. Life as a Racer .................... |
. 2005 Season |
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April 2005: Honda RS125R For Sale Buy it. You know you want to show me how it's done. February 20 2005: The Results Of Looking Within Get a cup of coffee and sit down. We need to talk. Today is race day at Willow Springs and here I am sitting at home. For now, I am retiring from racing. I know, I didn't give it another chance but certain things have taken place in the interim that tell me I shouldn't be overly concerned with racing at the moment. Here's what I feel for dualsporting: Pant-wetting excitement. Schoolgirl-crush excitement. I don't feel that for racing and if I'm going to spend all that time and money doing it, I believe I should have that level of passion. I don't dislike racing, but it was something I did as an exercise to challenge myself. And I returned to it thinking I had something to prove as an individual who was no longer part of a husband-wife race team. In the meantime, I have talked to racers who dirtride and how they feel about both. I shared with them my love for dualsporting and the general response was that what I feel about being in the dirt is how they feel about being on the track. That helped me understand that they have the same fire in the belly that I do, but for a different medium. I haven't sold the bike. It's sitting in my garage waiting for me to make a final decision. I can't dismiss racing entirely because when I watch it on TV, I get sweaty. There's still something deep in me that likes the challenge...it's just sort of too deep right now to follow through on. January 17 2005: Gaze Into The Eyes Of The Dragon And Despair Let's start from the end for those of you not at work and have limited time to surf: Instead of racing Sunday I left the track Saturday night after practice (sorry to anyone who tried to catch me Sunday). I could not get comfortable on the bike so I chose not to take it out in a race. Now back to the start: I got up at 3:45 a.m. and made the three hour drive to the track. Britt and John-Mark had left San Diego even earlier than I did so they were already there and set up. I pulled up next to them and disgorged the contents of my truck. I put the bike's bodywork back on and then went over to the fuel guys to buy five gallons of C12. Think your gas prices are high? One gallon of this leaded 108 octane fuel costs $7. I felt like a European at an Agip station. I mixed some fuel and put it into Diablo. It was ready to be started, and therein lay my greatest problem: firing up a bike with no ignition switch or kickstarter. I've never had to push start anything. I didn't have a clue how to do it. For those of you who have done it repeatedly, it probably seems stupidly simple. But for those of us with no experience, it's confusing. You have to get momentum in neutral and then you dump the clutch so it catches, but as soon as it catches you pull the clutch back in and give it a little gas, but not too much so it floods (a 125 issue). I tried running alongside the bike, but even with the clutch pulled in, there's a lot of drag and it's not easy to push due to the resistance from the wet clutch. And if you do this method, you have to be prepared for the moment the bike fires up and wants to launch away from you. I only succeeded at this method a couple of times. The other method was to put the bike in neutral, straddle it, and then start paddling my feet so I could get some momentum while already sitting on the bike. Once I got enough speed I could slam it into gear, dump the clutch and fire it up. It didn't work more often than it did. Done enough times, this method will also give you bruised inner thighs and sore pelvic points for the Meatless Ass� crowd. Usually, someone took pity on me struggling along and breathing heavily, and would push me. There were plenty of people willing to help me push, but I had it in my head I needed to be self-sufficient. End-of-the-day review: I am not self-sufficient. And see how long this paragraph is? This just covers trying to start the damn bike. Next problem: The bike had GP shifting and I'm a street-pattern shifter. I didn't need yet another problem to think about on a new bike so John-Mark told me how to change it and I did. He did counsel me to keep my mind open about GP shifting, as it would prove to be the more beneficial pattern on the small bike (and you'll soon find out why...). Next-next problem: riding it. When I finally got on track, I noticed the bike had a major power delivery problem. It kept bogging down like it had no power but when I downshifted the motor screamed and the tach flung off the scale to the right. I was faced with two options: stagger along with no power or wind the engine up and wait for total seizure. I didn't want to destroy the bike so I ended up rolling off the track into the dirt and pushing it far from the active track where I could safely wait for the crash truck. While out amidst the smalls rocks and weeds, one thing kept running through my head: "I'm getting a FUKCING diesel." The crash truck loaded me up and dropped me back off in the pits. My co-horts asked what happened and I told them the bike had no power. They quizzed me on where my rpms were; John-Mark in particular noted that when I rode away to the starting grid my revs were way too low. I told them about the bike's binary all-or-nothing behavior. That's when I got my most important 125 two-stroke lesson: It is not a 250 two-stroke. You are making power when the bike sounds like it wants to explode and your hands are uncomfortable from the angry vibrating. Peak power is