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Ice, Ice, Baby......
By Wes Orloff
So there I was, laying prone in the front seat
of a Ford van, heater blasting and me nauseated to the point
of almost losing my cookies. That nutritious breakfast of
tortilla chips and salsa suddenly didn’t seem like such
a good idea. My head and torso were sweating profusely as
I struggled to remove my helmet and snowmobile jacket. This
task was made nearly impossible due to the fact that my hands
and feet were frozen to the point of being numb. The stinging
pain of my extremities achieving blood flow again only made
me more nauseated....only the fear of throwing up in front
of my Co-worker Erick Gruber and the rash of cold, heartless
kidding that would ensue at work gave me the strength to keep
my stomach contents where it belonged. Despite my macabre
thoughts, my body did soon warmed to a more normal temperature
equilibrium. As my brain slowly returned to rational thinking
from self preservation mode, it occurred to me what a strange
set of contradictions ice racing motorcycles is. Not that
I had actually raced yet.....I had only just returned from
practice.
As these things usually do, the predicament I had gotten
myself into started out innocently enough. It seems that the
moto-heads in our frozen little section of the world keep
their sanity (relative term) through the long cold Wisconsin
winter by ice racing on any convenient frozen pond or lake.
Now originally being from a more southerly climate, one normally
didn’t associate motorcycles with ice, or water for that
matter. the concept of driving your van out onto a lake, unloading
your dirtbike and racing on a road race course plowed by a
truck with corner apex’s marked by Christmas trees was
a little tough to comprehend.
Ice racing is actually a weekly occurrence around here during
the winter months (although usually confined to dirt track
style oval events). This weekend’s event was special.
It was a 3 hour endurance event on a 1 mile ‘road’
course all to benefit the steel shoe fund for injured dirt
trackers. My fellow co-worker Erick Gruber and his brother
Mark were headed to the event, and I decided to tag along
and lend a hand in the pits if needed. Both Eric and Mark
are experienced expert lever dirt trackers and ice racers,
and have won this very event in the past. The opportunity
to help them out and check out the scene first hand was too
good to turn down. I threw in my helmet just for kicks thinking
I might get a chance to ride around the pits during a free
moment.
Erick and Mark picked me up and we headed out to Ft. Atkinson
Wisconsin, about an hour northwest of my house. the weather
was beautiful, if not a bit chilly....maybe 15 deg by the
time we arrived on the lake. I had the foresight to bundle
up pretty well, wearing a snowmobile jacket and snow pants
in addition to heavy boots and snowmobile gloves. I was fairly
comfortable just standing around, although the cold was creeping
through my boots. Upon arrival and check in at a nearby bar,
we headed out onto the lake to a plowed oval course and parked.
The lake was immense and reminded me of Bonneville Salt Flats
a little. Basically vast expanses of smooth block ice covered
by a couple of inches of snow. Besides the plowed oval course
we had parked on, there was a plowed road course of about
a mile made up of an equal number of lefts and rights, with
some sweepers, switchbacks, and decreasing radius stuff thrown
in as well. I was still having a tough time imagining a motorcycle
race here.
Which brings us to the bikes. Eric and Mark brought a pair
of CR250 Hondas as weapons of choice in the middleweight class.
The primary bike was Marks CRE250, actually an enduro version
of the CR250 MX bike equipped with different suspension calibration
and heavier flywheel and lighting coil. Our teams ‘B’
bike was Eric’s CR250 MX bike. They visually didn’t
appear to stray too far from their dirt roots, with the only
obvious modifications being the addition of low slung front
and rear fenders which covered 50 % of the tire, and the reason
for the extra fender protection: what seemed to be thousands
of sharpened screw heads imbedded in the knobbies. There is
a black art to the orientation and placement of the screw
heads in order to have an effective tire....and they aren’t
cheap either. A pretty spooky looking weapon....couldn’t
help but think what it would feel like to get run over by
one. As it turns out, I would soon find out.....
As impressive as the tires looked, I still had a hard time
believing a bike would have any traction at all on ice with
them. It was fascinating to watch the practice session, as
the bikes were pulling wheelies and reaching impressive lean
angles on the corners.....amazing. Erick and Mark were very
impressive to watch, as their dirt track background was evident
on the ice, backing the bike in sideways at almost every corner.
they came in and pronounced the bikes good to race. Then Erick
asked me if I wanted to run the course in practice on the
CRE......
Better judgment would have dictated a stern ‘No’
to Erick’s inquiry......my dirtbike seat time was limited
to say the least, and that was on a relatively tame KDX220.
Dirt track and Ice racing experience was a big zero....but
then again, there’s no better time to learn than now!
I changed my now thoroughly frozen feet into my old road race
boots and threw on my helmet and light summer dirtbike gloves.
