College Station is many hours from DC. The WERA national at TWS used to be held in conjunction with the CMRA. Word on the street is that CMRA wanted to take their show to a larger audience and was having talks with the AMA about setting up an national endurance series as a CMRA/AMA sort of deal. This was just before the AMA lost a great deal of its ass to another snake oil salesman and, although CMRA and WERA are probably not on each other's Christmas card lists anymore, nor have I seen a schedule published for the CMRA national endurance series. None of this was on my minds as my spine was compressed on the Louisiana interstate pavement joints.

What was on my mind was the fact that CMRA holds a lot of regional endurance events which was going to drop a lot of prepared, drilled and presumably, track educated racers between us and the Suzuki contingency money. Days before I left DC a taunting email arrived from our Texan rivals on the national circuit informing us that the Sharkskinz Yamaha had been liquidated and been replaced with a Suzuki, and TWS was their home track, and they wanted to reciprocate for the hospitality we had shown them at Summit Point. I had 27 hours of interstate travel to work over these bits of information. Our trip to Texas has historically been broken up by a lunch break in New Orleans; this year was no exception. Lunch in New Orleans, and the requisite beignets and coffee, almost make racing in Texas worthwhile.

Practice was pretty uneventful besides spying on the competition and trying to pick up tips from the local boys. We were actually turning some respectable lap times but the weather was very hot. Sickeningly hot. Hot enough that we started to contemplate changing our motif from dark foreboding colors to something light and airy.

A new variable in the equation for the MWSB contingency money was the wild card entry of Josh Hayes, Ryan Landers and Chris Ulrich on a Kids:Don't Smoke! 600 superbike that Keith Perry had tossed together. I knew that Josh was up in the rarefied air of rider talent but Ryan and Chris were not known quantities. It was a forgone conclusion that Josh could ride circles around the rest of us but in some slip of sportsmanlike conduct I found myself actually offering accurate advice to Chris. "Yup, your right foot will get really hot. Yup, it’s a lot of work." Fortunately Chris's GP prejudice kept him from embracing the sport bike platform and he always looked a little suspicious of the bike on the track.

The data logger revealed that the biggest problem I was having was through turn one. Jim was, once again, turning the fast times on our squad so we took a team expedition down to turn one on Friday evening and carefully mapped out a detailed plan for the fast, long and crucial turn one/two combination. We were able to put together a connect-the-dots sequence using on and off track markers to guide us through the turn.

Texas is the Michelin domain of David Hirsch. We get virtually all of our tires from Walt Schaefer. I had Walt send me the tires I'd need for the sort of specialized application of Texas World. When we brought the rears over to David he pointed out that we had 88x rears. When I first started racing I knew the model number and feature of every tire on the market and what 37 reviewers had said about each one. Using Michelin slicks that doesn't really work because they have so many different ones that it is impossible for me to keep track of each kind of tire and what its good for, plus, any knowledge I retained would be obsolete in two months anyway. So, David points out that I had handed him two 88x rears, and I stared at him blankly. He says "You really want to run qualifying tires for an endurance race at Texas World in 110 degree heat?"

"Oh." I says.

He swapped my two 88x for two 88s and disaster was averted.

Jim started our race and we led the MWSB class for the first hour when Firestorm had carb problems and the Kids: Don’t Fucking Swear! bike had an aneurysm. The anticipated Sharkskinz entry wobbled around for a few laps with a missing wheel spacer and then retired for some lengthy inquiries which eventually led to paint flakes in the fuel from the newly decorated bike.

Predictably, once Firestorm got their carb venting sorted out it took all of about five minutes for Scott Brown to catch and pass us for the lead.

The heat was terrible but, as with last year, the traffic was entertaining. It was very difficult to run fast times because the traffic forced us to constantly be thinking and changing lines. Passing three riders into one turn was my single turn passing record and I counted passing seven bikes on a single lap.

This was the first race where Melissa had joined us. She is a racer in her own right and, after I finished my first stint on the bike, was able to offer constructive observations like "Why are you braking so early for turn three compared to other bikes? Is something wrong with the bike." Uh, no. I, uh, hadn't realized I was so early on the binders there. Uh, thanks.

