into the 21's, which would have been great. Woulda, coulda, shoulda doesn't count, but I suppose it makes the drive home a little better.

Below is a thread I posted on the WERA bulletin board, which attempted to thank everyone involved who helped us out on Sunday:

I'll probably miss somebody and if so, I apologize. I can't thank everyone enough who helped us get back out there after going down in the first race of the day. A ton of people came to check on us, offered to help – a couple even offered up their bikes. Thanks so much.

Joe Kraft, Doug Cornett, Bob Watson, Aaron Bagwell, Dave Grey, Eric Johnston, Aaron Hardiman, Chris Knight, Dan Doty, Wes and Jan Swain, James Bhathena, Nik VonMatt, Chip Kraus, Garry Hayes, Matt Lapham, Jeff Kovack, Jonas McCluskey, Sunny Chang, Mike Flis, Dan Cole, Dave (and Brent) Bennett, Alan Pett, Pete Cline, Mike Brooks, Jig, Scott, John and Sherri Trautman, Jim Sublet, Rich Graver, Roger on the crash truck, the corner workers down in the bus stop, and others I'm surely forgetting.

After the crash, the subframe and pipe were the main items destroyed. Chris Knight was awesome – getting on the microphone and finding a subframe for an 03-05 R6 that seemingly no one races anymore. Dan Doty had the subframe, Aaron Hardiman had a can and those two things let us get back out there. My dad, Doug and Aaron did a *ton* of work to get the bike back together and rideable, while I mostly got in the way, trying to help with an ice pack wrapped around my shoulder. I can't thank them enough .. definitely what team is all about and what makes the racing community friggin' awesome.

I owe a lot of people beer. I'll bring extra to BeaveRun.

Thanks again,

Eddie Kraft

Overall it was a weekend of mixed emotions. I was of course bummed about crashing. Yet I was happy to have set a new personal best lap time. But I was disappointed because I knew I could have gone faster. 21's would have been good enough to win a race. What made the weekend a good one though was the team – the people. The friends and family who were at the track. Yeah it sounds like a cliche, but it's true.

Now if we could just keep that and drop those 2 seconds, that'd be perfect. :)

Cheers,

- eddie

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007 | POSTED AT: 6:14 AM
FILED UNDER: Race Reports

2 Comments on “WERA Round 2 – Grattan Raceway Recap”

Jeff Kovack wrote on 24 May, 2007, 7:59 AM
good write up eddie… yea the crash sucked but it didnt seem to affect you too bad in the later races! so i agree! still a good weekend for ya. i also ran a personal best at 1:23.6xx…. which im really proud of… but like you i still need another 2 seconds… will it happen this year? maybe? maybe not… i gotta catch you first!
Eddie wrote on 24 May, 2007, 8:16 AM
I never thought I’d say it, but I wouldn’t mind doing another trackday going counter-clockwise this year. I felt like there was a bunch of time left out on the table. Thanks again for the video clip too. I really need to work on getting my head out in the turns!