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RA SuperMoto The Hard Way
By Dennis Robinson
So there I was, once again wincing in pain!
It hurt too much to cuss!
After two days of practice aboard Larry's brand new SuperMoto
KTM 525 SMC without any issues I had broken my Distal Fibula
(lower leg). I had caught my left toe on a rumble strip during
the endurance race warm-up lap (of all times to do something
stupid). The serrated foot peg had snapped my leg like a twig
just above the ankle. It was an audible snap and I heard it
over the roar of the bikes. I was in the weeds again but I
kept her on two wheels. Damn that hurts!
I slowly make my way back to the grid and stop to tell the
guy behind me to go around on the start (Oh yea, I paid my
money so I'm racing baby!). The adrenaline rush of the start
and then the chicane is unbelievable and the pain becomes
secondary. The stock 525 pulls hard but I was late off of
the grid and last into the Chicane. I'll blame it on the broken
left leg and my inability to shift correctly.
Around the top of the course and into the dirt section for
the first time I am surrounded by the bellowing open class
four-strokes. I land the jump on my right foot and think "this
is going to be a long race". I pass two guys and then
I'm sideways in the last dirt corner with the throttle wacked
open (ignoring Keith Code's instruction about being smooth
with the throttle). I dab the left foot only to be instantly
reminded that was the wrong thing to do. As I come back onto
the asphalt, grab another gear and a hand full of throttle
the Dunlop slick hooks up hoisting the front tire into the
air. Light on the rear brake brings the front back down and
the big 310mm brake rotor hauls the bike speed down enough
to negotiate the off-camber left. I hammer it until just over
the crest before the corkscrew and lean in hard. The rear
slick squirms on the asphalt patch mid-corner giving me a
moment of apprehension. Through the infield turns and back
onto the long start/finish straight. I run out of gears (only
4) about 100 feet before my braking marker into the chicane.
The speedo indicates 80mph as I grab the binders hard letting
the rear drift slightly.
April Cycle USA says "Racing a SuperMoto bike is like
being in a back alley fistfight with a 'roid driven arm wrestler,
except you are in the produce section of a grocery".
That may be an overstatement but for an old fat guy with mostly
broken parts... I knew I had to do my part in the 2 hour endurance
so that Larry didn't die out there. I know how he would rather
puke in his helmet than quit. Somehow I made the 30 minute
stint and came in as planned to hand off to Larry. I had a
lot of trouble getting off of the bike but that did not compare
to getting back on later.
As I sat in my chair in the hot pit the pain in my leg was
incredible. I wanted to pound beers but knew I'd be going
back out in 30 minutes. As I waited, I thought my turn would
never come but eventually I suited up and stood in pit lane.
I caught Larry's attention after 5 laps of waving my arms
and he came in. After many tries I finally get on the bike
and I scream pain induced obscenities as I exit the pit and
bang through the gears.
I almost make a lap but fall in the infield and hear the
sickening sound of aluminum and plastic parts being whittled
away on the coarse asphalt. Blattert, your axle sliders work
fine. I tried to crawl off the asphalt but my leg hurts severely
so I roll off of the track and to my downed steed. I picked
the bike up and lean on the safety crew ATV as I kick start
the bike. One of the officials tells me to park it or get
someone else on the bike before I get hurt. Damn. The 525
roars to life, I stab the hot start button and roll into the
pits to hand it off again. I catch Larry off guard and he
scrambles to get his helmet back on. He is on the track quickly
and starts clicking off lap times 3 seconds faster than previous.
I guess the bike just needed a few scratches.
We had chased the set-up all day making incremental suspension
adjustments and whittling out tread designs on the slicks
with the tire groover. The bike was working pretty well considering
that we had almost no time on a machine with slicks. The tires
were scuffed clear to the edge so we were getting all the
way over but our lines were not quite the same as the two
fast teams. Looking at the aerial photo of the Road America
Briggs & Stratton 0.8 mile course later it is easy to
see where I was making mistakes.
We miscalculated our fuel consumption and even with the larger
EXC tank we ran out at the 1:55hr. mark. The Power Components/Bruisers
Pizza/Hughes
Engineering Solutions sponsored machine ending up 10 laps
down in 8th position. Looking at the race results, we would
have finished in 4th ahead of the WFO show if we hadn't have
ran out of fuel. Not bad for a couple of first timers and
one broken leg.
TJ (we met at the Depot the night before, unfortunate for
him) had been a great help all day and hauled me and all of
the pit gear back to the truck. You know that rental car companies
sometimes have to wonder what in the hell is hauled in their
cars. At least I wasn't bleeding this time. I think TJ we
be back next year with his own SuperMoto bike.
My wife handed me 2 Aleve and a beer .it went downhill from
there. I do remember Wes Orloff jabbing me with insults while
trying to document the event with his camcorder. I of course
told him what he could do with his camera. By the way, Wes
missed the middle weight race on Saturday due to right hand
cramps. I don't want to know the cause of such an affliction.
After several beers and a lot of benchracing, I remember thinking
I'll go to the hospital tomorrow. Like Larry says, "If
you have been drinking they will not give you any pain killers
or more beer" even in Wisconsin. Some of my old Terre
Haute buddies were there and gave me some crap about riding
with a skirt on or something like that.
The next day I hobbled into the hospital where the nurse
put me in a wheel chair and stuck me in the ER waiting room.
What the hell was she thinking? After a some of wheelies without
safety gear I decide to quit before I had a concussion to
go with the broken leg. My wife just glared at me with the
"grow up" look. Didn't these chairs used to have
wheelie bars and hand brakes?
So it has been a little over a week now and I am looking
at psychedelic patterns of black, blue, yellow and purple
on the toes protruding from the end of the Alpinestar Tech
8 style cast/boot. The rest of the foot and leg looks worse
so I suspect that standing around and walking on it while
drinking beer after the race was not such a good idea. What
an introduction to SuperMoto. Doc when can I do it again?
Damn, that hurt! What the... looking at my purple right little
toe with a puzzled look. Oh yea, I had completely forgotten
about breaking that the week before at a Harescramble in Kingman,
Indiana but that's another story.
I'll sent a .jpg file of ex-ray upon request..
Dennis Robinson
Fond du Lac, WI
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