. Life as a Racer ................................ |
. 2002 Season |
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MAY? NO, MAYDAY! Mayday! is a distress signal that suits this month perfectly. As usual, we arrive Friday night and camp out in the van. On Saturday morning, we get our act together and actually make first practice for once. With an extra rotation thrown in to separate the novice and expert heavyweights, it takes longer between our practice sessions which means we need to quit spending two hours to blow-dry our hair in the morning. First session out is ok. As always, it seems like I need to relearn the track and figure out where my turn-in points are. In the second session, I start concentrating on turning a good lap or two when out in turn 8 with the throttle pinned the bike goes silent. Uh oh...full, utter, thorough, and resplendent power loss. So what does a dead engine make one think of? Well, it makes me think of that hideous thing called "engine seizure," complete with an image of a rider flying over the bars, so I pull in the clutch and run off the track. Turns out that another gent on his vintage 70s bike was chillin' out in the weeds of turn 8 so the crash truck is immediately at my disposal. (During our ride back on the truck, I learn that this poor guy had started 6 races but due to various mechanical failures had only completed one.) Once back under the auspices of our friendly red canopy, I find that Chris is not surprised at my situation. He too had experienced power loss during the session, although he had enough to limp back home. Like an ebola virus outbreak, our bikes are struck down fast and hard. Perhaps the same urine tainted our gasoline? You never know what lengths competitors will go to... Time for forensics. We do a mini teardown to find that one of my pistons is fried and the cylinder is scored. I might be a girl, but even I can tell this isn't one of those things where I can dial on the pouty face and ask Chris, "Can't you make it work right?" I see a grenaded engine. I see time and labor. I see "premature pack-up-ulation" for the weekend. We hang around and watch the 50-mile Solo Series. What grief and torment. We had only been waiting for this race since we ran the last one the previous September. We were so looking forward to remembering what it was like to have a bike double our horsepower - and then some - go by us carrying an extra 40 mph. We stood in the grandstands and cheered for those who raced, envious but supportive. With all that has gone wrong, one thing is still right: my bodywork. Bike sucks, but the lower fairing was easy to remove so we could get to the engine. My apologies to Racersden.com for not being able to circulate the bike more this weekend. At least I kept the shiny side up! Saturday evening we are home, with two crappy ass two-strokes in tow. Feeling very cheated by our misfortunes, I request that we go dirtbiking, something we really enjoy but hadn't done in several months. Chris agrees and on Sunday we head out to Corral Canyon, land of ya-hoos and helmetless punks on quads. We get in several hours of good riding before we find our way back to our truck and have a snack. At around 5:00 p.m. we go for round two and head back up a new-found trail I like. I see two trucks parked at the head of the trail so I figure I should take it easy as the owners of those vehicles are likely to be heading back down the blind single-track. Over halfway up the trail I round a corner and suddenly see a flash of blue. The other rider shouts and I try to bail into the bushes to my right. Too late. Our bikes clip hard and I'm thrown to the ground where I end up facing backward with my bike on my foot. I sit there stunned, wondering if the pain in my hand or arm means something is broken. I ask Chris to pull the bike off of me and stand up to survey the damage. I'm not worried about the other rider as he has long since been on his feet ranting and raving about how this is his second or third head-on and that they should make the trail one-way and blah blah blah. The gear shifter on my bike is completely folded back on itself and the mirror was sheared off with such force that it's nowhere to be found. If it weren't for my Acerbis wraparound handguards, my hand would've been broken by the impact. The handguard took the initial impact and was bent down. The mirror took it next and then his bar slammed my arm, leaving me with a bruise that nearly wraps around my arm. Chris has nothing civil to say to this guy who was obviously carrying too much speed, so he keeps his mouth shut and works on getting my bike functional again. The point of interest in this near-catastrophe is that when I approach the other gent to talk to him, I can smell alcohol on his breath. There was no reason for me to have suspected that he had been drinking until the moment I caught a whiff of him. One never truly appreciates sobriety and vehicular conduct until one is on the receiving end of the lack of sobriety. Either one of us could easily be in a coma right now; probably me since drunks always stay relaxed and bounce their way out of accidents. So this is May. The holiday weekend is coming up and we're going to lay low until next weekend. If we thought drunks were out this past Sunday, the upcoming one should be full of 80-proof folks in search of an impact... |
2002 SPONSOR!
 Racersden bodywork. More pix here MAY PIX  The face is a prediction of the day...  Behold the image of suck-atude. A ride nobody wants to take. Chris holds his sick baby's hand. Tribal wraparound tattoo using hematoma technique. |
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Previous entries for 2002 season. Go to Zina's home page. |