Ducati Sporting Club UK > DesmoDue Race Series > DesmoDue - General Questions and Chat > Timmy Topanga: Otei's So-Cal Adventure.

[Otei]

Got some interesting pics from the weekend, but thought that you peeps might like to see this.

It's a 900 Monster, named "frankenstein".

It's ridden by a nice Argentinian lad called Mauro, who incidentally, had heard of the Ducati sporting Club, and the desmodue series.

He said that he bought the engine from a guy called Domsk...oh no, wait...he he!

He's not been racing long, but seems to be going pretty quickly already, and was telling me all about the intricacies of riding a 160 MPH Ducati monster. Sounded like fun. I'm not too sure of any of the finer details about the bike as I was always running around somewhere or other, but took a few snaps anyway.

[Otei]

So then, the racing.

We set off to do a practice day on the Friday and I must confess that I was bricking it. I was wondering just what I had let myself in for, with tales of modern 600's and AMA riders frequenting the grids, I just didn't want to look a tit.

When we arrived we unloaded the pick up and set up the garage. Now the yanks don't have vans to transport stuff like we do (Shandra referred to them as "kidnapper vans", which cracked me up). They either have a pick up truck of varying largeness, or a large pick up and a cool trailer. If they've got plenty of cash, they have a bloody great big wagon that wouldn't look out of place in a BSB paddock.

Having signed on and gotten ready for the first practice, it was announced that one of the new riders had spilled oil all the way down the straight and through turn 1. This was exactly what I didn't need for learning the circuit on my first day, that awful feeling of going across the white cement line at speed and hoping the track workers have done their job right!



quite a few racers got out of their leathers and mucked in. I wasn't one of them, lazy git that I am

I had been introduced to one of the racers by Amy, called Ken Kramer. Ken also does the new racer school, so I tagged along for a few laps behind him to see what I could learn.

The first impression I got was of just how fast and open it is, with little or no reference points to speak of. turn one is down from 6th to 4th, then up to 5th for a long 180 degree right hander. This leads into a nasty little up and downhill section with terrible tarmac and weird cambers. Then it zings onto the back straight that leads into turn 8. Turn 8 is taken flat in 6th and then turns back in on itself, requiring you to go down a couple of gears as you're cranked over and try to aim it in the right direction so that you don't end up running off the track.

I came back in slightly intimidated, but hopeful I could learn it quickly.

Next session I followed Amy on her CBR 400 and was having a real hard time keeping up with her, even though I was on her R6. She doesn't hang around!

After a few sessions though, I started to get the hang of the place and was beginning to enjoy myself. The wind started to get quite blustery, and the place is notorious for catching out the unwary when it starts to get like that.Turn 8 and 9 weren't the sort of corners that you needed to have your front wheel blown from under you either!



Team topanga on Friday practice

By the end of the day, I'd managed to get my times down to a 1:35.5, which I was told is very respectable for your first day at the track, so I was pretty happy with that.

It was my birthday that day, and as I walked back to the garage later, I strolled in and they were there with a bunch of iced muffins with " happy 36th birthday Tim" written on them. It was a really nice surprise. I got a cool book from Amy about Black holes and time warps, by Kip S thorne.

Shandra, Amy's friend had also made me a T shirt. I'd commented to Amy that I'd seen a really cool logo on some webite, and wished I could get a T shirt with the logo on. It turned out that you couldn't. Shandra however, had used her considerable talents to recrate one just from a tiny little logo grabbed from a site. Thanks for that Shandra, you're a legend.

Shandra had also been to the Freddie Spencer riding school recently, and brought me and Amy some cool signed gear. Very nice indeed.



We weren't finished yet though apparently, and scooted off to a local Mexican restaurant for a bite to eat. After we'd eaten and partaken of more margeritas (I'll really need to hit the gym when i get back!) the waiters came out, plonked a big Sombrero on my swede and sang happy birthday to me again.






With our faces glowing from the combination of the desert winds and the booze,we then trotted over to the hotel and got some shuteye.

