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 | TRACK DAY MAYHEM
By Brian Misner
The summer of Twenty O’ Seven started with much promise. A promise of track days with new friends and old alike. One of those long time friends, now a brother-in-law, Shawn Kolhoff, actually got me into track days by regaling me with tales of speed and worn out knee pucks.
In the summer of 2005, I started my track riding experience with an organization called Sport Bike Track Time. (http://www.sportbiketracktime.com) With my new found confidence, and a slightly used Yellow 2000 Sprint RS, I began my track riding adventure. After a summer of practice and skill building, I gave up the Sprint for a more suitable track oriented machine. With much deliberation, I decided to go with an older, street ridden Honda CBR 600. I KNOW IT’S NOT A TRIUMPH! But a new Daytona 675 was ruled out of the question. OK…..not by me…..by my very understanding and totally clear headed wife of 12 yrs. After just a few heated discussions, we (she) finally decided the older CBR was the way to go. So began the build up of the body work and, of course, RaceTech suspension components. After a long winter of tinkering, the CBR was finally ready.
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Shawn's brother, Josh Minnard, had also decided to jump into the Track Time money pit after witnessing us having so much fun, so he started the season with a slightly used Triumph Daytona 600. Shawn, on a Triumph TT600, had been riding the track a few years, and I, just one. In the past, Josh would come to support us and help in the pits, and was nicknamed "Pit Bob." Needless to say, we had nudged Josh just a little bit to come join us. To be honest, it went something more like this: "Either you buy a bike and ride the track, or you’ll forever be known as 'Pit Bob’ and be called a spineless wimp!” So now we are three.
We arrived at Grattan Raceway in Belding, Michigan in early July. The morning’s activities went as planned; setting up camp, riders' meeting, immediately followed by the first session. In between the itinerary, we talked to Joe from Split Second Photo, and he agreed to do a group portrait of us either at noon, or the end of the day when the lighting was better. Immortalizing the weekend with a really cool photo of us would certainly shine in our halls of fame for years to come, commemorating the exaltation of our triumphant reign over Track Days '07. It would be the icing on the cake.
I had a good morning on the track, passing people in the normal places and had a few good tussles involving some clean, sweaty fun. Did I mention the weather man was actually right for once? At 94 degrees, it was brutally hot in full leathers hauling my big butt around on that bike, I tell you.
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So, of course, since the day was going so well, Josh decided to count the rocks in the gravel trap off turn one on lap 3 of the third session. I knew right away it was him, because I had gotten so far ahead by running faster lap times, I was a straight away from lapping him. (That may not be entirely true….but that’s how I remember it…Yeah I was faster!) Every body did a good job of alerting their fellow riders behind them that turn one was fouled and that the corner worker had thrown the yellow for that corner. As I came around at a considerably slower pace, I saw the distinctive band of black and white checkers running across the front and back of his leathers, and deduced that it must be “Pit Bob.” Unhurt and rather pissed off, Josh was standing in the Gravel Trap next to his bike. At corner 2 the red flag was thrown, we all exited the track at turn 3, and proceeded to the on track entrance on the back stretch. On my way, I stopped by our pit and informed Shawn that the debacle was caused by Josh’s pebble counting, and not to worry, he looked all right. He immediately rushed off to be of assistance.
At “The Hump” the other riders and I waited for the all clear signal, so we could get back to riding. I sat there in the stifling heat waiting for the all clear. I remember thinking, “I know he’s alright. Just get back in the game and continue to polish your skills. We’ll debrief when the session's over.”
Like always, I took the first couple of laps slowly to let the tires come back up to temp. When they did, I railed the next corner at about 80% of my original speed.
The next lap and a half were a blur of passing bikes and sweaty puffing in my helmet. As I came onto the front straight, I saw a light blue bike ahead of me, and knew I had been catching him slightly through the previous curves, and thought I might pass him this lap. I had no intention of making up the gap between us in that 5/8 of a mile all in one shot. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened. This person had gone from clipping around at a good pace to almost stopped in the first turn. (Ok….almost stopped to me was 40mph.) I, on the other hand, was going at least 80 mph. I found my normal braking point, and realized I was closing the gap too quickly, but by the time my brain realized what was happening, my eyes were fixated on his rear tire….. and that’s right where I was headed. (A classic case of “Target Fixation.”) My front tire clipped his rear tire on the left hand side, just as he leaned into turn one. Have you ever heard the term “Ass over apple cart?” Well that’s exactly what I did. With the rapid deceleration of my front tire from 80mph to 0, my body went over the right handle bar, all hell broke loose, and then came right back at me. I was tumbling like the roll we were all taught in school if you were on fire, “Stop, Drop and Roll.” Only problem was, I hadn’t stopped yet, but had definitely dropped, and if I was doused in gasoline and on fire in an oil refinery, I definitely could have put out the flames at my rate of rotations. I was conscious through this whole situation, and remember distinctly thinking that I should be coming to a stop some time soon…. but no, I wasn’t even close to being finished. The rotations continued, as my world kept looking like the front windscreen of an F-18 Blue Angels' fighter at low level doing aileron roles at 400 knots. When the aircraft like rotations stopped, I was laying face down in the gravel trap. The only problem was my inner ear was still rotating like an empty reel in a projector.
