Chicagoland Sportbike Forums banner

POST: CCS racing at Blackhawk, 8/28-29

486 views 19 replies 9 participants last post by  lovebothkats 
#1 · (Edited)
Wow, what fun!

Friday night I got in before Dave and Karen. Found a spot for pitting, not the usual place since it was packed there this weekend. Started drinking immediately :cheers I think we were up to about 2 am sucking beer.

Saturday..hangover from hell. Registered, skip the first practice session, but I went out for the last couple. Dave skipped all three and got tires put on. It poured all day. Night was pretty laid back, watched a movie and went to bed. My allergies were going beserk, which is rare when we got a couple inches of rain.
I think I slept 2 hours, all broken up.

Sunday, the fun day :D First was practice, got the crap scared out of me when I managed to find a rather large patch of oil courtesy of a 2 stroke out there. Right after coming on the track on the exit of turn 1 my back tire got super duper squirrelly and almost threw me off. Got into the pits after the session and I had a monstrous oil patch still on my tire, but that could have been from the OTHER GP bike that started spitting oil this time on the last lap.

LWsupersport was good for me, bad for Dave. Raced with Leon from PrivateTrackTime, first of several times we raced. I got him going into 1 about 1/2 way through, then on lap 6 or 7 he got a bitchin' drive off of 5 and passed me. He ended up beating me, but it was fun. I think this is the race Steve (Good2Go) got third place on his new motor.

LWSuperBike. Great fun, may have to do this class a bit more often. Grid was packed for a LW class. Leon and I raced again. Same result. Dave got a 4th. Broke my lap times to 1:28, all below 1:31.

LWGP. Super packed grid. Took 3 laps for the amateurs to space themselves out (usually takes 1). Tried to race Leon again, but the only reason I was keeping up with him before was because he had shagged tires the first couple races. Dave got a fourth again. Broke into the low 1:28's, all below 1:30.

Oh, the grand finale..SUPERTWINS. This one's fun because the huge difference in bikes. Had a blast. Tried for 8 laps to get around a slower cornering guy with a bigger bike. I'm not much for stuffing, so I ended up consistently testing how good my brakes are now. Managed to get below 1:28, all laps below 1:29 Dave got a 4th again, Steve managed 5th.

I've determined that racing is a lot more fun when you are dicing it with somebody, and my lap times are getting down to the point I can usually find some lower pack guy to race against. Thanks to Dave and Karen for letting me sleep in the trailer and use their grill.

Next up is the Wegman benifit day. :cheers

-Chris
 
See less See more
#3 ·
Glad to hear that you are doing alot better on times. It seems that you are getting more relaxed and that helps alot. Hope to see you out there again this year. The rs is getting back in shape so we will see.
 
G
#6 ·
Alright! :cheers

Nice to hear you guys had a good weekend. Good job on picking up the lap times Grover! It's also good to hear Steves new motor is working out for him. ;) The old one is my winter project :D I couldn't make it out this weekend due to wanting to see and do something different so I'm saving my pennies for that Occasion. Whats that occasion you ask :confused DEALS GAP BABY. OH YEA:2rockin. I should be out there for the next Blackhawk event.
 
#8 ·
rdrash said:
Grover, Your picking up speed. congrats. :cheers

You can get out of B easy with those times. You'll even beet Lupi :laughing
I don't plan on hitting Blackhawk with a B sticker, I may try it with an I. Even then, probably only a day just to test it. Not being able to pass through 3 on the outside would kill me. I'll be doing Putnam with NESBA, maybe RA as well next time it pops up.

-Chris
 
#9 ·
Sticky said:
:cheers Way to go Grover! I wonder what times you could run without the hangover?:rolleyes :laughing
I wasn't hung over on Sunday. Saturday had some crappy lap times, but the track was slick in a couple spots. Everybody was a couple seconds off pace, so I didn't feel too bad.
 
#10 ·
Grasshopper said:
Alright! :cheers

Nice to hear you guys had a good weekend. Good job on picking up the lap times Grover! It's also good to hear Steves new motor is working out for him. ;) The old one is my winter project :D I couldn't make it out this weekend due to wanting to see and do something different so I'm saving my pennies for that Occasion. Whats that occasion you ask :confused DEALS GAP BABY. OH YEA:2rockin. I should be out there for the next Blackhawk event.
Yeah, I heard about your new motor, also figured you probably need new tires since Dave did this weekend. Combine that with race entry fees and a Deal's Gap trip and I can definately see why you skipped this one. Have fun this weekend! :cheers
 
#11 ·
It was a blast, and as always racing has it's ups and downs.