[Otei]

Saturday official practice.

Today I would get to practice with the guys I'd be racing against, which would either be a very good, or a very bad thing, depending on how quick they were. I was reassured that my progress was fine and that I'd be ok.

The weather was very, very different to the day before though, and we could actually see some snow on the upper mountains in the distance, such was the reduction in temperature.



Even Wyatt the dog had to wrap up warm.

After my first session, I was freezng my ass off, and couldn't get my head around riding the bike. It was clearly ok for riding though, and AMA superhero, Jason Perez proved it to me by coming around the outside of me in the flat out turn 8, with his knee kissing the deck in a chilly display of barely controlled lunacy. I was now extremely demoralised.

The chilly conditions didn't get any better, and at one point i went for a pee and nearly had a heart attack as I saw the size of my todger. I also thought I'd lost a knacker, such was the malteseresque nature of them at this freezing point in time. I couldn't lose my balls, I'd be needing them for the next day!

I had decided to wait until later in the day to fit a new set of tyres for the race and scrub them in. Sure enough, just as I was getting them swapped over (we only took one set of wheels) the heavens opened and it lashed it down.



After a while it became pretty obvious that there was no way I would be able to scrub the new tyres in and that the morning practice would be my only chance.



I had met a really nice bloke called Dave Moss at the track. dave's an ex pat, originally from Manchester. He now runs his own suspensionn tuning company, called Catalyst Reaction. He's gained alot of respect on the various race paddocks in the U.S, and works bloody hard, driving 60,000 miles a year to track days and race meetings. I wish him all the success in the world, he definitely deserves it.



Dave Moss, hardest working man in the paddock, and the only one in shorts!

We scooted off to another Mexican restaurant, but as we were sat down to order, Shandra got a phone call from a young lad that had fallen off and broken his collarbone earlier in the day whilst she was instructing him on his new racer school. (Just to be clear, she didn't instruct him to fall off, he managed that on his own) He had been fixed up by the hospital sooner than she thought, and downed tools and went off to pick him up without a second thought.

Me, Amy and Shandra's parner, Chris ordered some nibbles and waited for them to return.

Kyle came back sporting a lovely little sling. It turned out that he was in the Marines, and at just over 20 years old, had already been to Fallujah for 7 months, right in the thick of it. Brave lad, never made anything of it either.

I hadn't managed to lap as quickly as I had the day before, but then neither had anyone else, such were the conditions. It had been useful just to keep learning the track, but not for much else.

Oh yeah, i forgot to add that when we got to the hotel on the Friday night, we thought it was on fire as the L.A fire dept were there in force!



We never found out what was going on, but there was a prom night or something going on, so we figured that one of the girls had broken a nail or had a false eyelash trauma.

[Otei]

Sunday: Raceday.

Ok, this was it then. I'll be frank, I was terrified.

The weather was bright and clear, but still unbelievably chilly. We'd get 2 ten minute practice sessions in each class before a riders meeting (where they played the national anthem and gave respect to their troops in Iraq etc. I normally hate that sort of cheese, but it was quite touching) then the racing would get underway. Gulp!

I still had to scrub the tyres in, so I went out carefully and wobbled round, feeling like a 1st day rookie. It wasn't pretty. When I came in, Amy noticed that the tyres were wearing a little strangely, and had lips on the tread edges. I didn't think too much of it and went out for the second session.



Whaddya mean I look scared!

Having started to get more confident and faster on the bike, it was now blatantly clear that there was something amiss with the suspension. Whereby before, I could sail relatively smoothly around the turns, It was now like a little jackhammer, pattering from the rear just about everywhere.

I went to see Dave Moss, who came straight over and had a look at the tyres. One glance was all he needed to diagnose too much rebound damping. The cooler temperatures had affected the shock and it wasn't working the same as when it had been alot warmer, so we backed it off a couple of turns and I'd just have to hope that it was ok for the race.

Race number 4, the 600 Superstock came around far too quickly, and before I knew it, I was in the holding area, with my heart attempting to beat it's way out of my chest cavity.

