Justin and George and I are in Justin’s truck (thanks, Justin!) north of Lynchburg and south of Charlottesville, on our way back from a successful Moto-ST race weekend at Virginia International Raceway in Danville, Virginia.
We finished 10th in class, the final money-paying position, didn’t miss a lap of the race, didn’t have any mechanical problems, had no pit problems, no rider problems, no crashes and only three on-track incidents during the entire two and a half hour race.
After a terrific night out on Saturday, when team co-owner and manager George Vensko took me and his parents to dinner at a very upscale restaurant, and the two of us spent a restful night at the elder Vensko’s Smith Mountain Lake home, we left for the racetrack at 6:05 AM. We picked up Justin at the team hotel in Danville, and headed to VIR.
The day started out inauspiciously, with the pits and the racetrack both soaking wet from Saturday night’s rain showers and thunder storms. By 7:45 when the team assembled in the Screamin’ Duc pits, the skies were beginning to show patches of blue amid the grey clouds, and a cool breeze was starting to dry the track surface. The drying process was soon helped immensely by the Grand-Am GTP prototype cars screaming around during their morning practice session, which ran to 8:55 AM, five minutes prior to the scheduled start of our race.
Prior to the race, a Moto-ST official dropped by to inform us that questions had been raised regarding the legality of our stock Ducati 800SS swingarm, and the dry clutch conversion that Donnie installed after Daytona. We explained the legality of both components, and no further visits from officialdom were forthcoming.
While Jeff and I got into our leathers, the team assembled the hot pit equipment, squeezing between the already emplaced Grand-Am car team pit set-up, a set-up that dwarfed anything ever assembled by Screamin’ Duc Racing.
Precisely at 9AM, Jeff and the rest of the Moto-ST field took to the track behind the pace car, and after two laps, the pace car pulled off and the racing was under way. With a cold, damp track, and brand new, unscuffed D.O.T. Pirelli radials on the bike, Jeff took things very easy the first couple of laps, despite which he reported by radio that the bike was sliding all over the place! None the less, Jeff kept his head and lowered his lap time every single lap for 15 consecutive laps, By that time, he was running close to his qualifying times, on thoroughly warmed up rubber and on a track that at least had a dry line all the way around it. And, he had moved us from 13th place to tenth place in the process.
At one point, Jeff reported that another rider blew his engine in front of him while he was flat-out at 8,500 rpm in 6th gear on the main straight, whereupon the rider veered immediately and decisively over to Jeff’s side of the racetrack, directly towards Jeff, forcing him to squeeze over to the extreme edge of the racetrack, flying along at 130 mph+ with 2-3 inches of pavement between him and the grass and mud!
At about the 25 lap mark in the race, Jeff radioed in that he was low on fuel, and I got my helmet and gloves on. Next time around, Jeff came in and pitted. The team swarmed over the wall, fire extinguisher at the ready, bike up on the rear stand, Jeff off the bike and radio disconnected, quick-fuel dump can inserted, and a full tank of gas dumped in in about 25 seconds. I got on the bike, hooked up my radio, got a quick radio check from crew chief Justin, and headed out on track.
Let me point out that OUR volunteer pit crew had NO penalties, NO warnings, and NO “discussions” with race officials during either the practice or qualifying on Saturday, or during the race today. This is in sharp contrast to some of the pit crews around us, including some sharply dressed and equipped professional teams, who seemed to be collecting 10 and 20 second “stop and go” penalties for the riders every time we turned around!
Strange feeling, getting on a warmed up racebike with heated tires, and going out on track with about 30 other riders who are, in the overused terminology of MotoGP race reporting “absoLUTely FLYing!” By turn three I had my knee down on the pavement, and by my second full lap I was fully up to speed. Well, I was up to *my* speed, any way! One lap later, I had a bad moment when a much faster GST bike coming up from behind me on the brakes for the Oak Tree corner smashed into the left side of my bike, bouncing both of us off the racing line and truly destroying my entry into the corner. Then, to add insult to injury, on the way OUT of the corner the rider looked back at me, and instead of the traditional apologetic wave for his mistake, instead shook his head at me as if *I* had done something wrong when he ran into me!
I settled down and put in my laps, gradually bringing down my lap times while still learning the track; the south course of VIR being new territory to me, with all of 35 minutes of practice to learn it on Saturday. Late in my stint, a rider crashed in front of me at the top of the roller coaster, and slid from left to right across the grass and back onto the racetrack surface directly in front of me, forcing me further and further right to avoid him and his bike, until I, too, ran out of racetrack, and went off into the grass, still dodging and juking and trying to keep from hitting him. Somehow, off the brakes, bouncing through the wet grass and mud, I managed to thread my way between him and his rapidly slowing bike, and ride down the hill in the grass and rejoin the racetrack between turns 15 and 16. Shaken and still not quite believing that I hadn’t crashed too, I rode slowly for three quarters of a lap until I was convinced all the mud had been scraped clean from my tires.
