[vtr996]

Today local guy Tom, Phozed and myself ran the Fasttrax 3hr @ Grattan aboard my HawkGT racer. I think its safe to say we all had a total blast.

Rain was threatening early but we dashed off to a strong start and locked on to a good pace we kept pretty much the whole race. The early laps were quite interesting having to fight our way past traffic. Around the 1hr mark the rain started coming down, rain specialist Tom did an absolutely great job running consistantly quick laps on the wet track (on SLICKS&#33 A short time later the rain died down and the laptimes started falling again.

Results: Starting from the 16th row we managed to end up finishing 13th place overall and 5th in our class (only 5 laps away from a podium finish. Not too bad for our first endurance race(especially considering it was combined expert/amatuer event). Definitely learned alot about racing and my riding, I had a couple 'moments' worst of which was a near highside exiting T9:rolleyes Thankfully everyone kept the rubber side down....the bike and 3 riders came home without a scratch.

Awesome day of racing!

[ccwilli3]

WOW! 16th row and finished 13th and 5th in your class, I'm mucho impressed!

[G-Force Junkie]

[oldgoat]

Excellent job, Congrats

[oldgoat]

The yellow sucks This is better. Congrats again

[oldgoat]

Now its right

[TCD]

sounds like you had a blast!

is t9 the hairpin?

[vtr996]

TCD : sounds like you had a blast!

is t9 the hairpin?

Yeah turn 9 is the hairpin. I got a great start and had been ahead of most(if not all) the other lw bikes, two guys then got passed me (an SV650 and EX500 frankenbike) around laps 2-3-4...I put my head down to chase but was just out gunned. I ended up charging too hard into T9 and came way too wide on the exit, there was some water on the far outside(from the night before) and as I was getting the bike upright and on-throttle I came threw it...got a little sideways...then it hooked up and tossed my 220lbs up but not off

Totally fun day, I'm still buzzin today

We're already planning our next endurance race. With better pitstop planning and speed we could've been serious podium contenders in class.

[phozed]

maaaaaan am I sore! But what a day - Mark got a smoking start! We did great for all the 1sts involved for everyone - in looking at the results I think 5 laps is pretty easy to make up when you're taking 3 minute pitstops

We were very consistant with session laptimes - now we just need to drop them a hair and I really do think a podium finish is possible. We were seriously outclassed by $/preperation/equipment for the most part and did very respectable - I'm so looking forward to the next one!!!

Also had the oppurtunity to share the track w/the experts (there were 2 guys prolly doing mid 20s for the 1st hour) and see them ride with their race-face on - I learned a ton, and would definately recommend Fasttrax's events!

p.s.
3 hours - NO redflags, no waving yellows, and

[tigerblade]

Way to go guys! I imagine you can learn a lot when you're out there for so long.

[lfg929]

If you guys manage to make the next one at Nelson's Ledges at the end of June then look me up. I should be there running it with a friend. I tried to do the one they had a few weeks ago there, but we had some bike issues between myself and other 2 guys on the team (1 bike was lowsided, the other bike had a bad clutch, and they didn't want to attempt to run my 929 with its reverse/GP shifting pattern).

[DCEMotorsports]

vtr996 & phozed-

Way to go... congrats dudes. You actually ran a wet race at Grattan on slicks? Can you see me on my knees, bowing in your direction? Incredible. Grattan has got to be the slipperiest, nastiest track when it is wet on slicks to boot. How was your tire wear from the dry long runs?

Any way to reduce your time in the pits? That might have got you on the box rather than pushing your pace.

No red flags or waving yellows too? That is different for an endurance race.

Again, nice result. Keep it going to the next round.

Cheers, DCE

[phozed]

LFG -

We've never been to Nelsen's but hear it's a lot like our local Blackhawk Farms before the repaving so speaking for myself I'm a little wary of the travel time vs. track funfactor ratio. What are your thoughts on the place?

DCE -

Our pit routine time should be half of what it was - we were pretty hap-hazzard and have lots of ideas on what we can do to shave some serious time. 3 minutes = 2 laps!

We had no idea it was talking so long until our scorer told us after the race. Honestly if someone asked me how long we were taking I'd say a minute so there really is a lot of room to fix there!

