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Echo’s of speed
2003 AHRMA Jennings/Daytona National Road Race report
By Wes Orloff
Daytona. I must have said that a thousand times
in the last week, hoping somehow that it would become more
tangible. It seemed even more surreal due to the horrid sub-freezing
weather Wisconsin had been suffering of late, yet that date
on the calendar marked in brilliant red marker kept creeping
closer and closer. Even the day of my departure, it had an
implausible ring to it as the 737 ascended into a cold and
lifeless gray sky above Milwaukee. Yet with every connecting
terminal, the temperature crept up, and the reality of the
situation bubbled to the surface. Daytona
It almost seemed sac-religious that I would
actually have the opportunity to run at this place. It was
a timeless place of legend. Anybody who was anybody in American
road racing had left a piece of legend here, including my
team owner Bob Hansen whose factory riders and teams had won
the 200 here. Bob’s lightning fast, yet wobbly Kawasaki
H2 road racers in the capable hands of Yvonne Duhamel were
the very reason Daytona now has a chicane.
My experience at Daytona had only been as a
spectator (along with Erin) at possibly one of the best Daytona
200’s ever run. The year was 1995, and for the first
and last time, Daytona had drawn most of the World Superbike
paddock as well as the AMA regulars. Corser, Fogarty, Russell,
Colin Edwards, Gobert….the list of talent went on. Just
prior to the 200, Russell had crashed his 600 out and came
back through the infield on a mini bike right by Erin and
I on the outside fence of the East horseshoe, looking quite
pissed! We decided this was a good place to watch, and had
a front row seat to Russell wadding his superbike right in
front of us while leading the 200! He remounted, was bump
started by the cornerworkers and restarted way back in the
field. He went on to a stunning victory over Fogarty….on
his victory lap he stopped right at the site of his fall celebrating
wildly. It was awesome to see him at his dominant peak, then
having a close up of his human side as well. If you were there,
you became a Russell fan, and in my case, a lifetime roadrace
fan. and now I would be racing the same track as this early
image, which so clearly cemented road racing into my conscious
almost a decade ago now.
. I arrived in Tallahassee midnight on Tuesday
courtesy of Northwest airlines and a frequent flyer ticket.
The warm and humid air further cemented the quickly approaching
reality of Daytona. Our first stop however, was Jennings GP
(formerly North Florida Motorsports park) in Jennings Florida
for the combined AHRMA/WERA vintage weekend. Dale and Pricilla
(bike owners) picked me up at the airport and we headed to
Dales mother Alice’s house for some much needed sleep
prior to the track day we signed up for at Jennings the next
day.
Wednesday dawned bright and sunny as we headed
out to Jennings. The turn out for the open practice session
was tremendous, with over 400 bikes participating. The track
was is a recently built 14 turn 2.1 mile circuit designed
for motorcycle racing and was very challenging, consisting
of some very fast sweepers and kinks and an increasingly technical
back section that had you decelerating and down shifting through
a series of 7 or 8 turns. The track was extremely flat and
featureless and took a lot of laps to get your bearings. My
only complaint was the sand. Sand everywhere! The edges of
the track had a good 2 inch lip which dropped into soft sand.
The pits were covered with sand, which also tended to cover
your tires, making the first couple of corners of the track
a bit dicey at times. Overall however, that track was great
and we had a lot of fun getting up to race pace on it.
Unfortunately, our CR450 wasn’t quite as
enamored with the place as I was. The track demanded a lot
of confidence out of the front end and the usually compliant
CR wasn’t cooperating. We were getting some demoralizing
chatter and front end slides in a few of the corners. We worked
on it all day and improved the situation , but never quite
eliminated it. By the end of the day, we were 80% comfortable
with the track and felt we had a race-able bike. Lets race!
Dale and I had elected not race the Jennings
WERA event on Thursday with the idea of saving the bike for
Daytona. We took the opportunity to get some much needed shut
eye and headed to the track late Friday morning. The day was
spent checking out all the cool bikes, enjoying the beautiful
weather, watching some great WERA racing, and helping to prep
the other Team Hansen CR450’s. It was tough watching
the racing and not being able to participate, but we would
get our chance soon enough….