I was nervous to say the least, as these race prepped CR’s
were rockets, and I was on ice no less.....sounded like a
recipe for disaster. I stuck my hands in the all covering
hand mitts attached to the handlebars and kicked the CR over.
It barked to life after the second kick .....I let out the
clutch gingerly and we were on our way....
Making my way around the ice oval in first gear, I was amazed
to find out that the bike actually did have some semblance
of traction, as cracking the throttle brought the front wheel
up immediately. As I rounded the first corner of the oval,
I was again amazed at the controllability of the bike....it
felt almost like you were on dirt. My biggest surprise came
when I squeezed the front brake hard, expecting the front
to wash.....instead it just hauled the bike down to a stop....interesting.....but
I still hadn’t even entered the road race track.
I stopped at the entrance to the track and got waived on
for my first tentative lap. the first couple of laps, I creeped
around the corners and hammered it on the straights, preferring
to test traction while the bike was more or less vertical.
I found the bike handled pretty much just like it was on dirt
at the speeds I was going. Power was awesome....not too peaky
but extremely strong....enough to pull 3rd gear wheelies down
the longest straight. I found you could bog the engine pretty
good without stalling thanks to the heavy flywheel weights
of the enduro model. The bikes balance was very good and predictable,
although due to the pounds of ice screws in the tire, it steered
a little heavier than I would have expected. As I got more
comfortable with the traction, I started experimenting a bit
more in the corners. I was using a pathetic imitation of classic
dirt track style steel shoe turn method. I was absolutely
amazed at the corner speed and lean angles you could achieve...the
bike moved around a lot, but I never got the impression it
was just going to go off. On some of the longer corners, I
was nearly touching my knee and elbow together! after botching
a couple of corners, I unintentionally found the coefficient
of traction was drastically different between the smooth ‘ice’
line and the powdery snow to the outside, as the bike got
real loosey-goosey if I drifted too far off the chosen path.
By this time, I was going fast enough to keep experienced
riders in site for at least a corner or two, and was trying
to pick up some ideas for going faster....I noticed my mid
turn corner speed and straight away acceleration were about
even, but they were smoking me both on the way into and out
of the corner. the preferred method of entering the corner
seemed to be the classic back it in style. I sucked up all
my courage on my favorite corner and stabbed the rear brake
on the entrance while leaning to the inside....to my amazement,
the rear end drifted out, wagged pretty hard a couple times,
but scrubbed off the speed and set me up for a nice apex!
I started practicing the method on all the corners on the
track, and my lap times began to drop. Soon I’d advance
to the point that I didn’t even need the rear brake on
the faster turns, and could hang it out by just chopping the
throttle and flicking the bike down hard, sliding sideways
scrubbing speed off! what a frickin’ blast! This was
getting addictive.....
Next I worked on my corner exits. I found throttle control
was critical on the ice. After pitching the bike in on the
entrance, you had to apply throttle to hook the tires up and
apex the corner. applying a little more throttle broke loose
the rear end and helped turn the bike on the exit. it was
a big balancing game of too little or too much throttle that
seemed to change in ratio for each corner.
The last few laps, I was trying to put all these lessons
together, but was just having a blast exercising the new found
method of backing the bike in hot into corners. My favorite
corner appeared to have a female cornerworker (hard to tell
in the Wisconsin winter apparel). I decided I was really going
to go in hot and sideways to impress this goddess of the north.
I charged into the corner and laid the bike over and went
into a full lock slide. Unfortunately, I drifted off the ice
line and into the powder on the outside of the turn. I was
at already at full lock, but the bike continued to rotate
around... Soon I found myself and the bike pointed 90degrees
perpendicular to our velocity vector, but this wasn’t
nearly as bad as a few milliseconds later when the tires gripped
and I was ejected from the saddle in a classic high side.
After reaching an altitude of approximately 5 feet, I plunged
to earth onto the rock hard icy surface of the lake, taking
a Mike-Tyson like blow to the left side of my rib cage. I
ended up landing at the feet of my sultry cornerworker....although
I became suspect as I noticed she had size 12 boots. I later
found out her name was Al.....
The impact had totally knocked the wind out of me, but the
thought of being run over by any pursuing bikes and their
spiked tires was enough to send me running from Al’s
loving grasp and back onto the track to the site of my fallen
steed. I was at first shocked to see the bike covered in a
cloud of steam, as the hot expansion chamber was slowly melting
its way through the ice! I stood the bike up and pushed it
off to the side, still wheezing trying to regain my breath.
It was about this time that I noticed my hands and feet were
completely numb with cold, as I was having a hell of a time
trying to kickstart the bike with no feeling from my feet.
