VIR [Spoilers]

Seemed like if one event of the season had to represent the entire season,
VIR managed to squeeze all of it into one weekend.

SB1 was Yet Again another shot of glory cut short for Kurtis Roberts who
managed to stretch a 10 second lead to a 13th place finish with a chunked
tire.

Remarkably, Matt Mladin had apparently zero tire problems as he took off his
championship hat and put on his race hat to just roar up from behind with
about five laps to go and easily took the lead and finish. He and Kurtis
managed to turn the entire race around over the span of a single commercial
break.

Miguel seemed aggravated by Giovani, at least from his post-race commentary,
but that didn't seem to mean much as Giovani apparently finished the race 1
lap earlier than everyone else, letting Miguel and Ben Bostrom rocket by at
start/finish.

Of course, Sunday was the Day Of Madness with the 5 hours 600 race and
cancelled FX and SB. Very disappointed, but I do give Kudos to SpeedTV for
preempting the extra hour so we could actually watch the SS race instead of
bailing at the start and leaving us with catching the reair later. A good
battle between Tommy Hayden and Buckmaster, with Hacking playing it VERY
safe. Then the rain started again.

I think that most interesting comment heard during the weekend was from
Nicky Hayden in how he liked the fact that in MotoGP they seem to be more
decisive about racing in the rain, rather than being wait and see as we are
here. They just race rain or shine and be done with it. Now, certainly the
issue with the oil in turns 4 and 5 VASTLY complicated everything, though
I'm a bit confused as to why. They mentioned that there was a lot of oil,
and it was very thin, but 4 hours to clean it up?

Oh well, off to Birmingham. Does it rain in Birmingham in September?

Regards,

Will Hartung
()

 

What preempting? I got one hour of non-race coverage due to the delay,
then the F3000 race.

Something else that endlessly frustrates me about the AMA. You can almost
NEVER count on your VCR/DVR getting the race because there's always a
delay for one reason or anther, pushing the race outside of its time slot.
It's disgusting they race in places where you can't race in the rain
(Understood that VIR Sunday had extenuating circumstances). Either race
in the rain everywhere or nowhere. Oh, and KEEP TO THE DAMNED SCHEDULE!

-Dirt-

 

TV commentary claimed that the rider who went down was using synthetic
motor oil which is substantially more difficult to remove from the track.

Why don't they just ban synthetic oil?

 

And this didn't get picked up in tech inspection?

 

It's got to be said if this is true how did the "goober" get through
tech in what is supposed to be one of the top 3 national series in the
world?

Is it because the srutineers try to be smart in nailing someone for
some esoteric rule violation and forget about the basics? The whole
point of scrutineering is to ensure that the machine is primarily safe
to take onto the track - an unwired plug does not meet this criteria.

Case in point - at the very provinicial race club I am at a friend had
a stand up argument with the tech guy because his exhaust protruded
about 1 cm past the maximum length. The tech guy *was* in the right,
and my friend offered to correct the problem by the next meet - nope,
he had to hack off the offending item. The irony - after doing this
and getting passed, I noticed that he had not rewired his drain plug
after dropping the oil the previous night. Not only had it not been
rewired, but it had not been *tightened*. Sure, my mate should have
picked this up (thats also why my mate and I double check each others
machines) - but that's the whole point of tech inspections, not to
"catch people out", but to *make the environment safe*. The enforement
should be secondary to safety, but I suppose it's more fun to "catch
cheaters" than ensure safety.

Sorry to go off on the rant, but as a rider, tech nazis get on my
tits, especially when they miss the basics and shit like this happens.



TG

 

Well except when it's turned round into a discussion of why JIS/Ducati
have an unfair advantage. Or how it's different in the USA.

Just a thought. Do the 600ss have to run a sump fairing to keep oil
leaks at bay like the SBK bikes?

 

Does every bike that goes out on the track in every session or race get

Mark

My criticism was not so much directed at the AMA, actually I was not
thinking of the AMA at all when I wrote the above, but more of a
general rant. However, your point is well taken that the "goober" does
have end responsibility - my point was more that the scrutineers also
have a responsibility to the basics that sometimes gets overlooked.

As to your first comment again you are right in the sense that no,
tech does not place at every session or before every race. However I
was assuming that the bike that laid the oil would have not replaced
its oil between tech and the session - on this point I could be wrong.

Any racer should also get a friend/co racer/pit mate to double check
his basics even after tech - to me this is a fundamental. It's like
the buddy system in diving. I don't know what it's like in the states,
but unfortunately we do have a crowd that have the attitude that "shit
happens" when the "shit that happened" was easily preventable - I have
been the victim myself :-(.

Cheers
TG

 

That may be true, but the announcers (of course what do they know)
were specifically talking about the problem being that it was
synthetic. They kept saying this over and over.

 

Tech inspection is to get the sticker needed to race. Even at the
club level, tho some clubs may be more diligent about it, they do not
run tech on a bike once it has been inspected and found to be properly
wired, and so on.

They assume that if you had it wired properly the first time, and the
bike was properly prepared,that you automatically would make sure the
bike is safe to go on track after working on it. Unfortunately, the
father was probably in a hurry and didn't check the drain plug after
changing oil.

This is *not* a regular occurrence, even at the club races.