First race, by turn three I was in 2nd, and I knew some of the faster guys who usually beat me weren't there, so I got a little anxious and really pushed hard to catch the lead guy going through three, well leave it to say the front didn't have enough traction for it. Midcorner it just tucked, and down I went. Simple low side, and I jumped up to see if I could get back in it, but I was missing both levers, lost my transponder, and the brake resivoir broke off, so that wasn't going to happen.

So quickly went back to the pits, and started repairs, two races later the bike was ready to go, and I still had about 4 more before my next race. Waiting was the worst part.

Next up was Ligthweight SB, good race although nothing ultra exciting, wound up finishing fourth.

Then Lightweight GP, this was by far the MOST fun I've had racing this year. Jonny Moore and I were dicing it up for 3rd and 4th positions the entire race. I got him going into the last lap in turn one, but then he got me back in the bus stop, I hung back waiting to make a turn 7 move on him, but then I ended up totally blowing the turn and having no drive out of the corner. So I ended up finishing 4th there, but man was that ever fun just swapping positions back and forth like that. This will definitely be the race I remember and talk about all winter. That's racing, and that's FUN!!!

Last up Supertwins, I was running in 4th when the lead guy crashed out, so cool I was now in 3rd, then from out of nowhere a guy on a Ducati 748 comes by me, and I was able to keep him in sight, but didn't have anything for him.

Huge thanks to Grover, for cooking man your wings ROCK! Thanks to Rob940 for helping me pick the bike up and making sure I was ok in 3, thanks to Jonny Moore who isn't on this board, for the funnest race I've had this season. Thanks to Kimmy for the cheering I saw ya out there in 6 gate, it's cool seeing people you know on the cool down lap. :D

Oh yeah and Grover CONGRATS on the lap times man!! You'll be up there mixing it up with me in no time!

I never made it back to the 1:20's I was running last time out there but consistantly in the 1:22's and occasional 1:21's so I'm happy. Now I just need to find another 2 or 3 seconds to finish in the top 3.
 
#13 ·
Grasshopper said:
Dave, you crazy bastard :cheers :D :bow :2rockin
It's cool you had the spares to finish the race day!
:laughing Or did you?
No I magically finished 4th without running the races. :laughing

The crash was first race of the day, I've been gathering spares so I have a bin now that I just go and pull levers from. I really need to get bar ends though, so that hopefully I can get back in the race if this happens, without bar ends the levers snap EVERY time.
 
G
#14 ·
Well it was a good weekend for me. I finished 3rd in LWSS and I also had a fifth in supertwins and LWGP. I had a 6th in LWSB. I am finally figuring out that a bone stock SV with just a pipe is not going to win me races. Competing against SV's that have over 20 more horsepower just takes it toll after a while. I can keep the fast guys off my ass for the first half of the race but then they start passing me one by one on the back straight or the front straight. It is like I am standing still. I had a couple of racers tell me that I pull away from them all through the track but all they have to do is wait till the straight and they laugh in there helmet as they wiz by me. At least I kept Ed Key within sight for the whole race in LWSS. Had a lot of good battles with alot of people and since I have been back racing this year I clicked off an 18. I was consistant in my lap times having tons of 1:20 flat and a some 19's. The new vesrah pads helped a bunch. Also a new set of tires help me dip into the 18's in the supertwins race.
 
#15 ·
Main Gate is definitely THE place to watch... I'm sure Jan and Jim thought I was quite the lunatic, jumping up and down cheering for you guys. And running back and forth all day, picking up riders and bikes was quite a workout!
 
#16 ·
And Dave forgot to say we stopped the race for him too.:D We should had kept the race going, but we (the corner capt and myself) were not comfortable with leaving your bike sitting in the grass in the imact zone that close to the track (she couldnt get it to go into N). One of the other corner workers said that we didnt need to have the race stopped, but personally I'd rather error on the cautious side that have someone else go down and slide into the bike.

Turn 6 was a busy corner all weekend. Sat I was in 6 and we had 5 bikes drop, gate had a couple (I had to send my chaser to cover for them since they really had no one there at gate that seemed to be inexperienced). We were pulling the hair out of our head watching the guy at T5 and the gate all day sat. We had a guy at the cathers mit in 5 just walk over to a bike that went down in 5. Kid at main gate would just stroll out to the bike that was across track at 6 when my worker was trying to oush the bike behind the tire wall. Guy that was supposed to open and close the gate would wait until teh last bike got on pit lane before opening the gate and then ask for 30 sec more to let traffic out. At the end of the day sat they actually SHUT the gat when a car was already halfway across the track and then the fun started. My guy ran over to try to get traffic backed up and when the guy opened the gate a couple bikes went around teh cars and went across track. Was a total clusterfuck.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top