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About a month ago Dave mentioned going to the
USGPRU Championship race at VIR
to hang out. At the
time I was so
burned out from bicycling, I thought motorcycles would be a nice
change. It's been three
years since I was around
motorcycle racing. I was glad to see not much has
changed.
For
the weekend Dave was "wrenching" for Angela Hiba, Brian Kcraget's
girlfriend, from
Toronto. Brian is resident fast guy at
VIR. Actually he's fast anywhere he goes. Wrenching for him was
Phil Dodd, his long time mechanic, on his 125s and Steve Long,
from SpeedWerks, on his 250. I ended
up
doing a little bit of everything for everyone, so no I didn't just
drink myself silly as some may have
expected.
Phil is the guy in the
orange hat and jeans. Steve is the guy with his back to the
camera.
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When you're fast like
Brian, people basically start throwing motorcycles at you to race.
He has two 125s,
one 250 and one 600. The USGPRU is a
series devoted to two-stroke machines, hence the 125s and
the
250. Brian was leading the series for the 250s and this was
the last race of the season. On saturday he
had four
practice sessions, two qualifying sessions and one twenty minute
race. Below you see the two
125s on the left and the
600 on the right. Above is the 250 in front of Steve.
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At the other end of
the pit was Angela's bike and Dave's workspace. Angela only had two
practice
sessions, one qualifier and one race on saturday, so
things weren't nearly as busy at her end of the pit.
.
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Racing in general
requires a lot of data aquisition and understanding, but two-strokes
take the cake. Every
little piece of data from the look of
the spark plug to the humidity is recorded and analyzed. Here
Angela
records her
carberator jetting.
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In the twenty minute
race Brian had a 27 second lead over the guy in second
place. For those that are
wondering, that's pretty significant.
Actually
it's down right
silly.
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Here's one of the grids from one of
the other races.
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The Graves Yamaha AMA
(Professional) team was there "testing" this weekend before the AMA
at VIR in
two weeks.
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Dave
and I stayed in his motorhome over the weekend. What a
difference that makes in comfort. I
remember way back
when Dave
slept
in the back of his truck
and
Jen
and
I slept in in
enclosed trailer.
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Phil changing the top end on Kcragets bike for
the race the next day. A two-stroke race bike needs a top
end
rebuild after every hour and a half of operation. A top end includes
the piston and rings. A 125 has only
one piston. A 250 has
two. For some, all this work is part of the two stroke fun.
For others it's why you
have people like
Dave, Phil and Steve around.
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Only Brian's 125
needed a top end so the rest of us were done for the evening to
relax. The large logo
behind the wheel of the other 125 is a
logo for Acid Cigars.
Somewhere along they way they decided to
sponsor motorcycle
racers - Brian being one of them. I was also told they use Brians
image on one of their
cigar wrappers, but I didn't find it on the
website. So if you're smoking an Acid Cigar (sounds pretty
nasty
to me) and there's some little dude flying around it on a
125, that's Kcraget.
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The end of a long hard
day. CJ
obviously likes the new accomodations as
well.
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Results for the weekend were mixed. Angela finished 8th in
the USGPRU 125 race out of 47 riders. That
put her at third for the season in the Can-Am
Series; for which, she got a nice shiney trophy. Brian
finished first in the race and second in the USGPRU
series.
In the first lap of the 250 race Brian
high-sided going into the roller coaster (a spiraling downhill on
the backside of the track). After some debate and a new helmet
the officials let him restart the race on his
125, but
had him start from the back of the grid (he qualified the 250
on pole). From the back of the grid he
was able to make his way
back to 3rd in 14 laps of the 15 lap race. Unfortunately he crashed
in the final
turns of the final lap and did not finish the race.
Though allowing him to restart, the officials ultimately
disqualified him. It didn't matter. He still finished
the USGPRU series in first.
For more pictures, check
here.
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