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August 11 -12 Barber (Birmingham, AL) USGPRU Results:



GTL dnf

USGPRU 250 Grand Prix 23rd

Hot, hot, hot, and then hot some more. It was 112 degrees in the shade on Friday, 106 degrees on Saturday, and 99 degrees on Sunday. The track surface was so hot that tire warmers were simply redundant. Barber Motorsports track is a 150 million dollar facility. It simply is one of the best tracks in the world. Birmingham, Alabama might be one of the hottest cities in the world when a heat wave strikes. But it struck.

Friday's practice was interesting because it involved learning a new track that has 15 turns, nearly all of them blind. One in particular called the roller coaster involves a steep, slanty drop of about 12 feet if one takes it on the inside. Of course that's a mistake to do. I saw at least three riders crash there. The first time you come upon it you want to take the inside line. But at speed it would mean having the earth drop out from under you while leaning the bike over in order to turn. It took 2 more laps to remember when that turn comes up. 3 times a surprise like that and remembering this turn becomes necessity. My lap times were dropping in practice, wanting to try some of these turns at speed. By the end of the day I remembered this track, and had chosen some lines. I was breaking into the high 1:50s. By Saturday's practice I would be in the low 1:50s.

The 2.6 mile track starts with a long high-speed straight that you need to get all honkered down and back on the seat, ducking behind the windscreen making yourself as small as possible as you bang through the gears. Racing bikes shift the opposite of street bikes. We get to push down the shifter to go into a faster gear and pull up the shifter with our toes to go in to a lower gear. This way we can down-shift while leaned over in a turn by lifting our foot up rather than pushing it down and catching the asphalt. When the brake markers come up at the end of the straight, you let off the throttle and rise up your body in the air stream to start braking. After tapping the front brake just a little to settle the suspension and dropping down one gear you turn the bike towards something you simply can not see until you hit the apex of turn 1 and accelerate down a steep hill towards turn 2. You can't see where turn 2 goes because its simply too long and it wraps around a woods. Turn 2 continues down hill about 120 degrees. It doesn't seem to ever end until the track bottoms out and begins to rise upwards again. Now its time to pin the gas and yet you're still turning while charging up a hill so steep that you can't see anything but the top of a control tower above the hill. If geared correctly you don't feel any sense of bog as you blindly roar upwards towards the apex of the next slight right hander leaned over, shifting a gear and cresting the hill (which starts that next turn) with a wobbling front wheel that has lifted off the ground. It opens up onto a flat short straight where you can shift higher again at least twice.

At the end a 180 degree left-hand hairpin begs you to down shift three times as you brake late then lean the bike over trailing off the brakes as you make the tight turn and head off down another short straight grabbing two gears back again. But the right-hand turn at the end of this straight blindly leads to the drop off which is another right-hand turn they call the roller coaster. It looks so innocent as you take the inside line of the first turn and yet remember to then straighten out the slight left hand turn as a straight to slant down towards the steep right turn. So you stay wide and high, roll over the outside rumble strip and drop down into the turn. Much less steep that way. After having down-shifted twice through that turn series, you come roaring out of this turn trying to not let the rear tire brake loose and the bike drifts outside this very wide track as you accelerate and up shift pulling the bike back to the right to set up for a quick left hand turn followed by a right. This S turn is very very fast. The two stroke bike simply cuts through it drifting very wide left on the last of it to a little strip of concrete added to accommodate fast bikes. On this turn topping 100 for the first time on the circuit, I can feel the aerodynamic differences of the Honda RS250 and the Aprilia RS250. The Honda being more planted and with hardly any wind turbulence.

Exiting the S turn, the short straight puts you nearly at top speed. The S turn being really a couple of kinks to make what would have been the longest straight more challenging. One down shift from near top speed and you drop into a steep left-hand downhill turn and an immediate uphill right hand turn which scrubs off some speed. This is the only fast turning sequence on the track and its much slower than the turn 12 chicane at Loudon. But here you can't see over the top as you hit the throttle after down shifting again in order to motor up the steep uphill turn. Over the top and still turning as you head back down hill into the final turns. This next will be a double apex turn which you come in tight to the first apex and then let the bike drift wide nearly to the outside of this 60 foot wide track still leaned over and heading back in towards the second apex which is one of the tightest turns of the track followed by a sharp left onto the main straight away. Whew this is a fast track compared to Loudon. The surface is traction unlike anything I ever felt. This is the same asphalt that covers the world's best MotoGP tracks. It eats tires but lets you lean a bike over till its nearly parallel with the track! Wow!

Now of course this is when the bike is running. But in this heat I had a terrible time of it mechanically. Electrical shorts as the grueling heat made things swell up. The bike died on track Friday and required a ride back in the track truck. And finally a blown engine on the first lap of the Saturday 25 minute GT endurance race. The poor Aprilia is now in need of a mend. But as luck has it I picked up a factory race bike built by Honda Racing Corporation (HRC). This one is a 250GP with 80 horsepower and only 215 pounds. So wicked fast compared to the Aprilia. I was able to race with it in the USGPRU on Sunday. It needs jetting and timing corrections but this is going to be an exciting bike to race in the GP classes from now on. I will continue with the Ultralight Superbike (Aprilia). They are remarkably different. The Aprilia I can ride to its potential. The Honda is more suited for a World MotoGP racer. So its a bike to maintain a lot of respect for, lest it spit you off. I think I am going to enjoy the speed and am hoping to lower my times at Loudon with it.

I made my usual paella for about 30 people including the world famous Zambrana who had three servings! Was a great road trip that sent me and teammate Ofir through MA, CT, NH, NY, PA, DE, MD, D.C., RI, NC, VA, AL, and GA! 1100 miles in 24 hours and then 1100 miles and 24 hours back. We have now set our sights on the final round of the USGPRU at Mid-Ohio in September. It's also the AMA race. But first Loudon on Sept 1 where I will try and sort out the jetting on the Honda.