So here we are back from the New Jersey road trip. How did it go? Actually, pretty well. We learned a bunch, and that’s always a good thing. For example, we learned that we need to keep more space between our events just to make the logistics more reasonable. We learned that it can be HOT in southern New Jersey in early August (103.2 in the shade if you’re wondering). We learned that someone in New Jersey is performing some bizarre experiment to see if they can carpet the entire state with flies. And we also (re) learned that our customer base is just a terrific group of people who are serious about riding well and being smart. More on that later.
We had roughly 60 riders per day, which was below what our cutoff was, but enough to pay the bills for the trip. No complaints there. In fact, it made for a lot of open track without it feeling deserted which drove the fun factor way up. We had already capped the signups well below track capacity to make sure there were no traffic jams, so we just got more of what we were shooting for in the first place. The vast majority of us had never seen at least one of the two tracks, so it was nice to learn without having to deal with traffic at the same time. It also made for some comical moments, like me trying to do the morning brief without having ever seen the track. When it took 4 tries just to find the classroom on the track map, it was pretty obvious to everyone that I didn’t have a clue. Hey, someone’s gotta be the designated bonehead. Guess it was my turn.
On to the track itself. Here’s the most impressive thing about the trip. It is a testament to the type of people who attend our school that over a two-day event, we had only two crashes on Monday and one on Tuesday. The crashes were minor, and they were more a case of the heat taking its toll rather than the riders making bad choices on track. The staff at NJMP was extremely impressed. They told Roy that as far as they were concerned, they’d be happy if we were the only group that ever came back to the track. On top of that, the race director for Tuesday told us that he had never recommended a track day provider, but he was going to recommend us. Wow. It is such a joy to be able to work and play with such fine people, and we understand how blessed we are. Nice job everyone.
With my dear 916 still scattered over half of New Hampshire, the plan was for me to ride the second demo S1000RR that MAX BMW provided. That plan held up right until someone walked into the New York store and offered to buy it. Good for him, less so for me. So get this, Max Stratton offers me a HP2 Sport to ride.
Really?!?
Yup, really, the carbon fiber and billet wonder is mine to thrash for two whole days. He stripped it down and spooned on some fresh Metzlers and bid me a good time. There was a small catch though. If I crashed it, the repair bill would probably spell the end of Fishtail as a viable economic entity (not really, but Roy and Robbie would probably never speak to me again). What to do? Well, with apologies to David Farragut, damn the consequences, full speed ahead!
I have to tell you, that bike rips. BMW did all kinds of neat tricks to the motor to let it make decent power and not bounce its cylinders off the pavement like the Boxer Cup was prone to do. Being held up by Ohlins front and rear doesn’t hurt either. I had no trouble wearing out my knee sliders while trying to run with the big boys. The only thing I goofed on was not scuffing the guards on the cylinder heads. Max was hoping to get the bike back with some battle damage. Sorry Max, now that I’ve joined the 50 and older crowd, there’s some places I just won’t go.
Which brings me to a significant milestone in my life. At the end of the day on Tuesday I went out with the A group knowing I had gotten on track before Robbie did. Now I have never been on track at the same time as Robbie without getting passed by him. I figured I’d hold him off as long as I could, so I took the pace up significantly, partially throwing carbon fiber and billet aluminum caution to the wind. Lap after lap goes by and no Robbie. At the end of the session I pulled in figuring he had sat the session out, but lo and behold there he is getting off his bike. It started to sink in. For the first time EVER, I had not been lapped by Robbie. The fact that I had what amounted to a 2.4 mile head start, and he wasn’t trying to catch me, didn’t faze me in the least. I had done it. I had attained Nirvana, with a little bit of manhood thrown in for good measure.
At that point, and for the next hour or so, I turned into the most obnoxious person on the planet. I kept asking Robbie questions like, “So Robbie, tell me again how many times you passed me on the track? It was a nice round number, wasn’t it?” or “What was that number again? It was somewhere between -1 and 1, wasn’t it?” Yes, I deserved to be euthanized, and no, I didn’t care one bit. It was my pathetic moment in the sun, and I wasn’t going to waste it. Now what are the chances that Robbie is going to take me to school at the next track day? Probably about 100%, but for one brief, shining moment I was less of a loser than normal. It felt glorious.
The trip back was pretty uneventful, aided by John Anderson and his magic Garmin phone/gps/web browser/microwave oven/hair remover. It does so many things, at times we had to yell at John to just give us directions and stop giving us options. Had it not been for the 12 year old bag of corn nuts and stale Good & Plenty candy he picked up while leaving Millville, we might have been forced to smack him a couple of times.