Also we were all a few seconds off of our 'fast' Grattan times - but were still getting used to the bike, STANDARD shift patterns (*ahem* ), and being in a real race... man I'm still buzzing from Saturday!

[vtr996]

LFG-- Don't think I'll be making the May31@nelson. After seeing all the fun we were having my 60yo father has decided to squeeze into some leathers and take his racing school that weekend at Blackhawk. I told him he should start 'AARP Racing'

DCE- the rain riding credit really goes to our guy Tom... I'm a wuss in the wet! We didn't have any alternate tires and were quite fortunate it didn't rain harder/longer.

As for tire wear...I was running michelin Med/Soft front with a Soft rear. The front wore really well, I'll definitely get more use out of that one. The rear still has some meat but I think if the race had been dry the whole time it would have been a little worse. I figure if we ever do a longer endurance 6-8hrs we'd need to plan on at least changing that rear around hour 5-6 or run a significantly harder compound rear.

I definitely think that with fewer pitstops and faster fueling/rider changes we could be giving the other LW guys a run!

[DCEMotorsports]

Just got this from my racing friends...

Team Great Lake Power Sports (Ken Hsu, Paul and Jim Cottrell) had a really good time at our first 3 hour Endurance outing of the year. We raced at Grattan on May 10th with the Fasttrax series. The weather was good for the most part. Paul rode first and got us in a great position never running lower than third overall and first in class. By the end of his hour I believe we were 2nd overall (to fast guy Brent Bennett) and 1st in class. I got to ride second and for the first 20 minutes I was having a blast. Then I ran into a problem where I could not keep the rear wheel from spinning up in almost every corner. I think the stock shock (yes I said stock) had started to give up on me and needed a little rest. I changed my riding style to try to save the tire and then about 10 minutes later the rain came. The rain varied from sprinkles to fairly heavy. I was lucky it was only raining hard from turn 5 to turn 10a (the back section) .My team mates had some pretty tense moments in the pits since I was out in the rain on Paul's R6 with Kens body work on the bike. With about 10 minutes left in my session the weather started to clear up and the track was almost completely dry for Ken to bring it home. When Ken got on the bike we were 1st in class and 1st overall. The sun came out and Ken put the hammer down.
Final results: We took first overall by 2 laps and 1st in class by 8 laps.

We would like to thank Damian, Pat, Bob and Kens dad for coming out and pitting for us. Bob Sunday was MIA during pictures. I'll send pics out later today of us with the big trophy. The thing might be taller than Ken : ).

OA/IN CLS/NAME/CLASS/#/LAPS
1 1 GREAT LAKES POWERSPORTS/MWT/277/117
2 1 MPH RACING/HWT/183/115
3 2 BT RACING/HWT/55/113
4 1 SLOWTRAX/LWT/23/112
5 1 BENNETT RACING/IBT/914/112
6 2 WITCHKRAFT RACING-2/MWT/161/109
7 3 LOCALRIDERS.COM/HWT/29/108
8 2 MPH FORCE/LWT/94/108
9 3 J&M RACING/MWT/45/103
10 3 CAMCOOL RACING/LWT/56/103
11 4 FASTCZECH/LWT/728/101
12 4 TEAM SQUID/MWT/101/100
13 5 3 MEN & A MULE/LWT/303/98
14 2 SAKE POWER/IBT/11/97
15 6 GS POSSE/LWT/22/91
16 4 TEAM CHALUPA/HWT/957/90
17 7 WITCHKRAFT-1/LWT/707/80
18 3 CYCLE ENGINEERING/IBT/272/67
19 8 ZIP TIE RACING/LWT/551/60
20 4 CHOOCH RACING/IBT/629/47
21 9 TAYLOR/LWT/37/33
22 5 TCR/IBT/691/32
23 5 ZXTREEM/HWT/111/12
24 5 EMPTY POCKETS/MWT/3/11
25 6 SPEEDBEEK RACING/MWT/716/1

[luvtolean]

Nice going guys, I'd love to do an endurance race!

[phozed]

some thumbnails:

Thumbnail sheet

[phozed]

Detroit News article about the race