My stint was cut a little short by a red flag and we sent John out to finish the tank after the restart. The fuel load lasted another hour but he had to pit while Jim was still taking a shower to carefully prepare his mind and body for the ordeal ahead. Since Jim was still on the "repeat" of the shampoo instructions we had to make two stops one lap apart to give Jim time to get his helmet and gloves on. John was hurting so badly after an hour in the saddle that he refused to take the extra lap until Tim slapped him around a little to bring him back to his senses.

For some unknown reason (like we are all old and weak) the heat was really affecting our rider's ability to persevere. I had promised Jim I would split the last 140 minutes of the race with him and, grudgingly, pulled him in at seventy. I ran the last seventy minutes including twice running off the track at the last two turns onto the bowl. The first time I figured I could pull a pass on a couple of riders and then realized I could only get by one. Straighten up. Bump off the track. Stand on the pegs. Hope the slicks will stick to mud and grass. Bump onto the track. Up on the banking. Turn. Scrub. Back into the throttle.

The second time I was taking my usual line when an unamed Tapeworks rider pulled a Texas style cattle guard pass on me. Straighten up. Bump off the track. Stand on the pegs. Hope the slicks will stick to mud and grass. Bump onto the track. Up on the banking. Turn. Scrub. Back into the throttle.

Running straight was no big deal. It cost me a couple of seconds on that lap and startled me a bit. However, it makes the current discussion about tracks with padded walls seems a little ridiculous. Had the corner been lined with bolted indy car tires or airfences or haybales or anything else I would have been much more disadvantaged than just having grass to run across. All hail runoff room and spectators be damned.

Somewhere along the race one of the fast local teams sneaked in front of us. I don't think it was Jim's fault for not being ready in the pits when it was his turn to go out but, since he has been riding well all year, I think I will firmly place the blame on him for not being ready in the pits when it was his turn to go out. Third in class, tenth overall. Our eighth straight class podium finish.

Drove the long way home since there is no short way from Texas to DC

Road Atlanta has always been one of my favorite tracks but the GNF has always been a heart breaking experience for Army Of Darkness. We have crashed, burned, broken crankshafts, fried wiring harnesses and been robbed. I figured, given our run of problems at this jewel of the south, that nothing could go wrong at this event.

There was a bit of preparation required to ready the bikes for their last outing of the year. As an elaborate ploy to avoid having to pick up a wrench or pull on a tie-down I flew thirteen hours to Japan, (RW Dec. '98) spent a week, flew back to DC, rested for thirty hours, flew to San Diego for two days, flew back to DC, rested for six hours, and then drove to Road Atlanta. My clever tactics worked flawlessly and, by the time I got back to DC, the trailer was packed with maintained and adjusted motorcycles.

Road Atlanta has been neutered to some extent by filling the cavity but the run down the hill to turn 12 is still capable of inducing vertigo. The most noticeable change at the track though, was a distinct change in attitude from the security folks at the track. In my somewhat eclectic travels about the race tracks of the US one finds that typically the southern tracks have easy going amicable folks working the various gates while the thugs at Pocono engage in capricious ordering around. Daytona is, of course, the exception to this rule but, as it is often remarked, Florida is in the south, but not of the south. However, with the capital improvement at Road A there has been a sharp decrease in the southern hospitality of the track. Gratuitous orders, lots of do this and that and, worst of all, a whole mess of spectators had "Don't park here" stickers affixed to their gas tanks in an area not designated as a no parking area by vandals/security guards. Perhaps still not as bad as the Pocono / Daytona variety of track guards but a trend to be watched.

The dental work to fill the cavity was done in the name of safety and I have seen three too many people die in that section of track. However, why they thought lining the rest of the track with hard concrete walls was going to help preserve the health and machinery of racers is beyond me. The revised line under the bridge meant big headshakes and wheelies down the hill to the still treacherous turn 12. Given the two configurations, I think I preferred the old one but then, I don't race cars. Speaking of dumb car tricks. There is a little rise in the track after turn seven where bikes alternately get a little light or pull wheelies depending on power and inclination. This little mound, in car circles, apparently carries the moniker "Porsche Hill" as the rear engined cars have a reputation for lifting the front wheels off the ground over this hill. This slight change in inclination has interesting ramifications since the airfoil of the car then loses down force and the whole car can go air borne executing a 180 degree barrel roll over backwards. Just such an incident was responsible for a large stain on the pavement from a car race days previous.

