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2003 WERA Grand National Finals :: Road Atlanta – 10/29-02
WITCHKRAFT SEASON FINALE HEADS DOWN SOUTH
Prelude:
A week before we were scheduled to leave for the GNF, my dad and I went to a Grattan track day to shake some of the rust off before the year-end finale. To make a long story short, the crank broke in my motor that day and a widespread panic ensued. It was a freak and random occurrence, but after a great deal of work, stress, and more stress, we had the bike back together Sunday night for our Monday evening departure time.
Damain Dobosz, my dad and myself left Monday evening and arrived at the track on Tuesday. Andy George, Chris Knight, Darby Brauning, and Chris’s friends, Dave and Beverly made the trip down as well and arrived late Tuesday night. Aaron Bagwell and Nik VonMatt arrived Thursday morning – having driven all of Wednesday night to make it for the Thursday races. Impressive.
The GNF (Grand National Finals) was the biggest event of the year – held at one of the nicest facilities in the US. The week consisted of Regional Championship races, where the top riders from WERA’s 7 different regions all raced against each other, in a one-race, winner-take-all for a National Championship. These were obviously the biggest races of the year. To add to the excitement, WERA also had the final round of the National Challenge Series, which consisted of a 4 hour endurance race, along with National sprint races as well. Needless to say, this was a big event. All the top teams, riders, vendors and such were all in attendance. It was going to be a fun week.
Thursday:
The Lightweight Twins finale was the first race. I was gridded on the 3rd row, which wasn’t too bad. With some practice and a little torque, I’ve been fortunate to get good starts all year long. As the green flag flew, I was able to continue the trend, as I was 1st going into turn 1. Within the first lap, I was catching up to the expert riders. I was able to get by them without a problem, where I hoped that the guys behind me didn’t have it as easy.
As I saw the white flag, I just wanted to stay consistent and not make any mistakes. As I exited turn 7, I looked behind me and saw Mark Biletnikoff’s SV not far behind. I flew down the back straight and was coming up to an expert rider. I passed him just entering the braking zone, where I figured he was out of the picture. Being the last lap, I actually braked a little early, since I had run a tighter line getting by the expert and I wanted to make sure I had a good line going into turn 10A. This caused a problem however, as the expert passed me back on the brakes into 10A. It was a bit of a risky pass, but he went outside of me, clipping across my front end, where I had to jam on the brakes. Unhappy that I hadn’t just braked later to begin with, I ran wide in 10A and tried to setup for 10B, knowing Mark wasn’t far behind. As I went through 10B, I got on the gas pretty good. I was a bit wider on the track than I had been, so I didn’t know of the bumps that were on the outside of the track.
What followed was the scariest/closest I’ve ever come to crashing moment. The rear end slid out to the left, bit, then pitched me out of my seat. The bike proceeded to go lock-to-lock 3-4 times where my foot hit the ground and I was hanging onto the bike with only my right hand. As the bike was doing this, I knew that if I rolled out of the throttle, the bike would propel me on a one-way ticket to the moon. With that thought not very appealing, I pinned the throttle and after 3-4 more wiggles, the bike straightened itself out and I pulled myself back onto the bike. Whoa!
By this point, I was already past the Suzuki bridge and on my descent down into turn 12. Not having a second to check my leathers, I grabbed an upshift and leaned over for turn 12, thinking I may still win the race. That thought was quickly eliminated as Mark came underneath me and I had to follow in behind him for 2nd place.
Disappointing. I led the race up until the last lap and in a perfect world, the expert would have let me through, seeing it was the last lap and he wasn’t racing anyone for position. That’s racing though. The race could have ended with a nasty crash, so I tried to make the best out of the situation. Mark’s a fast rider, and being from the North East region, it was good for one of us to win the championship.
Formula 2:
Gridded on the second-to-last row for this finale, I tried to be realistic. Knowing the number of fast riders and similarly fast SV motors, my goal was just to be relaxed, focused and smooth for this race. On the start, I had a perfect launch. I could feel the front wheel just barely getting light as it reached to find the pavement as I clicked up through the gears. I weaved around a few bikes and was in 3rd place going into turn 1.
