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Is this Heaven??????.....no,
Its Road America
By Wes Orloff
There are some things everyone must do in life.....college,
buy a house, get married, have kids. Add one more to the list....You
must ride Road America at least once before you die. I don’t
even know how to begin to describe it, but expect the following
to contain a lot of adjectives/explicative! What a totally
awesome/outrageous track! I’ll be on a high for the next
month after this weekend!
Weekend started out as a typical CCS weekend for me. Weather
so/so, fairly cool (mid 40’s) and everything is still
quite damp at 5am Saturday morning as I leave the house for
scenic Elkhart lake Wisconsin, about an hour and a half drive
from home. Things seem eerily familiar to my last CCS weekend:
Brand new track which I never set wheel on before, eyes still
a little bleary from a couple of late nighters on the gixer,
rebuilding and re-valving the forks again for the 4th time,
not enough sleep, fingers aching from late night safety wire
punctures....racing’s supposed to be fun, right? Turns
out all the effort was worth it, as the fork action is now
excellent, and the bar wags are gone resulting in a much more
confidence inspiring ride.....also changed the gearing back
to a stock ratio at the recommendation of some fellow racers.
Arrival at the track is uneventful, I had pre-registered
so I was able to go right to tech and had high hopes of a
decent grid position (yea, right.....). Driving through the
paddock area, the first thing you notice is the immense size
of the place. The track is huge! The track is actually big
enough that normal 8 lap sprint races are reduced to 4 laps.
Good in a sense as it’s still the same mileage, but bad
for a newbie like me because you only get to size up the corners
4 times a race/practice. Luckily, although the track is definitely
technical, it doesn’t throw any complete out surprises
at you, and I actually began to feel comfortable with it after
only two practice sessions. Comfortable may be the wrong word.......Familiar
with the highest degree of respect may be a better way of
putting it.....
During the first practice session, the track surface was
still pretty damp, so corner speeds were low, but it was a
good opportunity to figure the track out. I really liked what
I saw! road America has a little bit of everything and was
pure motorcycle heaven. Even the scenery was beautiful, almost
alpine like....Track surface for the most part was excellent,
although there were a couple of asphalt patches here and there,
but mostly on the slower corners. there were multiple safe
lines throughout the track. the best way to describe it is
to take a hot lap on the team WFO Suzuki GSXR600 (hot for
me anyhow, pig-slow for most of my competitors....). We’ll
join Ricky racer in mid flight on the entrance to the front
straight.....
THE TRACK
The front straight is super l - o -n - g. The first half
is dead nuts straight and ascends a large hill. you enter
the straight at W.O.T and you leave it there, upshifting everytime
the tach swings by 14,000rpm. As you top the hill, your doing
about a buck twenty topped out in 4th and there’s a slight
bump just as you crest, causing the bars to go light and wag
a little. the track flattens out but you still have 1/4 of
a mile of straight left! You pop it into 5th take it to 14K,
then bump it to 6th. By now the velocity is just incredible,
around 150 I would guess.... and the wind noise is deafening.
You are flat on the tank peering through the all-too-low windscreen.
Your vision is a little blurred from all the helmet buffeting
(or was that from Corona-aided safety wire session last night?).
Brake markers for turn 1 come into view on the horizon, and
you decide to play it safe and lay off the throttle at the
first one. On a track so heaven-like, it would only make sense
there’s a God there. Turn 1 is your big chance to meet
him first hand.
There’s nothing really different about turn 1, it’s
just a normal, fairly wide flat 90 deg. turn. The tricky part
is the entrance, as your braking from 150mph. I was getting
my entrance speed right only about half the time....I found
the trick was to dive in deeper than common sense would dictate
until you are convinced there’s no way to make the turn,
braking like a demon the entire time. Its a pretty cool feeling,
as the rear wheel is just floating....As you hit your turn
in point, release the brakes, let the rear wheel fall to earth
and immediately flick the bike hard in. I couldn’t consistently
get it right, but strangely enough, got it right during the
race trying to beat guys on the brakes. If I had a clear track
ahead of me, I would brake too early and got too slow through...definitely
a place to work on for next time.