The previously balmy temperature had cooled
down fairly drastically on Friday, dipping down into the low
50’s for the first round of the AHRMA national series.
We were afforded three practices in the morning, and I spent
the time getting re-acquainted with the track and trying a
couple things to get around a little faster. It would be a
tall order competing here, as the incredibly fast #1 plate
holder Pat Mooney called this little patch of pavement home,
and was showing some incredible speed. Our class was loaded
with some seriously fast guys on good bikes, and it looked
to be an uphill battle. My third practice session turned out
to be one of the most memorable of my life….
As we lined up in the hot pit for the final
practice, I noticed two #9 bikes right ahead of me. One of
them was Gary Nixon on an M3 racing CR750 and the other was
Dirt track legend Jay Springsteen on an Hourglass racing XR750!
Nixon and Springer were bringing their formula 750 rides out
for a little shakedown practice before Daytona. It was cool
just to be on the grid with these living legends. As the practice
group went out and Nixon and Springer entered the track, the
Flag man stopped me and all those following in order to get
a little separation between groups. When he did let us go,
I hammered it with the goal of running a good race pace to
see how the bike was working. To my surprise, within a 2 laps,
I had run up on the back of Nixon and Springsteen.
I found the three of us alone on the track.
What followed a glorious dice (in my mind…..) with the
two of them. They were backed off the pace learning the track
so I was able to pass with some confidence in the corners,
only to have my trusty 450 blown away by the Springer's bellowing
XR and Nixon's screaming CR750. I diced back and forth with
Springer, both of us sliding both wheels through the corners
within a foot of each other, only to be overtaken the next
stretch. It was a case of hero worship all to the background
soundtrack of that open meg 4 cylinder Honda and booming Harley.
I studied Nixon and his foreign riding style, centered on
the bike with his toes sticking out feeling for the ground,
squaring of corners. The three of us bombed around for 4 unforgettable
laps like that, until they had the learned the track enough
to slip away out of touch and leave us mere mortals in their
wake. It didn’t really matter to me that the only reason
I was keeping up was because they had never set wheel on the
track before, as the thrill of rubbing elbows with them for
those few short laps will be something I will never forget.
After practice, I was still pretty juiced about
the whole deal, and went searching them out in the pits to
autograph my Beaver Cycle Club dirt track shirt I had brought
along. I found it interesting that meeting these two in person
and the few words we exchanged spoke volumes about each one.
After roaming the pits, I found Nixon first next to his Ford
Explorer with Nicky Hayden stickers all over the back (and
a handicap pass!). Nixon, ever the showman, graciously signed
my tee shirt and quickly went into a well rehearsed used car
salesman spiel about all the neat Gary Nixon memorabilia available
off of his new web site (I ended up buying a T-shirt before
I knew it…..). I found Jay Springsteen sitting in his
trailer discussing Daytona plans with the owner of the bike
he was riding. I patiently waited with pen and tee shirt in
hand and then apologized to him for bugging him for an autograph.
He just laughed and said no apology was necessary and signed
the shirt. Just a first class person all the way around. He
can now add a new lifelong Springer fan to his list. I never
thanked either one for the dice on the track, as I figured
they probably just wondered who the idiot was trying to stuff
them up the inside on their sighting lap! I would prefer to
remember our meeting as being a pleasant one…..
The premiere 500 race was pretty late in the
day (race 10), so we had a lot of time to sit around and get
nervous. For whatever reason, I was pretty worked up about
this one, and hid out in the back of the trailer trying to
go through the track in my mind. Finally, it was time to race,
and my stomach was just tied in knots. We went through the
normal start routine on the 450 and got her cranking over.
The disciplined order of the routine and the familiar bark
of the open meg Honda got me calmed down a little. We headed
out on our sighting lap which I ran as hard as possible to
get some heat into the tires and get my mind up to speed.
The first right hand turn is almost a full mile past the start
line, so I was pushing the bike as hard as possible to get
that side warmed up. We coasted up to our newly earned front
row outside starting position, popped it into first, and waited
for the flag. After my horrendous starts of the last few races
last year, I was determined to get a decent one to start this
season off right…..
