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Grattan 6 hour report……sleep
is over-rated
By Wes Orloff
It all started with a simple phone call from
fellow WFO racing member Matt Carr….’Hey, would
you be interested in doing a 6 hour endurance race at Grattan
on a buddies bike?’ I said yes before I could think about
it! Of course later, I started questioning what I had just
signed up for….Lets see, I have absolutely no endurance
racing experience what so ever, I’d be riding a completely
unknown open class FZR1000 on one of the most technical tracks
around along with 30 or so other mad men who called Grattan
their home track….Oh yea, I’d also be on slicks
for the first time….and throw in a reverse shift pattern
for good measure! To quote Forrest Gump, ‘I’m not
a smart man…
As the weekend approached, I got more and more excited about
the event. The work load has been pretty hectic, so I wasn’t
able to take Friday off for the open practice, which would
have been a great opportunity to at least get a little track
time. Matt also called me at work to report the bad news that
the FZR was suffering electrical problems and would only rev
to 4000rpm Things were looking a little questionable with
the FZR, so I decided to dust off the gsxr and load it in
the truck and at least get a little practice if the FZR was
still being de-bugged Saturday morning.
Saturday morning came a little earlier than intended, as
4 ½ hour drive and time change meant a departure time
of 2am in order to make it in time for practice. The drive
to Grattan (just outside of Grand Rapids) was pretty uneventful,
and mostly dark. On the way to the track , I realized I had
forgotten all of my gearing! Still had the short putnam sprockets
on. Oh well, it only has to run through practice. My tires
were about ½ fried as well, I didn’t expect to
be pushing it to hard in practice though….
Upon arrival at Grattan, I was a little intimidated…the
track is like a frickin’ rollercoaster! Every single
turn was either off camber, banked, had a hill in the middle,
was a blind approach, or covered in pavement seems and concrete
patches. More often than not, it was a combination of most
these traits! Just walking the track was an experience. My
buddy Matt and I got there about an hour early and had a chance
to walk the track and have him show me some lines through
the tricky stuff. There were at least 5 turns he prefaced
with ‘and this is one of the scariest places on the track…..’.
He gave me some great advice I would be able to put to some
good use later in the afternoon when my lap times became slightly
less than embarrasing. Even still, the track was totally insane…..
Front straight: L-O-N-G front straight….good for an
R6, bad for a short geared GSXR600…..
Turn 1: fairly straightforward right hander complete with
pavement seams and about 12 different lines you can take….
Turn 2: gentle, fast, right hander that has you on the throttle
big time. Also crests a hill so the rear spins up pretty easily
here.
Turn 3: Flat right hander with an absolutely blind entrance
over a small rise…pretty easy to get lost on the entrance,
but way better than…
Turn 4: The definition of insanity, basically the side of
a hill with a 160 degree left hand turn! You bomb over a hill,
only to find some demented fool stuck an off camber turn complete
with cement patches and seams about half way down that shoots
you back up the very same hill to…
Turn 5: weird decreasing right hander pointing you straight
towards:
The Jump: A jump on a road course? Only at Grattan….it
looked like a small hill on the track walk, but sent the GSXR
through the air just about every lap…hit it too fast,
and your airborne for 50 ft and miss the turn on the other
side of it. Drag the front brake over it and your suddenly
doing an 80mph stoppie. Get it just right, and you land early
enough to brake and tip the bike in . I did all three in about
equal number. It didn’t help much that the gsxr was just
getting on the pipe on the up side of the ramp….
The esses: immediately after the jump, you hit a right-left-uphill
right combo that has you slamming the bike from one side to
another. Theres only one decent line through it and if you
mess up, your screwed for at least 3 more turns...The last
right hander has some nasty pavement and a big bump on the
berm that smacked my knee so hard a couple of times that its
still sore! The esses dump onto:
The bowl: Tight, highly banked 180 degree ‘bowl’.
Its so tight and banked you can actually see the bikes behind
you (or the bikes about to pass me in my case….) as you
peel through
The kink: high speed straight with a gentle kink. If you
go wide off the line, you hit another jump that’s especially
nasty since your leaned way over….leads to a real heavy
braking area and….
The hairpin: Hope you trust your front tire! Heavy braking
blind entrance, off camber falling away hairpin right hander….Dunlops
don’t fail me now!