Exiting Turn 1 hard on the gas, you crest a small hill still
leaned over and the rear slides a little bit. You bomb down
the short straight to turn 2, which is also a fairly average
flat 90 degree corner other than on exit which has a fairly
good sized bump. Hard on the brakes at the entrance, quick
flick in, power out hard onto the next straight leading to
3…..
Turns 3 and 4 are actually very gentle bends through a heavily
wooded area….you just pin the throttle and keep shifting
up, trying to draft anybody close by and bending the bike
through the corners totally tucked in. You bang into 5th and
make the last gentle left and suddenly braking markers come
into view….you are suddenly diving down a hill at 130mph
headed for turn 5, a sharp 2nd gear left with bad pavement.
Nail the brakes at the 3rd marker and the combination of the
down hill slope and high-speed guarantees the rear wheel isn’t
touching the pavement! Enter the turn wide and carry as much
speed as possible because the exit is a short straight back
up a hill. Bang 3rd gear just before you go under a bridge
then brake hard, as there is a blind left just under the bridge
you have to take in 2nd. Again, carry as much speed as possible
as this leads to an even shorter straight and turn 7, a very
wide right hander who’s exit points you down to turn
8. Bang the gears all the way to 4th on the approach to turn
8 and brake as late as you dare…as the braking area is
downhill and the rear goes skyborn once again…
As soon as the bike settles, flick it in hard left and get
real hard on the gas on the exit, as its only a short straight
to the ‘infamous’ carousel, a superlong 180 degree
corner…. Pop up to 3rd gear a little early as you enter
the corner cause’ you will need it by the end ….
Tip it in and get the knee down and just rail as fast as possible
on through the first half. The second half is a little tricky
as it suddenly heads down hill and becomes off camber, causing
the bike to go wide. Let it drift a little out….suddenly
the hill ends, and starts going up, and you still have the
last 1/3 of the corner to go! You can feel the bike bottom
the hill and grip, it starts to tighten its arc and the grip
is awesome. Start rolling on the throttle hard, and looking
for the wide exit….By the time you hit the exit, and
stand it up, your at 14000rpm and moving! Bang up two gears
and your doing about 130mph looking at the equally infamous
kink….
The kink is scary! It’s a super fast right hander with
Armco and hay bales not 10 ft off the edge….the fast
guys bomb through here wide open….I let off a bit near
the top of fifth stick my leg out in the 130mph breeze and
it actually helps turn the bike in! (thanks for the hint Matt!)
Next thing you know, your doing 130mph through it with your
knee on the ground! I have never experienced anything like
this in my life….just a total rush. Upon exiting the
kink, you rail through the woods in 5th and 6th gear through
a gentle bend called Kettle bottoms, and pick up braking markers
on yet another down hill approach to turn 12, Canada corner….
Canada corner is a sharp increasing radius, off camber right
hand corner with some splotchy pavement thrown in for fun.
It was just a blast late braking here for position, exiting
wide, spinning the rear on the exit (all too easy with the
off camber….). You head up hill again on a short straight
staring at a bridge abutment and a blind, up hill, off camber
left…..you bomb through it on faith looking for the exit
being real careful on the throttle….I kept losing the
rear through the corner and couldn’t figure out why…..turns
out the bridge goes directly over the apex of the corner,
and portions of the corner never see daylight and stayed cold….definitely
a place to exercise throttle restraint on a cool day!
This leads down a short straight where you bang one upshift
and head for the last corner (turn 14)….its important
to get good drive off of 14 to have a good run on the front
straight, and you can carry decent speed through it. On the
exit, look for someone to draft and try and get a tow up the
hill and we are back to where we started….
Get it right 3 more times and take the checkers!