The one board went sideways and I brought the revs up to 6000rpm,
the clutch drag causing me to restrain the bike from creeping
forward with my legs. The flag flew, and I got a decent launch,
carrying the front wheel in a 6 inch high wheelie through
first gear. I made it into the wide sweeping turn 1 in second
place, but unfortunately my lack of experience showed as I
only went up to 3rd gear, leaving me short on the ensuing
super fast turn 2. Roper and Chuck Davis both shot by me on
their Norton Manx’s. By this time, #1 plate holder Manx
rider Pat Mooney had cleared off (this was his home track).
It was obvious first place was out of the question, but we
had a dogfight on our hands for 2nd between Davis, Roper,
and I.
The battle continued for the next 5 laps with
the three of us each taking turns leading the trio. I was
pushing really hard trying to keep up, and on the 6th lap,
got a big front end chatter/slide that sent me skipping to
the outside of a nasty left hand turn. It became obvious that
we would soon have a distinct lack of pavement to ride on,
so I quickly stood it up and ran off the side of the track
into the soft sand. I narrowly missed another rider as the
track curved to the right and I re-crossed the pavement, braking
as hard as possible as we passed over the pavement perpendicular
to our desired direction. I now had a deep embankment with
a small drainage pond ahead to avoid. Scared to touch the
front brake, I supermotard-ed the unwilling Honda into a rear
brake induced broadslide and got her stopped upright within
15 feet of the water. A water landing would have been a tough
one to have to explain to Dale….
We re-ascended the sandy embankment and re-entered
the track in a lonely 7th place. It took the better part of
a full lap to get my head screwed back on straight and myself
convinced we had gotten all the sand of the tires. I put my
head down and chased 6th place, but we were too far back to
do anything before the checkers came out. We also were experiencing
a mysterious power sapping misfire at high rpm. We would have
to settle for an undignified 7th and a long list of ‘could
have/should have/would have’ excuses for not getting
a second! On the plus side, the bike was intact for the big
show at Daytona….
We had two days off until our race on the infamous
high banks. The weather forecast wasn’t looking particularly
good with a 70% chance of rain for race day. Great. Any hope
of additional track time running my Buell over the Formula
USA weekend fell apart earlier in the month when I realized
that my light freshening of the tired 1200cc lump had turned
into a complete bike overhaul (the frame, wiring harness,
and front wheel will still be the same as last year….).
Saturday was spent making the 5 hour drive from Tallahassee
to Daytona and catching up on some much needed rest in Flagler
beach. It was rejuvenating to be in the humid 80 degree weather
the coast was enjoying. The flow of an eclectic mix of Harley
riders (and Harley’s riding trailers) had just begun
to migrate into Daytona, like some leather clad school of
spawning salmon, instinctively drawn from thousand miles away
to bare more skin than necessary and wrestle in cole slaw.
I wondered how many even knew there was a race going on?
We got an early start Sunday and got the bike
teched in at AMI, driving past the track for the first time.
It seemed to tower over the landscape, stretching out of site
in either direction. For some reason, it seemed a lot bigger
than I remembered it 8 years ago when Erin and I were here.
Thanks to Dale’s flawless preparation, the bike easily
passed tech. We picked up our credentials and headed to the
riders meeting, which was memorable (and in hindsight, quite
amusing) only for the fact that it was repeated a number of
times that we would not run if it was raining. Being a total
Daytona rookie with minimal rain experience, I wasn’t
about to argue. The rest of the Day was spent at Priscilla’s
brother Mike’s boat yard complete with parrot (I’m
not kidding) changing gearing, jetting, and oil on the CR
in preparation for Daytona. We would get three short practices
and our race the next day, so we wanted to make sure we had
crossed all of our ‘T’s and dotted our ‘I’s.
The bike was checked and double checked, meticulously cleaned,
and prepped to run. Tomorrow was the long anticipated ‘D’
day.
We showed up bright and early on Monday morning
at the track, and were escorted around to an entrance near
the chicane. The sky was heavily overcast, but at the moment
dry. We had to wait at the gate until 7:00am to be let in,
so I had a chance to soak it all in beneath the immense corporate
back straight grandstands, decorated in colorful corporate
logo’s. Seven bells ticked by and we were allowed in
through the gate, passing over the track at the chicane exit.
My first impression was the general ‘bigness’ of
the place. Big straight. Big grandstands. Big Lake. In comparison,
the width of the track looked dis-proportionally small! This
was going to be fun.