Mark was leading the race, with Bo Morgan not far behind. I was slowly closing in on Bo as we headed down the long back straight, and into turn 10. As we approached the slow left-handed turn, we were coming up to an expert rider. Bo went to the outside of the expert and was pushed out, where he didn’t have anywhere to go. As he went by the expert, the two bikes touched and the expert went down, which I don’t think Bo realized. He was forced to run wide and almost off the track. With that mistake, I was able to go inside and take over 2nd place.
At this point, the incident with the expert had slowed both Bo and myself down, where Mark had built a sizeable gap between us. My initial thought was to try and hold off for 2nd place. As the laps counted down however, I was slowly catching Mark. With a couple laps to go, I squared off turn 7 really well, which led to the long straight. I had a good drive and was really able to close up, and then pass Mark. Giving him a “thumbs up” as I went by, I tried to brake late into turn 10 and preserve the lead.
The final two laps went by without event, as neither Mark or Bo passed me. As I went under the Suzuki bridge and through turns 11 and 12, I took the checkered flag and realized that I won the National Championship! Phew, what a great feeling. It made the 2nd place finish in Lightweight Twins a little easier to stomach.
Friday:
The endurance race was the first event of the day. The other half of our Michigan crew that made the trip down were all racing in it. Andy and Nik, who normally both run SV’s, were pairing together to ride a Kawasaki ZX6 that they had bought specifically for endurance racing.
Chris, Darby and Damian, who ride a Ducati 996, R1 and SV respectively, were teaming up to ride a Honda F4 in the endurance. Tom Jenson, a fellow North Central rider agreed to also ride with them for the 4-hour race.
Pitted next to each other, both teams alternated pit stops, maximizing the number of available bodies to help during each stop. Both the Kawasaki and Honda stayed on two wheels and finished the race without incident. Chris, Darb, Damian and Tom finished in the top 20 overall, and in the top 10 within their class. Andy and Nik finished not far behind – impressive for only having two riders.
Heavyweight Twins:
I lined up for this race and wasn’t sure what to expect. I had done fairly well in this class at the regional events, but here at the National finale, it’d probably be a different story. With another consistently thrown green flag, I got another good start and was actually leading – out braking a couple bikes into turn 1.
As I saw the halfway flag, I was pretty surprised I was still leading. As I was going down the back straight, a Ducati went blowing by me, where I didn’t even have a chance to try and out brake him into turn 10. I would catch him slightly in the slower sections of the track, but he’d stretch it out on the straight. As we took the checkered flag, I had to settle for 2nd place.
I later looked at the result sheets and of the top 8 finishers, I was the only lightweight bike in the group. Going against all the big bikes at a National finale and doing well was pretty cool.
Lightweight Twins – National Series:
Thankfully this race was pretty uneventful. I was gridded on the 3rd or 4th row and was able to take the lead going into turn 1. As I got signals from my dad, I had a good size gap and was going about 2 seconds a lap faster than I had been yesterday. Bo Morgan was in 2nd place from what I could gather and I wasn’t sure where Mark was. As I took the checkered flag, I couldn’t help but think that I should have won this race on Thursday, especially with basically the same grids. Ah well ..
Saturday:
After the rest of the Michigan crew had left back for Michigan, my dad and I were the only ones remaining. Not having any races on Saturday, we went out in morning practice and then just watched the races from the infield for most of the day. Took some pictures, bought some t-shirts, ate at Shoney’s and called it a day.
Sunday:
Sunday morning we made some changes to the bike. I changed gearing, as I was hitting the rev-limiter going into turns 1, 5, 6 and 10. The new gearing worked pretty well, although it made a significant change to the geometry of the bike and didn’t steer nearly as well.
I went over to Max, who runs Traxxion Dynamics and he was more than willing to help out. He took a look at the bike, jumped up and down on it a little, and gave me some input on changes he thought I should make. By the end of the second practice session, I felt a lot better. I had moved the forks up within the triples to help the bike steer better, and also added some compression to the front and the back of the bike. Before I added compression to the rear, I could actually feel the rear wheel spinning underneath me out in practice. This was the first time I distinctly noticed this happening, and attributed it to the bike now standing more on its nose, and the downhill, elevated turns on the track. The added compression seemed to fix the issue.
