Summit Point, Wv
June 9 - 10, 2001

This was the beginning of a busy month. Three races at three different tracks in three different states. We started the month at Summit Point. My Dad came up to spend the weekend with us, and Jen volunteered to cornerwork for the weekend. Without cornerworkers, you couldn't hold road races. Cornerworkers use radios and flags to communicate with each other and the racers what's going on at every corner of the track. Many corners are blind and many are very fast. If there's danger or warnings for the racers, the cornerworkers use different colored flags to inform the racers of what's happening. If there's an accident and racing is stopped, the cornerworkers clear the track of debris, assist injured riders and prepare the track for the continuation of the race. At sport level racing, cornerworking is done soley by volunteers.

This was a combined region (Northeast/Mid Atlantic) weekend. The top three riders in the series for this race are gridded first. Starting on the left in pole position is Michael Diener, then Don Kinsey and myself.

This is me slowing down for the 180 degree turn five. This is the turn I wrecked in a year ago.

This was our pit area. Dave and I had quite a system by now. We each had 12'x20' canopies. We'd put them up one in front of the other giving us a 20'x24' space under the canopy. The front canopy was used for the bikes and mechanical work. The back canopy was the living space. We'd cook, eat and just hang out in the back canopy. Under each canopy we hung flourescent lights plugged into generators or outlets if the track provided them. We also had fans. Lots of them on hot weeknds. To each side was one of our vehicles and trailers. Jen and generally slept in Dave's trailer, while he slept in the back of his truck. On hot nights we'd set up a fan in the trailer to keep things cool. My Dad's van was parked behind our canopy's this time to totally close us in. Sometimes the weather could get brutal at Summit Point. If you look close, you can see the Yamaha Zuma scooter I bought on the left in front of Dave's trailer. I used it at the track and commuted to work on it.

Here's a shot from within our pit area. You can see the front half even has carpet. The carpet makes it easier to work on the bikes in places where everything is gravel, sand or mud.  You can also see our lights and fans. Summit Point provided electricity for a fee, so we used every bit we could. It generally took us two hours to setup or take down our pit area. It was home away from home. The ambulances were for the guy pitted next to us. He was a long time racer known by many at Summit Point. He wrecked on the back section of the track and broke his back. I think it took him a year to recover before he was racing again.

The mad viking racer shows up with a laytex fist whenever there's beer around.

Here's Dave overtaking a slower racer into turn five.

Jen had orginally only volunteered to cornerwork for one day, but they were short and she ended up working the whole weekend. That's two ten hour days standing in the hot sun. Needless to say she was exhausted Sunday night and slept most of the way home. This is Dave flying through turn ten.