The last two turns….both insane: first is a blind uphill
right hander. You turn the bike in half way up the hill and
pray to your greater power of choice that there really is
some pavement on the other side! The last left turn dumps
you on the front straight through about the bumpiest pavement
around. Also the sight of 3 highsides during the race…..
6 Hours of this?
Well, things definitely didn’t start off well….I
was checking out the FZR1000 we were going to ride….looked
pretty cool other than the upside down shift pattern. Anthony
(our other team mate) had got the electrical gremlin out of
it and was going to lead me around the track in practice a
few times before I got on it. I unloaded the GSXR and went
to follow him out, but got stopped by the track Marshall because
I didn’t have numbers on the tail (Still half in primer
from my last outing at Putnam). I went back and teched and
threw some numbers on, and was about to head out when the
session was red-flagged! Bummer, somebody had high sided and
wrecked their bike. I went back to the pits only to find Matt
moping around like someone had shot his dog. Turns out the
high-sider was Anthony! His (our) FZR was totalled and he
had broken his collarbone. This was not a good start to Team
WFO’s endurance racing career. We briefly considered
a couple of offers to ride for some other teams, but both
ended up stareing at my poor little GSXR like Fetter at closing
time….
We had 18minutes to convert the poor little bike into a heavyweight*
endurance bike! (* couldn’t change classes after signing
up the FZR….). Off came the old dunlops, on went a brand
new 207GP rear and a GP Star front. Safety wire, masking tape
and fiberglass were flying as we hastily mounted a transponder.
7 minutes to the start and we are still thrashing….getting
close, Matt quits working in order to change into his leathers.
Third call comes and goes, 2nd call goes……last call
to grid and we are still not done! Matt starts the engine
while I finish tightening the rear axle nut….we get Matt
pushed out just in time for the sighting lap on a bike he’s
never even sat on before. We are now the only team of two
in the field on a 600 one guy has never seen before, on a
track the other guy has never seen before, competing in a
class full of RC51’s and R1’s! Well, at least its
track time…..
I’ll save you guys 6 hours of gory details and only
hit on the highlights:
Matt and I alternated 50 minute sessions.
Our pit stops were a joke….taking about 2 minutes (a
full lap) to fill the tank with a Home depot purchased gas
container.
We went through 2 rears and 1 front tire.
We changed the rear at 3 hours and it only took 4 minutes!
I didn’t get my knee down for 12 laps
My first lap was a 1:41, my best lap in the last session was
a 1:29. Matt did 1:28-1:26 consistently….
Only had one unscheduled pit stop when the shock resevoir
came undone on Matt….
I didn’t get nearly as tired as I thought I would….I
was able to keep my concentration all day and only got tired
when off the bike. Cramping when off the bike was the biggest
physical ailment….
Only 1 red flag all day when a ZX6 blew its engine and oiled
the track, causing 2 other bikes to wreck.
Endurance racing is a frickin’ blast!!!!!!!!!! Its really
a team sport and it was an awesome feeling to finish a 6 hour
race…..
The gsxr didn’t miss a beat all day long. I think it
actually runs better now!
And the big question, how did we do? Team WFO - 4th place
Heavyweight!!!!!!!! We actually almost got on the box in 3rd
but got passed 2 laps from the end (I was riding at the time…..).
I have to give credit where credit is due however…..Matt
was putting in all the fast laps and I don’t think I
even made a positive contribution until the last session when
I had a decent feel for the track. We also have to thank our
competitor’s high attrition rate in the heavyweight field,
as the middleweight field was much more competitive and we
probably would have been 10th or so in it. Still, we are thrilled
with 4th and there are at least 2 guys out there now who are
hooked on endurance racing!
Probably the most dangerous part of the weekend was the drive
home, as burning the candle at both ends finally caught up
to me. My contacts were killing me too, as I think I keep
my eyes wider open when racing, as they are always bloodshot.
My eyes were so bloodshot and watering that I had to pop a
contact out on the skyway on the way home….Now doing
a 6 hour endurance race doesn’t scare me too much, but
driving through Chicago Saturday night with one contact is
a whole other story. So there I was blasting through the toll
booth full throttle in the mighty Mazda with absolutely no
depth perception….
WFO, #34
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