We have enjoyed a good-natured rivalry with the garish team ten-40 for the past several years. We went into this race having to beat them on the track for the fifth place overall season finish. We had previous ensured ourselves of a second in class final season position. However, in a reversal of the previous nine rounds, we were faster than Ten-40 in practice. Now, this might not seems like much to anyone else, but, since AOD has professed loud and often that we are terrible racers, you can imagine the subtle worming effect that half second a lap can have on a pair of serious racers. Just in case Brian and Mark missed the implications of the discrepancies of our lap times, I went over and pointed it out to them a couple of times.

Walt had brought some new sticky tires to the GNF and we figured we were just the teams to wear some out. Not wanting my teammates to get any advantage with the fresh tires, I insisted on starting the race.

I actually got a decent start and felt like I had broken out of my riding slump. I put in a fair amount of effort early on and was able to catch up to the fast starting Ianuzzelli from Ten-40 whom usually just takes off and leaves me for dead. I had ample motor on him and was able to catch and pass him a couple times but when I got by he just sped up to stay with me. We were both scaring ourselves through 12 and after the races kept commenting "Man, you were going really fast through 12" to each other. We each thought the other was faster.

Front. P-BJN

Back. P-BJN

I knew that dropping him off the back was unlikely but I figured that if I kept him in sight then we would pass them when they pitted and, even if our lap times were similar, we would eventually beat them in the pits.

This plan was not to come to fruition.

I entered turn one lapping a ZX-6. I buried the throttle figuring I could carry a bit more speed into the turn and just swing by him up the hill. As I crossed under his rear wheel he missed a shift (never mind what anyone is doing shifting after the apex of turn one) and I slammed into him doing about 85 – 90 mph. My front wheel went up between his pipe and swingarm and wedged fast thus abruptly stopping its rotation. Angry at this turn of events the rest of the bike highsided me off its back.

I had time in the air to fold up and ball my hands across my chest. I landed straight on my head and expended a prodigious amount of potential energy.

I mushed up the bike pretty good that included smashing off a foot peg which would preclude me from riding the bike back to the pits. It would take a crash truck to transport it back. Unfortunately the crash truck was currently occupied picking up someone who had burned the last of their fuel and it would be a long ten minutes before the truck would swing by for the pick up.

As pain began to replace frustration in my consciousness I took the intervening minutes to take an ambulance ride around the track and back to the pits. The blow to my head had snapped my neck sideways violently enough to damage a few ligaments (still aching six months later) but the ride in the ambulance allowed me to determine that I didn't have enough injuries to prevent me from helping to repair the bike.

Immediately after our bike is dropped off the truck the red flags were deployed. I spent the time explaining to the officials that yes we were allowed to strip parts off our B bike and we were not allowed to start work on the A bike. We assigned everyone a task and waited for the green flag. We went through the motions of repairing the bike and tried in vain to restart it. The ignition switch (a simple on/off affair) had taken a wack in the crash that had rendered it no longer suitable for conducting electricity. I bypassed it and once again our bike burbled and coughed to life. I sat in the pits to mope and nurse my aching neck while Jim and John wore out the tires. We ended the season with our worst finish of the year - 5^th place.

After killing its brother the bike now bears the stain of Road Atlanta. Photo - BJN

We ate two transmissions in one month in the van and, finally tiring of throwing good money after bad, fired the big money gun at a '97 E350 complete with the rattling turbo diesel. Expect tales of faulty glow plug relays and bad cam position sensors in 1999. Vanson fixed up my battered leathers from 1998 and they are whole once again. We stayed with the Suzukis in 1999 although it seems that we might be getting technologically obsolete the word is that most of the other MWSB teams in WERA for 1999 will be similarly saddled so, unfortunately, we will be beaten on skill not machinery. As I write this our new race bike is in hundreds of parts and the first track outing for it is only two weeks away.