It was a while since I'd been this nervous, and all I could think about was how fast this racetrack was, Kyle's broken collarbone and my total lack of medical cover for the race. This was starting to seem like a really irresponsible thing to be doing.

As soon as I got out on the warm up lap, the bike felt much better and I knew I had my race head on. The temperature was up quite a bit now, and things were much more like Fridays conditions. I lined up on the last row of the grid in 23rd place and waited for the start sequence. A guy raises a board with the number 2 on it, then flips it over to reveal a number 1, then turns it sideways, and after that, he can raise the green flag at any point to start the race.

I got a good start and used my elbows well enough in the first turn to clear a path through a few riders. I passed one around the outside in the 5th gear second turn and set my sights on the pack of 5 or 6 bikes ahead of me. I was riding calmly and seemingly pretty well, catching them and getting rid of them one by one until I came across a guy called Mark Hill....yes, really!...the difference is that this Mark Hill is a black guy. I took him into the steep turn 5, which I was pleased with as it was a tricky pass and set off after a gixxer 600 ahead of me. I caught him and slingshotted out of his slipstream into turn 1, but couldn't make it stick. After that, I couldn't make enough ground on him and crossed the line in 13th place.



The viper stripe roof lid on tour.

As I cruised around on the slow down lap, I got an immense sensation of elation. It's an unreal feeling to go and race total strangers in a foreign land 5000 miles away. I felt quite proud, and that in some lame way, I was representing our country. Stupid, I know, but i'm something of a romantic.

These guys race every month of the year at this track, and so get to become track specialists. I'd reduced my laptime to a 1:33.8, and was informed that it isn't the norm for people to do that on their first time at the track. Apparently, if you can regularly lap under the 1:30 bracket, you qualify for a pro licence. Maybe I'll try to do that next time, although I hear they're reducing it to 1:28...Hmmm!

The second race was quite soon after, being as it was number 7 and it was destined to be a bit of a disappointment as soon as the warm up lap started. However, It was pretty cool when the announcer mentioned me and the fact that I was "all the way from over the pond!"..he he..cool!

The temperatures had dropped again, and the chatter had returned. It wasn't as significant as the morning practice, but was enough to make the bike unpleasant to ride. I didn't get a great start, but managed to elbow my way through again and started to chase down the same guys I'd battled with in the first race. To be honest though, I didn't have enough pace and dropped off the back of them, deciding just to bring it home safely and make sure everything was in one piece for the laguna Seca trackday on the 26th.



They have Chavs in the states too it would seem!

As it turned out, there weren't quite as many on the grid for this race, and that, coupled with the fact that a few fell off, meant that I finished in 12th place, but with a laptime of 1:35 as my best.

Amy was racing her CBR 400 and just mised out on her first podium in one race, after a titanic battle with the guys at the front saw her slide in 4th by a wheel length. She made up for it later though as she stormed of into second place and put a gap on 3rd. The race was then red flagged and restarted, so she'd have to work at it again. She got a good start and battled away, eventually taking 2nd and her first trophy.



Woohoo..feels good!

It was a popular result and the commentator went bonkers. People were waiting in pitlane to give her a hug as she cam back in. It was a great moment and I was so pleased to have been there to witness her first trophy winning ride.



JC Gibbs, Amy and Ken Kramer.

After having a few drinks and chatting with people for a bit, we packed up and headed home. It had been an amazing weekend, and one that I'll never forget.

Something to consider, is that the Friday and Saturday practice, and my 2 races, had cost me the grand total of 150 quid. Couple that with the fact that petrol is 1.25 GBP for 4 litres, and it's a real eye opener.

I'd like to thank all of the people at the circuit that made me feel genuinely welcome and who were so good to me. I'll be back for more!

Most of all though, I want to say thank you to Amy, who has put so much time and effort into this that it makes me feel very humble. Thank you.

[domski]

God I feel sick

Is the 4th Ashes test on yet?



Nice work though T.O.Tei