around 12k; in contrast, hanging out at that value on my Aprilia was forbidden. I was completely misapplying the only two-stroke experience I had. And who knows how much my subconscious v-twin "torque everywhere" training also fouled the mix. Britt taped over everything below 9 on my tach; if I couldn't see the needle, I wasn't allowed to shift. Now realizing how the bike needed to be run, I was able to turn proper laps during the next session. So what was my next-next-next issue? Ergonomics, or maybe I should call it no-good-nomics. I know the bike is small, but then again I'm not huge. Still, it's a machine that's ideal for 13-year-olds and adults from whom calcium was withheld during their formative years. I would be leaned over heading into turn 9 desperately in need of a downshift but to do that I had to shove my knee into my teeth and then tap the shifter down. This is why nobody streets shifts a 125. I still struggled to be in the right gear throughout the track, but at least my forward momentum was significantly better than in my first outing. Before my second full session, we switched to a larger rear sprocket and backed off a little on the compression. The previous bike's owner looked to be around 155 lbs, which means he had 40 on me. The bike was stiff and chattering through the highspeed sweepers. Wide open throttle made my eyes jiggle in their sockets. Where was the fun? Beats me. So I only managed two sessions for the entire day. I was entirely underwhelmed, but I know that's not Diablo's fault; he's a purebred racebike and knows what he needs to do. It's the user-machine interface where the failure occurred. And I would like to at least sing one serious praise for Diablo: that boy can turn. Wow. The Aprilia was a rusted barge stuck on a sandbar in comparison. Now the big thoughts lie ahead...put a little money into the 125 and keep racing it? Or was this weekend a sign for me to spend my weekends dualsporting instead? Maybe my days as a racer have come and gone. I could be one of those people who just races better as part of a solid team. I do have a lot to think about. January 13 2005: Busting A Gut I got the truck loaded. I thought there'd only be a few things thrown into the back but I ended up having to wedge things in. One racer, so much crap? Unfortunately, the cheap generator takes up a huge amount of space. And it's also heavy enough that I pulled a back muscle moving it around. Racing with pain my first time back in ages: perfect. I have come to the anti-feminist conclusion that women shouldn't race without the help of a man. Ok, maybe just this woman. People, if you seek the courage to race, just look at all the silliness I have to work through. If this solo female [read: testosterone challenged] middle-aged self-doubting semi-coward can pull this off, you have absolutely no excuse. And why I'm bothering to race, I haven't a clue. Please just be gentle with me should I come in last in the race. I promise to report my best lap time for the weekend, even if I have to lie about it. I won't disappoint you. January 12 2005: Getting Ready Only two days before my first practice on the 125 at Willow Springs. Just about everything will be new about this experience since a) I've never been on this bike and b) Team Kelley is no more so I have to learn to do everything on my own. Thankfully, Britt and John-Mark, a couple who races at Willow, have kindly offered to help me as I grope my way through the process. Since I do like a little adventure, I bought a camper shell today and I'm going to sleep in the truck at the track. The night temps are down around freezing, but I'm bringing two sleeping bags and my special dog-like ability to sleep anytime, anywhere. I am even bringing a plastic container with a lid so I don't have to leave my little fiberglass cage to take a leak. I got this cocooning thing covered. I lightly miscalculated the height of the camper shell vs. my bike, but after removing the front fairing and tilting the bike sideways to get it through the opening, I did manage to get the bike inserted up to the tail section. I strapped off the bike so it would stay tilted and then removed the tail section. With those pieces off, the bike fits completely upright in a shortbed truck. Ok, never mind there's no room for the ramp, but if I can't find one at the track to borrow, then I'm racing with a bunch of unprepared people like myself so it's probably better I don't get out there on the track with them. God knows how many loose bolts people who don't transport their own ramps must have on their bikes... December 2004: He Has A Name You voted, and now the bike's name is officially Diablo (credit: MoviStar Stu). Although Sparky received just as many votes, the fact that there were so many additional votes for the civilized Mr. Diablo throws the weight into the devil's corner. I do admit some sadness about not naming the bike Icarus since the last two books I read, quite ironically, made references to that specific doomed Greek character. As a gift to myself, I'm going to use the full Christian name of Diablo Icarus Powers (DIP) on the bike's birth certificate. November 2004: And So It Begins, Again Chris saw an ad for a 2000 Honda RS125 in Roadracing World. It sounded pretty good so we drove up to Los Angeles to check it out and I ended up buying it. More on the bike as I start getting to know it. Yes, he needs a name so feel free to send me suggestions. |
JANUARY Diablo, the 200 lb vibrator  We going racing or moving out?  Learning it all the hard way PRE-SEASON  My ticket back to glory or shame |
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