Normally I would have discarded the fact that the rear tire was actually “spinning up”. One of the things I’ve tried to do this year is pay more attention to what’s going on with the bike, so I can approach setup changes without being completely clueless. I’ve yet to determine whether I’ve actually learned something about suspension, or if I’ve just been lucky stabbing at the dark.
Formula 2 – National Series:
I got a great launch on the start and was through 3-4 experts by the first lap. As I came around, a red flag came out signaling a race stoppage. I looked behind me and didn’t see anybody. Damn.
With daylight coming at a premium price, they moved the Formula 2 race to the end of the day, so the camera crews had enough light to cover the main Suzuki Cup events.
Heavyweight Twins – National Series:
This race was probably the most fun of the week. The sun was starting to set, so a couple turns became a little tricky, as the sun was in our eyes going through them. I led the first 3 laps or so, when a Ducati went by me on the straight. I was able to pass him back into 10A and didn’t see him for the rest of the race.
A lap or two later, I was leaning the bike over for the kink on the back straight, when I saw a shadow of a bike go by me. Before I could figure out what this shadow was, George Lingwall then followed his shadow and went by me. He was pretty good on the brakes into 10, as I couldn’t get back by him. I followed him around and was able to out brake him going into turn 1. I exited turn 1 slower than normal for some reason, and George went by me on the outside going up through turn 2. As we went through the chicane, I closed up onto his back wheel. He ran wide exiting the chicane and got into the dirt, where I took advantage and went around him. As he jumped back onto the track, I ran a little wide through turn 4 where the track is dirty. The rear end of the bike squirmed around, but I kept the throttle pinned knowing I had to get by George and try to put a little of a bit of a gap between us before we hit the back straight.
The plan worked, as I didn’t see George for the remaining laps and was able to take the win. Afterwards, we talked about the race and he noted how I was quicker through the back part of the track and he just wasn’t able to make up the difference on the straight. We both agreed the race was a lot of fun.
It turned out I ran my fastest lap times of the week during that race. I was about 1-1.5 seconds off the lap times run by Bradley Champion – the “unofficial” winner of the Suzuki SV Cup, which took place earlier in the day. I was pretty happy about that considering this was my first GNF.
Formula 2 – National Series (restart):
After mounting headlights for the race (not really), I took to the grid just wanting to get this race over with. As the race wore on, I was going about 1-2 seconds slower than I was in the HW Twins race. I think it was a combination of the lack of light, and the desire to keep the bike on two wheels and not do anything stupid in the last race of the season.
As I relaxed a little bit more, I got the signal that my lead was closing up. I put in a couple, slighty-better-but-still-not-fast laps together and was able to prevent Bo, who was in 2nd place from catching me.
After the checkered flag, Bo came by and congratulated me, which was cool. As all of us circled around on the cool down lap and waived to the crowd, as there was actually a large number of people in attendance around the track. On the back straight, I thought waiving with both hands off the bike was cool. The local Southern boys thoroughly outdid me though, as a few of them where doing stand up wheelies on their SV’s down the back straight! Man, I’ve got some work to do. :)
Conclusion:
Overall, the week went great. 4 wins, 2 2nd’s and a National Championship. If I had done the lap times on Thursday/Friday that I had been doing on Sunday, I think I could have done even better. I can’t complain though as the entire event was definitely worth the trip. Going to a top-notch facility and racing against the best guys throughout the US is definitely worth the price of admission.
Thanks to Moose of Pirelli and Max from Traxxion Dynamics. They both helped me out and gave me specific attention in getting the bike ready to race. Jamie Hanshaw was also a big help in building a great motor that could stack up against the other built motors that were down there.
Thanks again to my dad for all his help and to fellow Witchkraft teammate Chad Tefft for letting me use some parts off his bike so I could make the trip down.
I’d also like to thanks Kart 2 Kart, BRG Racing, Woodcraft, Pit Bull, Braking, Lockhart Phillips, Sharkskinz, AFAM and Intuitive Race Products for their help all year long. It was definitely worth it.
See you in 2004 ..
FILED UNDER: Race Reports
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