At the same time, Shawn was helping Josh hunt down a foot peg for his Daytona 600. Not many Triumphs get taken to the track, so the search was becoming futile, even after a nice, young lady made the P.A. announcement. She was wearing a corner workers radio, and Shawn heard the call of “Crash in turn one.” He turned to look, and saw what he can only describe as a nuclear mushroom cloud of dust covering the entire corner of the track. (A Wiley Coyote tragedy comes to mind...) As the cloud hung over the track and provided much needed relief for the corner workers from the blazing sun, the radio then blared that they were going to throw the red flag and stop the session. Oh no...
I was lying there sprawled like a nice filet of salmon grilling in the sun. I tried to take stock and thought nothing was broken, but I was very dizzy and had a hard time getting up. I rolled on my back and flipped up my visor, which, to my astonishment, was still attached to my helmet. By this time, the Corner worker was at my side and told me not to move, with which I replied, “Are you F*&%ing kidding me? I don’t want to get hit by that ambulance coming straight at me for the other guy. How is the other guy, is he all right?”
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This really dumbfounded look crossed his face, and he replied, “It’s just you.”
“Well that sucks!” I said.
Now, I didn’t wish anybody harm, but I was sure I hit the other guy hard enough to knock him down and out. I sat up, against the better judgment of the corner worker and was a little less dizzy, but I wanted to puke what was left of my coffee and sausage biscuit all over the inside of my helmet. I tried to eek out the words to get my helmet off, but my tongue was lodged in the back of my throat quite busy keeping the vomit from finding it’s way to freedom. Now I realized that to get the helmet off, I had to get my not so new leather gloves off, which were glued to my hands with sweat. This combination became the strongest adhesive known to man. But, I managed to peel them off and release my chin strap to dump my helmet on the ground, vomit free. By this time, the ambulance workers were there, and asked if I was all right.
“Sure," I said. " I just need a minute to get my head together.”
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Now unbeknownst to me, I had already had about 5 minutes to do this and failed. They finally got me up and into the ambulance, and I said I was hot. Full leathers baking in the sun for 15 minutes didn’t help, so he turned the AC on in the back of the truck. (WHY WOULDN’T YOU HAVE IT ON ALL THE TIME? IT’S A BIG METAL BOX THAT SITS IN THE SUN ALLLL DAYYY!) They transported me to the pit entrance, and all I wanted to do was lie on the gurney for a while and cool down. After another 15 minutes, and countless questions (which I answered quickly and accurately, thank you), they informed me that, for some reason, they still wanted to transport me to the hospital. My reply was, "NO! I don’t need no stinking hospital!"
I asked for a ride to my pit area, and after I got there, Shawn haggled like a used car salesman and got me out of taking a very expensive trip to Grand Rapids in an ambulance from Belding. Way to go buddy! I staggered out of the ambulance and sat in my chair, oblivious to the world. Shawn and Josh grabbed my coat and back protector along with my helmet from the ambulance, signed my name to the “Refused Transportation” form, and I awaited the arrival of my wife, who Shawn had already called and warned, so she wouldn't freak out. (She didn’t, to my amazement.) Finally, I laid down on the blanket under the canopy in our pit area and dozed in and out of consciousness, feeling very ill.
Later that evening, Shawn showed up at my house to deliver my bike and affects which he so graciously packed up and took care of for me. The debriefing ensued, and he told his side of the story, and I told mine. I was informed that at the lunch break, shortly after I left, Shawn and Josh, still looking for parts, told Joe, the photographer, about our crash fest.
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So, obviously there is no composite photo of the three of us to memorialize the weekend. And very little triumph and exaltation for Shawn, who spent the morning in loyal service to his team mates, running back and forth to the track scraping up our debris.
Adding insult to injury, after the event, the photographer produced two excellent action portraits of Josh and I riding the track. But not of Shawn. Apparently, he was busy... and now, I may never hear the end of this...
Is there no justice for the pit heros?
Oh well, I guess there's always the next ride. |
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|  story by...
Brian Misner
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