Shannonville, ON
Saturday September 24th - Sunday September 25th
Rain, overcast skies and perhaps some sun was the forecast for our last race weekend at Shannonville for the 2011 season. It wasn’t looking pretty!! Except of course for the SRA Pot Luck Dinner organized for Saturday evening and that was awesome!! Way way too much good food as usual and it was really nice to see some old racing buddies join us. Our gentle giant racing friend Rob Verrier has recently been “under” the weather, and we would like to wish him a speedy recovery, all our best wishes Rob and take it easy!!.
Team Fletcher had another race weekend full of “bad Luck” which caused them to have yet another DNF!!. They have not had a very good race season at all for 2011. Latest Developments has secured the championship for 2011 with Poutine Express following in 2nd place!! However, for 2nd place and 3rd place finishes we can’t say it’s over till the “fat lady sings” right!!
On another note, how come the weather man doesn’t get fired for really screwing up the forecast for the weekend (I will never understand that one) Saturday was supposed to be cloudy and sunny with 0% chance of rain, NO GOD DAMN RAIN IN THE FORECAST!!!! So why did?all the solo bikes have rain tires on?, why did it rain on and off for over half of the day?
So, enjoy reading about our race weekend by some of those Teams who attended.
“Team Bulldog” #13 -Best Lap Time - Sunday Sept 25 : 1.26.455
The last Shannonville race of the season turned out to be a great weekend! Saturday's rounds were wet, so the question hovered; Rain tires? Slicks? Rain tires? Slicks? Oh...wait...low budget and all, no worries for us...slicks all the way! The wet was too much with the slicks, but we did manage to pull off quite a pretty pirouette in the chicane! During the race, we decided to try it again coming out of corner #1 and did a double; spinning a 360 one way and then a 180 the other way, ending up on the grass and back out on the track. Hmmmm...is this something we are supposed to be getting good at?
What a great feeling to be in the pack! Who knew the hairpin could handle three rigs side by side, racing round to the straight?! And the finish!!!! Once again, three rigs racing across the finish line! Okay...so we were actually being lapped, but the feeling was still tremendous and just for a moment, we had a taste of what it will feel like next year!
Sunday morning when the rig fired up, something just sounded off. Thanks to Pete Demerski's experience and great help, and Steve giving us four exhaust gasket rings, we managed to fix the problem and get on the track. Thanks also to Bill for the four spark plugs - we owe you. The weather was beautiful and the race was fantastic. Although the steering continued to be a struggle, we ran a really good race. We are getting smoother and more confident together as a team and it is feeling really good. Third place F1 finish - not bad at all!
Thanks to those who organized Saturday night's potluck dinner! What a spread! It was most enjoyable and Elvis had a great time! Sorry to those he drooled on and begged at...but really...he did spend the entire day watching Brett at the BBQ and by the end of the day, he just couldn't contain himself any longer! He thanks one and all for the morsels of food he received, especially the beef! See you all at Grand Bend!
Elvis - Thank you!!
“Latest Developments” #121 - Best Lap Time - Sunday Sept 25 : 1.17.144
After setting up in the rain Friday evening we woke up to a very damp track on Saturday and it kept that way by intermittent drizzle. Wanting to save our rain tires we went out for both practice sessions on slicks at a cautious pace. About 45 minutes before our scheduled race time the skies opened up and we made the call to mount the rain tires. Naturally all the water on the track led to a couple of red flag delays and by the time the sidecars got out on the track it was sunny and the track was rapidly drying. We got a good start and pushed to open a gap on the field fearing the track would soon be completely dry and we would have to slow down due to cooked rain tires. However the moisture on the track was pretty persistent and we seemed to have more traction than the teams running on slicks for the full 10 laps.
After quickly checking over the sidecar we punted it out of the awning and went into full potluck party mode. And WHAT AN AWESOME POTLUCK PARTY IT WAS! Fortunately we drank (mostly) near-beer and we felt pretty good the next morning (if a few pounds heavier).
Sunday was a beautiful sunny day and we headed out for the first practice to see if we could find some faster lines to keep up with the #1 team and hopefully keep the #21 team behind us. After about a lap it became difficult to shift and the clutch lever seemed reluctant to spring back. The problem worsened so we headed back in to the pits to investigate. What we thought would be a minor repair job resulted in removing the entire motor from the sidecar! With about 4 hours until race time we busied ourselves with the repair (special thanks to Craig and Alan for pitching in between their practices).
We got it all back together and did a little test run around the pits with about 30 minutes to spare. With no significant practice in the dry we lined up on the pole for Sunday's final knowing that we just had to finish no more than 1 place behind the #21 team to secure the championship. We had a bit of a hiccup on the start but still managed to enter corner 1 in 1st place. We pushed pretty hard on the first lap getting into a monumental slide in corner 3 but managed to hang on. Entering the back straight on lap 3 I noticed the #1 team had dropped back to mid pack and we were now a couple of corners clear of the field. We eased up a bit until the 1/2 way flag when we eased up a little more and carried a 10 second advantage to the finish. A special thanks to RACE for granting us the longest race of the day with 12 laps!
“Team Fletcher” #1 - Best Lap Time - Sunday’s Practise!! Sept 25 : 1.16.768
Saturday morning we got the 2 practice sessions out of the way and when race time came around it was raining. So with a very wet track we knew we would not do so good on slicks. But we did however keep in site the leading rig, #121 who was on full wets, until Poutine Express spun out right in front of us. We had no choice but to brake and slow down to avoid a T bone situation allowing the #121 rig to getaway. We had some quite hard slides around some of the turns and found that traction was now extinct!?
On the second to last lap, Team Essaff, also on full wets made a move around the outside of us for a very good pass, and we managed to pass them back quite quickly on the last turn before the flag. They made another move around the outside, and we just managed to beat them to the finish line by about of a bike length. This made for a very exciting finish and we took second place and later found out that we had run the fastest lap of the race!! (1.25.744)
Sunday came around and the weather had changed, it was bright and sunny with a dry track. We put in some very hot laps in the practice session and ended up with the fastest lap of the weekend 1.16 and I usually run at least 2+ seconds faster in the race, so we knew we were going to be fast on this one. Race time came and we were on the first row but got a pretty poor start but closed up the gap quickly and in no time at all, we were on the back wheel of the leading rig and we soon found that they were holding us up in the turns, so we knew as soon as we found a way round them we would be able to pull away.
On lap 2, coming into the chicane, unfortunately Brett made a small mistake which put us into the grass and I managed to keep it all together, I checked to make sure Brett was still with me, and we headed back toward the track, not having lost too much time I thought I could set chase on the leading rig #121, but found that the fairing had shifted backwards and was resting on the gear shift mechanism and I couldn't shift down so we ended up pulling off and taking yet another DNF!. Here's hoping that Grand Bend can change things around for us!! Till then, Happy fixing.
“Double Trouble” #69 - Best Lap Time - Sunday Sept 25 : 1.26.740
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