 Race Report Road Atlanta
– WERA Southeast
By David Podolsky
I’m usually pretty good at learning new tracks. After my first day at Road Atlanta I wasn’t
too sure about that. I had checked the
winning times for the HWT Twins class from last year's Championship and saw that
1:36s would do pretty well.
So that was a simple goal; go learn the track, make any
gearing changes, set the suspension and get the lap times into the 36s. I don’t usually look at the lap timer until
the end of the first day, wanting to gel with the track before watching the
clock. On Friday after the morning and
mid-afternoon sessions we felt our times were about 90% there. So we mounted
the timer and, Uh……. I saw 44s and 43s. That was a bit of a concern to say the
least.
How could I be seven or eight seconds off? Two or three seconds seemed reasonable to
find over the course of the next couple of days, but this was an eternity. Perhaps another configuration was used last
year, I thought wishfully. I asked a few
guys if this was the same layout; did they run this stupid Mickey-Mouse chicane
last year? Was the new tight turn onto the front straight used before? Yes, all the same.
My feeling was to go home or maybe to Six Flags for the
weekend, it was demoralizing. Sure it is
nice to race at new circuits for the experience, and I needed track time in the
long 6 weeks between races on the Mid-Atlantic schedule, but I am bit ‘results
oriented”. I was hoping to see that we
could be competitive here at the season finale Grand National Finals (GNF) in
October. That is why we made the long
trip south. If I was that far off, why
even come back in October?
Did I mention it was hot?
Really hot, Hot-lanta hot, 95-97F hot.
I’m not a teen anymore and was trying to keep hydrated, out of the sun
and as cool as I could. We were also
going to try the Michelin Power One front tire model V. I’d been running the A compound front with
good results, but had heard that the V was more of steep profile.
Thankfully Road Atlanta is not too hard on tires despite the
blistering heat and high speed nature of the track. The tires wore well and the V front wasn’t
shockingly different, just a bit easier to transition the bike and turn it
in. Everywhere else it was the same as
the A, stable and predictable. I think
it will be our front tire of choice for the rest of the season.
Well, come Saturday morning many more guys were out in the
big bore practice and I had some guys running about my speed to tag onto. This helped me pick up the pace. The big back straight at Road Atlanta is a
big part of getting the laps times down at the track; as I picked up my speed
we began to hit the rev-limiter. The
back straight is MUCH longer than the front and it isn’t straight; it has a
kink in the middle of it that is taken wide open. The bike would be about 500 rpm off redline
and then as I’d tip the bike in and get it on the side of the tire (at about
165 mph) the smaller diameter of the tire near the edge would raise the rpm’s
up and hit the rev-limiter. At first I
thought the shaking was bumps in the track at the kink, then I realized it was
the "bah, bum, bah" of the motor cutting on/off creating the
vibration. We mounted a one tooth
smaller rear sprocket and went back out.
The lap times showed the improvement and then 40s began to appear. I felt much better and was shocked that we
found 3-4 seconds.
 The Big Bore Solo is always sort of a practice race for us
on Saturday afternoon and I started in the last row, despite my front row grid
position. I’d rather start last of the
17 riders and just pick off who I can instead of getting involved in the first
laps aggressiveness, dicing and shoving about.
We got down consistent 39s and finished 8th which was pretty
good. The 16 laps were brutal in the
heat and I was glad for a drink and my fan in the trailer. We decided to live a little and went out for
Japanese food instead of BBQ burgers in the hot paddock.
Sunday morning I saw 39s come easily in practice and felt
good, but still had the mind set of being there for practice and to learn, not
to try and win. Our race was first after
lunch and I got a good start from the 3rd row, getting into turn one
in 4th. I was able to move up
into 3rd on the first lap and started to go to school. I was
terrible going over the hills where the bike would wheelie. These guys were much better at dragging the
rear brake, keeping the front end down, and getting better drives. In a couple of laps I was right on the rear
wheel of the 2nd place guy as we drove onto the back straight; my
Ducati 1198 just powered around him.
He tried to get back around by going underneath me as I
approached the apex of the first turn. He was going in so hot that he almost
parked it right in front of me. I thought my front tire would hit his rear as
he crossed my front wheel running really wide.
I waved my index finger at him as if to say “bad boy, be careful”. He did not show up again.
I was reeling in the leader and although my goal was to
learn from the riders with track knowledge, I was right on him. The 1198 is a handful to throw around on
tight turns, but here she got to stretch her legs and I passed him down the
back straight. I kept looking at the Pit
Signals from Stewart and saw I was getting a gap. First +1, then +2 and finally the
checker! Holy Crap- I won it!!
It was awesome; winning at a new track really builds
confidence and we got into the 37s. All
of a sudden we seemed like we could be competitive for the GNF after all.
I was also racing my “Mini-Mono” which is a Tig Craft
chassis, 125GP bike front end, swing arm and suspension with a Yamaha 426
motor. This one is for fun and it was
fun. Starting far back in the big field
we carved through a lot of traffic to end up 6th. It was a bit down on power to the SV650s but
sure could go around a corner!
The heat and adrenaline was taking its toll on me. I didn’t have the same fight for the HWT
Twins Superbike race, even though now I expected I should win. On lap one I worked my way into the lead and
kept it for a lap. Somehow the guy who finished 5th earlier, got a boatload
of motivation and managed to pull off a 35!
I did get into the 37s again but didn’t have the focus to string them
together and came home 2nd.
Overall a success; we won some contingency money, learned a
new track and came home smiling. We are
continuing to work on chassis set up and will be trying some new stuff with
Kent of GMD Compu-track in Atlanta and will keep you informed as the season
progresses.
Thanks to our Sponsors: Chicken
Hawk Racing, Ducati NA, Michelin, Seacoast Sport Cycle, MarkBilt, Catalyst
Bodies, Heroic Leathers, Speedy Moto, Ferodo, Shoei, Sidi Boots, DucShop,
Ohlins.
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