We set up our pit area in a gated paddock close
to the hot pit entrance, and rolled the CR out. I changed
into my leathers and prepared for my first foray onto the
track. I had a strange calmness about this race, probably
due to the fact that we went into it with realistic expectations.
Our CR450 was a great bike, even taking us to our first national
win last year at Putnam, but its 49hp dealt through a wide
ratio 5 speed box and 320 lb curb weight would be at a huge
disadvantage to the 6 speed, 250 lb 58hp Norton Manx’s
we would be competing against. Judging from the amount of
quality Manx’s at the event, probably the absolute best
finish we could expect would be a 5th place. We were here
for some fun and orientation for a serious effort next year.
Before I knew it, our first practice was called,
and we ventured onto the track. This was it, a realization
of dream started years ago at one of the very same corners
I was about to leave knee puck on (hopefully). I slipped through
the pit out onto pit lane, which only weeks ago was populated
by Nascar’s finest.
The green flag fell and we slowly wheeled onto
pit road and around the inside of turn 1, which was surprisingly
sharp. Shifting up WOT through the kink brought us to the
infamous east horseshoe. We banked through banging upshifts
furiously on the exit. On subsequent laps when we actually
got our knee down, I was surprised by the coarseness of the
pavement. Dragging a knee literally felt like dragging a knee!
Once safely past the east horseshoe, we shot WOT through left
hand the dogleg (actually, quite a lot of fun) and braked
for the upcoming west horseshoe, which felt more like a wide
90 degree right hander than a horseshoe. Another upshift/brake/downshift
brought us to the last infield turn whose exit had a barrel
blocking the inside lane. Twist the throttle to WOT as early
as possible on the exit and head straight up the banking nearly
perpendicular to the wall! I couldn’t help but think
how scary that must be on a 200hp superbike. The banking kind
of naturally pulled the bike to the left and straightened
us out maybe 5 feet from the wall. You shoot past the scarred
white wall and notice the large intimidating ‘DAYTONA’
sign flashing by on your right. It was obvious we weren’t
going to forget where we were this day. Even though we are
banging upshifts and accelerating at WOT, the vintage bike
just doesn’t have enough momentum yet to stick to the
steep 33 degree banking. We let it take a natural drift down
the banking, just hitting top gear on the exit of Nascar turn
2. We slowly drift back across the track towards the blurring
white wall on the following straight, making ourselves as
small as possible behind the bubble of the fairing. As we
drift towards the wall, we are slowly deafened by the bellow
of our own open megs ricocheting into our right ear. All is
not well however, as the bike is missing badly…..We’ve
now been in 5th gear with the throttle twisted to the stop
for what seems like an eternity. We are barely half way around
the track. The chicane brake markers now come into our peripheral
view to our right….3…..2…..1 BRAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!
Popping up from the tranquility of the bubble into the 120
mph breeze bending ever so gently into the chicane with the
front end squirming under braking force, catching 2 downshifts.
We ease off the brake and slam it quickly left, right, left
at full throttle and head back out on the banking bending
it into Nascar turn 3. For all the anticipation of the chicane
while barreling towards it down the straight, it’s over
and behind you surprisingly quickly. You find yourself once
again on the steep 33 degree banking of turn 3 and 4 in top
gear, just getting beat to hell! The combination of high g-forces
and rough track have ones helmet slamming into the tank in
a steady rhythm, all the while straining to lift ones head
up to view a strange contorted world 2 stories above ground
level and twisted 33 degrees from normal. My job is to just
hold the throttle pinned. I feel strangely small and alone,
at the mercy of a power greater than me.
We are dumped off the banking and shoot through
the tri-oval, looking for the funnel of orange cones indicating
the entrance of turn 1, which appears about as wide as a sidewalk
at this speed. Lay off the front brake until we cross the
paint stripe at the bottom of the track. BRAKE!!!!!!! Gently
easing off while simultaneously bending the bike in. We are
now down to a more sane speed and lay it over into the sharp
decreasing radius turn 1…..and start all over again.
