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MotoSeries @ PIRC (Don’t Eat After Midnight)

Dad and I headed to Pittsburgh International Race Complex (aka BeaveRun) for some racing with MotoSeries. Todd (Karam) runs a very good program with a series that is continually growing here in the Midwest. We'd be meeting up with Oliver and Cristy (Gooden) who'd both be riding/racing as well.

We arrived Friday night and setup together, getting everything ready for the following day. The paddock was pretty full, which was a nice surprise. Saturday morning arrived and we were ready to go. MotoSeries Saturday's are just a practice day essentially, with all the racing happening on Sunday. Cristy was riding her Honda 600 while Ollie was switching between his Ninja 250 and newly-acquired Yamaha R6. Dad was riding the SV and I on the R6.

The first couple sessions in the morning were good. We got our "Beaver" setup back in the bike and gradually made a couple changes after each session. Clean laps were hard to come by, but it was fun nonetheless as I like the track and always enjoy riding here.

In the third session of the day, on the front straight – a familiar face came by on the brakes heading into T1 – Jeff Agnes. The often-retired, but never-finished Jeffro was back riding and moving quite well. My eyes lit up as now I had someone to ride with. We ran around for a few laps, which was good fun.

On the next lap, there was some weird issue with the bike. I came back to the pits and started looking at what the problem might be. Long story short, it appeared the cam chain tensioner was causing some issues and weird noise – and without our engine guru Jamie Hanshaw there to assist, I didn't want to keep flogging the bike, potentially doing serious damage. While that was a bummer, I'd get to help dad with his practice and races the following day – role reversal you might say. Joe kept practicing, as did Ollie and Cristy. We had some rain later in the afternoon which shortened things a little bit, but everyone ended up getting some good laps in.

PIRC has been making a lot of improvements to the facility, including repaving the karting paddock and building new garages, starting work on the south course, along with several other things. One of the things is now having rental karts available. Some of the guys were lining up everyone to go out and do it once the day wrapped up. Turns out PIRC has a pretty long and technical course for the karts and the karts themselves are pretty quick.

There were 30+ of us when we all got there. The four of us signed up and were out and ready when it started raining again, with flashes of lightning. They shut the track down for a bit and that gave us some time to go back to the pits and eat. Dad and I didn't have much with us and were planning to eat out, but Cristy and Ollie let us eat with them. Cristy grilled under the canopy while it was raining and the sun came back out just as we sat down to our make-shift dinner table to eat. Perfect. The karts were fun. And with a dry line forming, we each only spun out a couple times during the session.

Sunday morning came and dad was ready. I put a couple GoPro's on his bike and they were working well in practice. I wanted to make sure all he had to do was worry about riding and not fuel, tire pressures, or anything else. He had a bigger grid of lightweight bikes to contend with this weekend, as MotoSeries gets pretty big numbers in these classes.

Early in morning practice he was in the 1:06's and ended the first session with a high 1:04. He came in and wanted to make a couple suspension changes. I was running the stop watches and asked in the next session, if he could do some low 1:04's. He thought he could.

Second session was up and out he went. He was more consistent and quicker, dropping into the low 1:04's by the third lap. It was tough to get clean laps, but he was passing bikes in bunches – enough that I was getting a little nervous and thought about telling him to come in. He ended up doing that anyway and as practice wrapped up, he was happy with the bike and ready to go.

Cristy wasn't racing, but was doing the same thing for Ollie that I was for dad. It was double the work as Ollie was trying to get comfortable on both bikes, back racing for the first time in a couple years – on bikes that were new to him. Challenging for sure.

Dad was in two races – one before lunch and one after. First race was Twins Superbike Race 1 which had about 15 expert bikes in it. Gridded from the third row, he had a good launch and was 3rd or so into T1. By the time he came out of T7 and was visible again, he had the lead. Onto the front straight, he ripped past and had someone not far off his heels. He led the next several laps, but made a small mistake through T4, not getting a drive leading to T5 and fell back to 2nd. He took the lead again on the back straight and was able to stretch out a big gap after second place ran off-line in T10 a few laps later. Dad took the win and had a best lap time of 1:03.7.

We broke for lunch and around that time it started raining. After about 15-20 minutes, the rain stopped and the sun cracked a smile. PIRC is nice in that the track drains well and dries fairly quickly. By the time dad's next race was up, the track was nearly completely dry.

Twins Superbike Race 2 was up and off the line, Joe was on the third row and third again into T1 and second by T7 when I could see him from the starting tower, behind the same bike (#77 I believe). By the time I saw him on the front straight, he had taken over the lead. He made a couple mistakes during the race he'd later say, with pressure on him the entire race, but did his fastest lap on the last lap – another 1:03.7 and able to pull out another win on a fairly green track. It was a good race, with the gap close every lap. Dad wasn't far off his previous best lap, which was in the 1:02's.

Ollie had some mechanical issues with both bikes which caused him DNF's in both races, along with the rain getting in the way of his other two. Between the two of us, all we were good for was a couple DNF and DNS's, while Joe carried the team. Still, we all had a good time and while it's never fun having mechanical gremlins, this wasn't the worst weekend to have them and get them sorted out.

Thanks to Todd for putting on a great event and to Ollie and Cristy for dinner and some good laughs. We're heading to Grattan this weekend with Sportbike Track Time and will hopefully get the issues with my bike sorted out. Fingers crossed!

Thanks for reading.

Wednesday, July 3rd, 2013 | POSTED AT: 5:48 AM
FILED UNDER: Race Reports