I managed to get the bike to fire and run, and headed back
for the pits....at this point, I was only able to take tiny
gasps of air, as the world began to shrink away from me. I
managed to get back to the pits and dismount the bike, almost
in a state of total black out....totally drained of all energy.
I muttered something to Eric about how fun my experience was
and immediately stumbled to the van to try and recuperate
a little (see first paragraph).
After 15 minutes in the van with the heater on full blast,
I began to feel a bit more human and headed back out to witness
the actual race. Eric and Mark and are seriously fast and
were definitely in contention to win, my duty was to assist
in pit stops and keep a clock on them. the plan was to stay
out for 45 minutes at a time (made possible by the CR’s
large enduro fuel tank) and come in for rider changes there
was some serious competition in the form of multi ISDT gold
medal winner and ice race champion Kawasaki KDX mounted Jeff
Fredette. J.R. Schnable, a rising star AMA/Pace Dirt tracker
who finished 3rd in the wrench head.com series this year was
also there....this was going to be exciting!
the race was broken down into three class, lightweight, middleweight,
and open. Mark took first shift and made a great start, and
ran with the front runners for his entire shift. Mark came
into the pits in 4th or 5th spot overall, complaining a little
of a lack of confidence in the tires.....Erick shot out onto
the track and was doing well for about 3 laps when Murphy’s
law struck and we noticed his front fender flapping in the
breeze....we brought him back into the pits and did a quick
fix job on the fender using zip ties. Erick headed back out
only to crash hard when the fender failed again and rolled
over into the front wheel. This time, the damage was pretty
severe, ripping the brake line out of the brake caliper. we
pushed the bike back into the pits, and quickly threw numbers
onto the back up CR250 MX bike. By now we were out of contention
for a win, but were determined to make the best of it. Eric
went back out on the CR only to return two laps later, as
the stiff MX suspension was just not compliant enough for
the now heavily rutted track. We then pulled the brake assembly
off the MX bike and bolted it to the primary Enduro bike and
sent Eric off again. Mr. Murphy had definitely spent his fair
share of time in our pit, but on the bright side (at least
for me anyhow) was the fact that now that we were out of contention
for a win, Eric and Mark had kindly offered to let me ride
for 1/3rd of the last hour in the race!
15 minutes later. Eric signaled to come in and I jumped back
on the bike. The front brake was a bit mushier than before,
but the bike felt pretty good overall. the track however was
a whole ‘nother story.....the pristine smooth corners
of my practice session were now heavily rutted and required
an entirely different technique. I also had a surprise in
the form of a large puddle in the middle of one of the fastest
corners! My road race background caused me to go into clenched
mode as I rounded the apex at speed.....to my surprise, the
bike didn’t even flinch as it shot through the puddle
leaned over...in time, I found there was actually more traction
through the puddle than on the ice line. Weird sport, ice
racing. Another first for me occurred when a snowplow pulled
out on the course during the race and started to plow the
course! I was quite proud of myself that I was able to lap
faster than the plow (although not by much) and actually passed
it....twice! the race was very exciting to ride, and I was
amazed at the speed of the fast guys. I had a fairly tame
race, as I was either getting passed quickly or passing other
slower riders quickly.....not really anyone riding at my pace
to race with. The highlight of my race was getting my foot
run over mid corner by Fredette on his Kawasaki. Thank god
for leather boots! I think I was probably lapping in the lower
20% of the riders....but I was having a blast! I couldn’t
stop smiling by the time I was signaled to come in for a rider
exchange.
Mark went out next, and was absolutely flying, running faster
lap times than the leaders. He obviously had found some confidence
in the tires....it was thrilling watching him run wheel to
wheel with Fredette and Schnable, although I was a little
depressed to see the bike was so fast. It was painfully obvious
it wasn’t the bikes fault for my slow lap times! Mr.
Murphy ended up visiting Mark as well, as he drifted wide
in the last turn and made a spectacular get off right in front
of the crowd, sliding to a stop inside the officials canopy
tent. Mark was OK and handed off to Eric who put in some excellent
hot laps to finish off the event. We believe Schnable won
the event....his riding talent was just on another level I
couldn’t even comprehend. On the last lap he backed it
into a 90 deg corner completely sideways, then pinned the
throttle and left in a roostertail of snow, completely sideways....all
without ever taking his feet off the pegs. Quite a show of
talent.
I can’t thank Erick and Mark Gruber enough....they were
very generous with their time and equipment. I think you guys
have actually given me a reason to look forward to winter
now! Ice racing seems to have its advantages over road racing,
especially the durability of the bike after crashing and the
costs.....not sure if the 15 deg weather makes up for it though.
You can be sure I’ll be at this event next year in some
form or another. I wonder if anyone’s ever tried to race
a gsxr600 on ice screws........
WFO
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