Welcome to Daytona. Are you worthy? Not even close…
We ended up with 3 dry practices that morning,
two of which the bike was missing badly and not even pulling
5th gear. We finally narrowed it down to the current draw
from the tach, and completely eliminated the miss at the expense
of the removal of the tach. 3 practices are no where near
enough time to get up to race pace on a track like this, but
it was all we had to work with. Although I was managing to
make it through the infield fairly well, we were getting killed
by the lightning fast Nortons on the banking. Oh well, we
were still having a riot riding around the place. We also
had bigger worries, as the threatening skies slowly darkened
and boiled above us.
Just as the first drops of rain began to fall,
I had another implausible meeting with a personal hero of
mine. I had managed to get Cycle World Magazine’s tech
editor Kevin Cameron’s e-mail address years ago and had
started a friendly correspondence with him. His writings have
always managed to speak deeply to me, and I was in awe at
the way he could articulate the subtle art of engineering.
His articles are pinned to the corkboard all around my office.
He had been a huge influence on my chosen career path as well
(well, there may have been a fortune cookie involved too….).
Suddenly he was standing at the back of our trailer and I
found myself straining to keep up on a discussion centering
on active radical combustion. It seems the Mr. Cameron was
as articulate speaking as he was in his writings! I on the
other hand, was a babbling idiot, about 15minutes on average
behind in our ‘conversation’. Despite my oratorical
shortcomings, it was a genuine thrill to meet him finally.
Maybe someday I’ll figure out how to thank him.
The rains continued to get heavier, and by the
first race had reached monsoon level. The track was soaking
wet with standing water everywhere, but it was decided to
continue racing. I paced nervously around the paddock. It
was bad enough that I had less than half an hour total on
the track, but now this notoriously dangerous place was also
as slick as ice. Dale must have noticed my nervousness, and
we seriously considered sticking the bike in trailer and not
look back, better to save the bike and potentially the rider.
Something inside both of us wouldn’t let us do it…..we
had both come too far to let it slip away. We were, however,
smart enough to minimize risk. We knew coming in to the race
we would have an uphill battle against the Nortons even on
a dry track. Now nature had robbed us of the CR’s outstanding
cornering prowess. We would race, but we would lay well back
and not take any chances and let the race come to us. Dale
called it racecraft…..I called it nearly intolerable!
It was Dale’s bike though, and it was my job to bring
it back in one piece.
It was still dumping rain as the 500 premiere
race got 3rd call. We fired the sopping CR to life and rolled
to the start line for our hot lap. The track was even wetter
than I thought, as I nearly crashed in the chicane on the
warm up lap after hydroplaning through a 3 inch deep puddle
at the corner apex. This was ugly…..but the near miss
served as a warning to take it easy.
It all almost went south in the first turn!
I was gridded front row outside, and actually managed to get
a good start, entering turn 1 in 2nd place. I kept up with
the leaders for a couple of corners, but good sense prevailed
pulled back and settled down. The laps wound down, and I felt
like I was out for a street ride as opposed to actually racing.
Even in the rain, we were getting some good speed on the tri-oval,
so it was far from boring out there. The Gods of Daytona were
smiling on us and decided to give this rookie a break, as
3 riders ahead of me either crashed or broke. Ironically,
they were the three riders who finished ahead of me at the
Jennings race, so we left Daytona in very good shape points
wise! The laps wound down, and we ended up crossing the finish
line in a lonely, but upright 6th place. I was ecstatic as
we ran around the track on the cooldown lap. We ran way up
on the banking through the rainy mist on the cool down lap,
just enjoying the thrill of actually being there. As we exited
Nascar turn 4 for the last time, I privately said my good-byes
to Daytona, yet I couldn’t ignore the burning inside
of me whispering that we still had unfinished business here.
We will be back.
It is said one should never meet his heroes,
as he will only be disappointed. I’m sure that can be
said of many people and places, but if there was ever a week
to disprove the theory, this was it. I guess I’m not
surprised, it is Daytona after all.
WFO
I’d like to personally thank the following
for their support and sponsorship
Dale and Pricilla Coffman
Bob Hansen
Stacey Orloff
Mike Chappman
Steve Brown
Terry and Allison Naughtin/Team Hansen
Jeff Zaugg/Advance Sleeve
Cometic Gasket
Wiseco Piston
The Coffman and Chapman families
Bob Foist
Indiana rt135 (you know who you are)
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