THE RESULTS
I was pretty happy with my results, all things considered…..I
entered middleweight supersport, middleweight superbike, and
heavyweight supersport. My first race was more of a learning
experience, as it was the first time I could ride the track
completely dry….had a lot of fun racing people and finished
21st out of 45 after starting in 35th. Second Race, heavyweight
supersport, I did a little better and was learning a lot trying
to follow fast guys. I was really disappointed at the end
as some guy on a F4 drafted me at the line for position (#150).
This wouldn’t be the last of our encounters…..moved
up a little and finished 15th. The final race of Saturday
also was also my final race (middleweight superbike). They
were rushing to get it in, as the track has to shut down at
6pm due to a noise ordinance. On the warm-up lap, the guy
3 bike ahead of me blew up his engine on a long straight,
oiling down the front of my bike and my helmet. They couldn’t
clean the track in time, so the re-scheduled the race for
first thing Sunday morning…..
Sunday morning was looking good….weather was much better,
bike was running great, and I got in two good practices. Due
to the re-scheduling, we also had 2 races right in a row.
I was psyched and in a good state of mind. Unfortunately on
the first race at the start, there was a 3 bike pileup on
the first corner and there was a downed bike right in my path…..I
braked as hard as I could and avoided the bike, but got off
in the pea gravel. I kept it upright and attempted to get
back on the track, but the entire field got by me (50+ bikes).
Un-known to me at the time, this event totally transformed
my riding style….I just got plain angry! I just started
riding harder and harder…..first time I have ever slid
a bike….everything just came into focus and clicked.
I dropped my best lap time by 4 seconds. Suddenly, at the
start of the 2nd to last lap, who should appear but #150,
the F4 that drafted by me at the line the day before….This
was it. Suddenly, I had a focus for all my aggression. He
would not finish ahead of me. This sounds totally flakey,
but I remember screaming in my helmet ‘catch that F&*#$er,
Catch that F#$%^er….’. I have never flipped out
like that before, but never felt so confident or in control.
By the end of the lap, I was on his tail on the front straight
as we took the white flag….I was going to outbrake him
into one. I went deeper than I ever did and shot by him on
the brakes rear wheel in the air banging down shifts all the
way, unfortunately I didn’t bang down far enough, as
I was one gear high on the exit, and he slid by me on the
outside. This just totally burned me up….I have never
had so many endorphins flowing at once….I was chasing
him down hard, and realized I was faster…I got by him
for good by running hard into the carousel and slamming the
bike down into the turn. I gave it everything I had through
the back half, knowing I had to make some distance so he wouldn’t
draft me to the line. Everything just felt absolutely perfect,
the bike was sliding on every corner and it just felt good.
I ended up crossing the line 100 yards ahead of him and finished
12th or so, but it felt like I had won a championship! My
confidence was at an all time high, and I had another race
in just 15 minutes!
Next race was started out awesome, everything was clicking
and I was up to 5th place on the last lap. I was battling
an R6 for position heading into turn 8 when the unthinkable
happened and I hit neutral instead of 2nd entering the corner….I
applied throttle for the corner and the engine revved and
nothing happened. I went way wide and went off the track through
the pea gravel towards a cement barrier with hay bales. There
was a grass section between the pea gravel and the barrier
I thought I might be able to slow down on, but didn’t.
I was turning for all she was worth with no results…It
became apparent that something bad was about too happen, so
I just locked the rear brake and lowsided on purpose. The
bike slid into the hay, as did I with no damage to either
of us, unfortunately, the bike failed to start (flooded),
so I couldn’t re-join the race. Damage was unbelievably
minimal, just a couple of stress cracks to the lower fairing,
as the frame savers definitely did their job!
Unfortunately, my next race wasn’t for 5 more hours,
so I had plenty of time to think about my screw up. I lost
a little confidence for the first half of the race, but started
feeling better about half way through. I ended up in the top
ten somewhere according to my buddies, but by that time I
was just glad to finish and wanted to load up and get home.
Overall, a pretty fun weekend….Wish I could get whatever
lit me up earlier in the day in pill form! Next stop, home
sweet home, Putnam Park….
WFO
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