Witchkraft Racing: The Search for Speed

Home » Race Reports » WERA ’13, Round 7&8 – PIRC (Near Perfect)

WERA ’13, Round 7&8 – PIRC (Near Perfect)

Our trip to PIRC (Pittsburgh International Race Complex, FKA BeaveRun) started off Thursday night. Gina, Connor and I made the drive with my mom and dad heading out the following day. We had one of our four class championships locked up and had a good lead in the other three. However this was a double header weekend, so not everything was finalized. And given that PIRC (aka BeaveRun) is a fairly popular track, there'd surely be some more racers added into the mix. With a good weather forecast in the cards, I was looking forward to the weekend.

Friday practice was fairly uneventful. Stymie and Jillian were there with us, and Nick and his dad Steve as well, so we all pitted together. Gary Kole came out as well to help since he was done riding for the season. With the track being fairly open, it was good to get laps in, but I actually would have rather had less laps, with more racers there to help push things along. In any event, the day went without a hitch. Mom and dad showed up later that night to the hotel, so everyone was accounted for.

For Saturday, I signed up for four races. I didn't need to run in all of them, but I like the track and wanted to have some fun. Dad was up to speed pretty quickly in practice, as was everyone else who hadn't practiced Friday.

The races went really well. Dad ended up winning one race and finishing second in another. He set his personal best lap around PIRC in the first race. I was able to win the first three races, going against Ian Tetrick in two of them – who was riding well.

In the fourth race, a bolt came loose on the clutch cover and off the start, people saw blue smoke coming from the bike. I didn't think twice about it at first, but going through T6, both of my feet slipped off the pegs. I looked down and saw that everything looked really shiny. Not good. I kept my legs out and got off the track as soon as I could. As I looked back, everyone had backed off, seeing the oil coming from the bike. Fortunately I didn't go down and even more fortunately, no one behind me did either. There wasn't any oil on-track either, luckily. I parked the bike against the guardrail and stood and watched the race. Not quite as exciting as being in the race, I realized.

Back in the pits after a lift from the crash truck, we didn't have a chance to look at the bike. I jumped on the CRF-50 for the pit bike race, which was the last race of the day. Everyone was on their little bikes already, so I rushed out there. With 25 riders entered into the mix, it was a hoot. Jim Sublet ran the race and all the money went toward the air fence that PIRC is trying to put up on the back straight. It was a good cause and a great time. I need to cheat better next time though and short cut the course like the top two did. :) Stymie and I goofed around during the race though which was good fun.

Afterwards, we had a feast of a dinner. Gina and Cristy (Ollie's wife) had been coordinating food plans during the week and she made a ton of food. Aubrey and Devin (Stewart) were there, along with everyone in our pits, as well as Rick and Manda (Lind), and a bunch of others . It was nice to stay and eat at the track. We wandered over to the 419 pits, as they were grilling themselves as well.

Between socializing and heading back to the hotel, dad and I went through the bike and made sure it was all set to go for Sunday's races. Two and a half cans of brake cleaner later, we were set. Thanks again to Jillian for picking up extra!

Sunday morning practice went well. Stymie and I went out in the last practice and had fun passing back and forth for a few laps. He did his fastest time all weekend in practice. Good thing it didn't count towards our bet! I had a slight edge on him up until this point.

I signed up for only three races on the day. We needed to get back on the road fairly quickly since I had to work that night. The good news was we had now clinched all four class championships. 600 Superstock, 600 Superbike, 750 Superstock and 750 Superbike, so these races would all be for fun.

Dad finished 2nd in both his races, but got bumped up to 1st in one, as the guy who won didn't have his transponder on the bike. For him, he locked up the Lightweight Superbike and F2 championships. As for me, I was able to win all three races. Ian and I had the starts of a good dice going in the third race, but a red flag ended the fun, which was a bummer. I was looking forward to dropping into some faster times chasing each other.

Overall, the weekend went great, near-perfect even – and those kind of weekends are hard to come by. We won our races (except the DNF with the oil), and locked up our four championships. We were able to set the fastest lap of the weekend as well, which was good. The overall pace of everyone seemed to be slower from years' past – many people attributing it to the track condition getting worse. I don't know for sure, but I wasn't at the pace I've been at previously, either. I did struggle with the bike a bit, but it may be due to the suspension being a little overdue in being freshened up. Stymie and a couple other people noticed our bike looked pretty harsh and tough to handle in certain areas, where other bikes weren't having that issue. My wrist and forearms can certainly attest they had a good workout.

While we didn't have Matt, Aaron or Doug there to help out, having Gina, Connor, dad and my mom there was really nice. Thanks to them for all their help. Thanks to Stymie, Jillian, Gary, Nick and Steve as well for their help throughout the weekend.

As for the bet between Stymie and I, I won by a narrow margin. Although in his defense, he took a tumble in his first race Sunday and banged up his shoulder pretty good – so he didn't have a proper chance to beat the time set on Saturday. :)

The WERA Grand National Finals is next up on the schedule, happening down in Alabama next month. There will certainly be a lot of fast guys down there who know the place well. We'll have more updates to come as we get ready for that.

Thanks for reading.

Tuesday, September 10th, 2013 | POSTED AT: 5:59 AM
FILED UNDER: Race Reports