. Willow Springs Detritus ......................

. Spare Parts!


Hey racers, take a walk with me. Let's see what pieces of ourselves we leave behind when either our skills or our bikes fail us. Granted, there is the rare instance in which we leave something behind without a crash, but those pieces are the exception, not the rule.

Today we're going to take a tour of Willow Springs International Raceway (WSIR). I'm not sure what run-off areas at other tracks look like, but WSIR is a bit frontier-like. Situated in the high desert, the track sits amidst a lot of small loose rocks and sparse dry weeds. Stuff gets easily overlooked in the lumps and clumps that comprise the run-off areas.


The Map
Here's an overview on the turns and where troubles usually arise:

1. The Pant Crapper. This turn disturbs a lot of people. You have it pinned down the straight and then you have to figure out when to shave off all the speed and throw it into the turn. It takes most new track riders a while to get comfortable with this high-speed turn. I really should be ashamed to admit this, but it took me a long time before I'd quit chopping the throttle at the start/finish line.

2a. Lazy Daze. No big deal. By the time you get here you're not carrying insane speeds. It's also not a real technical turn. Few people bin it here.

2b. Sweeping Beauty. This gentle sweeper claims very few people. When it does, I suspect passing is involved.

3. The Super Scraper. This hard uphill left-hander might very well claim the most victims. You carry all this speed out of turn 2 and come roaring up onto this bad boy. I call this The Super Scraper because it's very easy to scrape pegs, toes, and knees through this turn. And if you blow this turn, your bike gets the full-fairing scrape. Many parts can be collected outside of turn 3.

4. Variety Pack. People approach this turn differently since you can single or double-apex it. When people get into trouble here, it's usually not severe since speeds aren't extreme. A rather uninteresting turn for the archeologists among us.

5. WYSIWYG. What You See Is What You Get. Because this is a hard downhill left-hander, you see the entire turn laid out in front of you. If you enjoy watching crashes, this is a reasonable turn to keep your eyes on. Racers are often desperate to get a pass in here so they can make the hard charge up and over turn 6.

6. The Slingshot.This is it, make or break. If you line this one up right, you can get a monster drive off this rise and carry massive speed all the way through 9. That's what the good riders tell me since the only slingshotting I do is when my underwear hangs up on the toilet seat and snaps back at me when they disconnect.

7. The Non-event. It's over before you even notice it began. It's a moderate jog that I've never seen anyone crash on.

8. The Cartwheeler. This is the highest speed part of the track. The good racers can carry 160 mph through this curve. This means when a crash occurs, it's often a catastrophic cartwheeler for the bike. Those who crash here often get an ambulance ride.

9. Hexed Apex. This scary part of the track claims many bikes. The unusual aspect of this turn, and why I've dubbed it Hexed Apex, is because very often nobody knows why they crashed there. In the other turns, people love regaling others with stories like "I could feel the tire start to go and then..." With turn 9, there is an inordinate amount of "Was anybody following me who could tell me what happened?" It's just a mean turn that hates people.


The Pieces
So now that you understand the track, check out some of the metal and polymer inhabitants that reside at WSIR:
Fairing chunks. The clean-up crew does a good job of picking up the big pieces. Most of the fiberglass parts that remain behind are unidentifiable with respect to who the manufacturer may have been. This remnant proudly displays a partial Willow Springs Motorcycle Club sticker.
Clutch and brake levers. There were several of these lying about. My favorite one (which I plan to pick up on my next walkabout) was bent back in a perfect U-shape. Every dirtbiker sees the classic U-shape sooner or later in his or her lifetime.
Boot parts. This cosmetic doo-dad most likely covers some part of the shin. The mounting of this particular piece on this particular brand of boot seems flawed as there were several of these strays in good condition on the ground (i.e., they don't look like they were torn off from a crash). Toe sliders are also prevalent.
UEO. Unidentified Electrical Object. There is a fair amount of electrical-related riff-raff. Because the parts are so small, it's hard to identify most of these parts. Doesn't help that I don't know crap about electronic parts, either. They're small, plastic, not flat, and clearly do not have the capacity to hold liquids...by default, I categorize these as electrical.
Hoses. This one ranks high in the popularity contest. Some come with their own gear clamps, some don't. Some are long, some are short. Some are straight, some are curved. The greatest commonality is that none of them were designed to withstand a wild ride on a horizontal bike; hence, the "aorta ripped from the heart" look to them.
Fluid reservoirs. Be they of the brake or clutch kind, they are well represented. Many impacts were violent enough to separate the caps from the reservoirs. What does this mean? It means thirsty birds only have seconds to lap up the yummy mechanical juices before they're sucked into the dry earth.
Foot peg parts. I'd say actual footpegs and the rubber that cover them are in the top 3 of repeat visitors. Given their status as points of protrusion, there's no surprise that they are violently snapped or wrenched. And there's also the disrespectful dragging they may endure through any of the many turns. Were I a bike part wishing for love and respect, I would not want to be footpeg.
"Faux" engine cover. This is not common. Somehow this little carbon goody survived a get-off in turn 7 and doesn't have a single scratch on it. If bike parts were fossils, this would be the equivalent of stumbling across a whole mastodon.
Black rubber. This is the #1 litter of choice. There simply is no way to keep little bits of your tire from balling up when you're screaming along at 100+ mph and then suddenly brake. The "dingleberries" will form on the tire, get scrubbed off, and make their way to the outskirts. You could conceivably collect all the rubber, melt it down, and reform one gigantic tire that encircles the track.
Windscreen bits. If I'm not mistaken in identifying small chunks of clear plastic (some in smoke-tint, others in yellow) as windscreen parts, then this is the second most-prevalent litter (after the ubiquitous black rubber).

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