|
|
|
New York Qualifier This was a new event with the New Jersey Ridge riders
buying property in New York state to ensure an event for the club in years to
come. They did a tremendous job
setting up the event similar to the ISDE which featured three separate grass
tracks. One of the grass tracks was
three miles in length which used a full seven miles of ribbon around it and had
a great layout with every time of corner to test a riders skill.
Brian and I flew out to Jersey and we soon got together with Mike Barenback,
then Spildo and Pinner who are in the club and were working the event for the
weekend. We got to the race early
and managed to get a spot to work on the bikes under cover since it was raining
out. We had a lot of work to do to
the bike since Tim Taber of Funmart Cycles was bringing the bikes from Illinois
and we had to give them a race prep before impound later that night.
Soon after we arrived Tim showed up and we got started working on the
bikes. We knew we would take all
the time up to the close of impound and we did.
Brian and I are riding SX model bikes that aren't set up with lighting
capabilities so we set them up with batteries and did the bare minimum to get
passed impound. I ran into a little
trouble going into impound since the club was worried about the local authorities
threatened to pull over any non street legal motorcycles.
Both Brian and I managed to get though just before impound was set to
close and were set for the race. We
started cleaning up and preparing things for the next day when Shane Watts
rolled up. Shane still had a few
things to do to the bike so we gave him hand and he got his bike into impound
just in time for dinner. Tim had
brought another friend with him named Big Red who was from Iowa and was on his
first trip away from home. He had
taken up hydrating for the race very heavily before he even got into impound and
was already through a twelve pack by the time we went to dinner.
He didn't stop through dinner and when we went back to the track to sleep
he stayed out with some club members. We
awoke early the next morning to hard rain and noticed Big Red was doubled over
outside the door of the truck next to us attempting to turn his intestines
inside out. Big Red turned straight
to Pink before he even through a leg over the bike.
It had rained in the are for 26 of the last 30 days turning
the area into a muddy mess. The only
saving grace for the race was that it is rocky enough in the area to keep ruts
from getting too deep. We entered
into a special test just four miles into the race.
It was really good in the woods with some fun trails being used in the
test. Immediately after the terrain
test we went straight into a grass track. It
didn't take long to see that all the rocks had been removed from the fields because
the grass track was so muddy that a swamp buggy could have got through the grass
track faster than a motorcycle. The
grass track seemed to take forever in these conditions and not long after
completing it we had yet another terrain test.
This test was rocky, rooty and very technical but was a good test.
After three tests we had a break and actually had a good bit of pavement
riding. There was a dual sport race
running concurrently with the qualifier and during the trail sections it looked
like the combination of the wet weather, heavy bikes, and dual sport tires made
it look like it was quite difficult for the dual sport riders.
We were lucky enough to have Mark Spence and Lonny show up and offer to
help out pitting for us, which was nice since Brian and I didn't have any gas
cans and Watts brought one for two people-one on a two stroke and one on a four
stroke- and we had three fuel stops a day.
Unfortunately Shane had some problems in the first terrain test and broke
his clutch perch and was done for the day.
After gas we went straight into two grass tracks.
They would have been awesome but with all the mud the tests were survival
and the brakes on the bike didn't work after a couple of corners.
From there we had some more trail sections that were good single track.
Brian broke a clutch plate late in the day but continued riding without a
using the clutch. We gassed again
and then did the first terrain test and were supposed to do the grass track
again but the club had mercy on us and sent us back to impound.
I changed a tire because all of the pavement that we rode on took its
toll on the tire. After checking
times Steve Hatch was leading the field ahead of Fred Hoess and Rodney Smith.
Brian was just outside the top ten and had his interestingly had his best
times in the last tests he rode without a clutch.
I got smoked on the day especially in the grass tracks and was well down
in the field.
|