Pretty soon, the low fuel light flashed to “on” on the dashboard, and I radioed into the pits that I was coming in for gas and a rider change. When I came in, the same pit stop scene that I had witnessed before played itself out, with Jeff’s and my roles reversed. Again, no drama, no accidents, no spills, no missteps, just the crew professionally going about their assigned tasks with precision and control. It was COOL!! George and Justin had everything perfectly laid out and under control in our constrained and crowded pit. I settled back, took off my helmet, gulped down some blessedly cold water, and learned that I had managed to maintain the team’s position in the race, despite averaging 6-7 seconds per lap slower than Jeff’s times.
Jeff finished out the race for us, demonstrating the speed and smoothness and control that caused us to invite him to join the team in the first place, and we had our first completed Moto-ST event in the bag!
Special thanks to sponsor and owner of Duc Pond Motosports, Donnie Unger, for burning the midnight oil and rebuilding the entire engine from scratch in three days before the event! Special thanks also to Mike Collins and Chris Cooke for their terrific performance and teamwork in the pits, both hot and cold. Thanks to Shelly and Trinity for their support of Jeff, thanks to Randy Costello for the great DVD videos he made of the team photography from Daytona (more on that later!) Thanks to George for treating the team to dinner on Thursday night and lunch today, for taking care of the fuel and tire accounts at the racetrack, and for consistently meeting with and managing the interface with the Moto-ST officials, letting them know that we are working WITH them, rather than AGAINST them. Thanks to our website manager Kimberly for the lightning fast web updates, and thanks to Gene and Tony from Capitol Area Monsters for riding down, braving the rain, coming out in the wee early morning, and cheering the team on – it was great to see you guys!
It’s nice to be bringing home a racebike that hasn’t been crashed, hasn’t had its transmission grenaded, and hasn’t had any electrical or overheating issues. Heck, it’s even been CLEANED (thanks, Justin!) That will hopefully make it a little less frenetic getting ready for our next event, the Road America Moto-ST round at Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, where we will be the undercard not to a bunch of cars, but to the AMA Superbike round there!
Excellent! Congrats on the good finish. It is so hard to start from literally nothing just a few months ago and get the team, bikes, and all the logistical stuff ironed out after having hung it all up for several years. You guys have done an amazing job!
Tim and Screamin" Duc race team, it was great to ride down and watch. I have attached a few pictures. Tony and I had a pretty good ride down over some great back roads, managed to stay dry mostly down and back, had a great dinner with some adult beverages, and got to watch you guys race - sounds like my kind of weekend. I made a pact not to go back to Road America,, 1050 miles with ~500 miles of Super Slab, but it could be back on my way from Miller - we'll see. So Tim left out a few details, he was pitted next to the Pair-A-Nines race team, that is the team with legend Gary Nixon as Team Manager, and legends Jay Springsteen and Jimmy Filice - how cool is that! For the record, Tony and I did not bring the rain with us, in fact we brought the Sun, it was sunny and warm the whole time we were there to watch the race. Tim did not mention his fantastic save at the top of the hill coming down gravity-cavity, I attached a couple of picture, not that good with my point and shoot, but you get the idea. Also got a picture of the podium finish for the Screamin' Duc team LOL! - seriously though you guys did great. According to the stop watch function on my Ducati Watch, Jeff had a couple of laps in the 2:12's can you confirm that or is the stop watch like our speedos? And I though you looked great out there and was surprised at how slow some of the others riders were compared to you and Jeff, Sorry we were not able to hang around for more celebrating afterwards but we wanted to try and beat the weather back to No. VA and we did BTW. Maybe I will see you at the next race. I will have to post the pictures in mutliple posts - Gene
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It's about the journey, not the destination<br />02' Monster 900, red/white corse tank/fenders, DP CF pipes, DP CF belly pan, Color matched mirrors, forged alum red wheels/white pinstripes, DP CF hugger, DP CF License plate holder, CRG Levers, DP CF air scoops, DP CF side panels, DP CF Clutch/Sprocket covers, Galfer wave rotors/lines - Many more mods<br />04' Ducati ST3 - DP CF parts, DP CF exhausts, Cycle Cat Bar risers, Race-tech suspension, Mag wheels<br />06' Ducati S2R(1K), ARC exhaust, cyclecat open clutch, Gen mar risers, CF bits, Dymag CF/mag wheels, ohlins steering damper<br />04' Victory Kingpin, Many Custom Mods. <br />01' Victory Sportcruiser ,rare yellow with white stripes
Gene, according to the official transponder record, our best lap was Jeff's twenty-second lap (of his first stint) on the bike, when he ran a 2:13.278, for an average speed of 88.3 mph. In contrast, my best lap was a 2:20.02 (based on memory during the race, pending confirmation when Moto-ST posts the final race stats) which translates to an average speed of 84.1 mph. Jeff is MUCH faster than I am, and I still have a lot of work to do to increase my speed. For the entire race, 63 laps and two pit stops, we averaged 2:24.3 minutes per lap, and an overall average speed of 81.6 mph.
Thanks for the photos. At the last minute, our team photographer had to stay home and work, so we don't have any team pictures from this event!
Tim
P.S. If anyone hears about or stumbles across video of the save that Gene mentioned and has photos of, please let me know. I'd love to see it from the outside!
VIR Moto-ST Race Report
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