Team Charm 2002 Season

Index at a glance:

Looking ahead to 2002 in Jan from team headquarters

4/6/02, Grand Bayou Circuit, WERA Endurance

4/20/02, North Florida Motorsports Park, WERA Endurance

5/4/02, Putnam Park, WERA Endurance

5/24/02, Virginia Internation Raceway, WERA Endurance

6/8/02, Roebling Road Raceway, WERA Endurance

6/15/02, Talladega Grand Prix Raceway, WERA Endurance

8/3/02, Summit Point Raceway, WERA Endurance

 9/14/02, Texas Wold Speedway, WERA Endurance

10/25/02, Road Atlanta, WERA Endurance

12/18/02, Annapolis, MD, Sipping coffee

Jan, 2002

 Year 2002 will be the year of our return to endurance racing. Team Charm got started out as a drinking team with a serious endurance habit back in '91, now that WERA has brought back the lightweight class, we hope to get back into endurance riding for 2002.

We fly to our first Endurance race, get 5th in class, then eat a lot of craw'dads and oysters. 

The season opener started off well with us making our goals in terms of final results, lap times, and fun at the first-time national motorcycle event held at this track. We rode a conservative race, making two pit stops without tire changes, and cruised to 26th overall, 5th in class.

After months of very little preparation, Team Charm went wheels up from DCA (aka Washington National Ronald Reagan Airport) and headed for the Big Easy on Thursday afternoon. With a estimated 20 hour drive to the Grand Bayou Circuit, (aka No Problem Raceway) Rich and Steve decided to fly in for this event. The problem of bike transport was solved by having Sam Fleming and the gracious folks at AOD take our stuff in their new mega-trailer. This proved a reasonable investment by reducing driving boredom, but was somewhat offset by higher travel costs to get hardware and riders to the event.

After a quick stop in New Orleans historic French Quarter for dinner, Steve, Rich and travelling partner Dave Yaakov headed for the swamps, as the track is west of New Orleans and south of Baton Rouge. Our hotel in Thibodaux offered the basic necessities, and the trio arrived at the track for Friday practice well rested and ready for action. NPR is a new track, a tight, flowing course 1.8 miles long with about 14 turns. Steve and Rich took turns on the SV650, and lap times improved with each practice session. Steve was quicker to learn, getting into the 1:25 range before the lunch break. By days end both riders were comfortable turning 1:26s, and the bike required nothing but fueling all day.

Friday night’s highlight was a fair-to-poor dinner in Thibodaux, followed by an early lights out. Saturday was race day, and the weather was windy but pleasant. The lean team was joined by Collin Fagan, a ex-Washingtonian now residing in Alabama, and, more importantly, now the proud owner of an air-conditioned RV. The RV would save the day, as our flight plans did not allow us to bring our tarps for sun screening. Fresh Pirelli tires and refueling was all we needed, and at 12:48 the four hour race rocketed off.

Well, not quite, as MB Motorsports crashed on the warm-up lap and delayed the start a few minutes. Rich took the reins first, and after a few laps of jostling with traffic settled into a comfortable pace in the 1:25 – 1:26 range. Within the twenty minutes of the warm-up lap red flag re-start the red flag brought again. This time for a lengthy delay while WERA scrambled to get new grids printed at the same moment the PA system broke, confusion abounded.

Originally the plan was to have Rich and Steve alternate two one-hour stints in the saddle. This would have made for three pits stops, on the hour, during the four hour race. The red flag, and its accompanying 22 minute delay, changed all this. Now it was more than possible for Rich and Steve to only do two pit stops, thereby saving the lost time of the unnecessary third stop. It was agreed that Rich could restart and run 50 minutes of additional time. As red flag delays do not allow fueling or working on the bike, this would mean a total of about a 1:15 on the 4.5 gallon gas tank. Steve would then take the bike out for 1:20 minutes on a full tank of gas. This would leave Rich to run the final 40 minutes of the race.

Rich restarted with confidence. Lap times continued to drop sporadically, blamed in part to traffic, but Rich was able to achieve three non-consecutive high 1:24 laps with a best of 1:24.668. His only on-track error was in slamming into the rear end of a passing fast-guy, a total rookie mistake that almost had Team Charm swimming in dirt.

Our pit stop was flawless, and Collin handled the refueling without spilling a drop. Monty Warsing stepped in to handle the fire bottle, leaving the riders with little to worry about. Steve headed out for his hour and 20 minute stint. Getting the bike out onto the active race track for during the race is a bit of a daunting affair. At this race track the rider enters from riders left in the last left hand turn before the front straight. Pit out, in addition to being in the crash zone of that turn, is also a rather tricky double apex affair with concrete walls on the outside, mercifully covered with air bags. Steve managed to blend into traffic without incident, in fact the non-standard pit out didn't prove to cause any injuries during the entire race.

Steve quickly got down to his best practice times from the day before. Knowing that bragging rights would be on the line if Rich managed to post the fastest time for the team, Steve set his sights on mid to low '24's to best Rich's time. After slowing working down to 1:25.05 Steve ran hard into the turn one left right switch back. This turn can practically be ran flat out in top gear on a SV, save for a tap on the brakes to load the front end to start the turn. Steve missed his timing on the entry by about foot or so, and ended up running off on the transition from left to right. Bouncing off the curb coming back off the dirt onto the road course Steve broke the tach. After that stunt, Steve decided to live with the humiliation of being .35 a second slower than Rich. The rest of Steve stint was pretty featureless, trying to stay out of the way of the fast guys while passing some of the slower guys. By the end, Steve was ready to get off the bike.

Our second pit stop put Rich on the bike with just about fifty minutes to go. The only hitch being that we discovered the triple tree top nut had work itself loose, requiring a 15 second adjustment with a wench before Rich could get underway . Our two stop strategy was working well, but a second red flag halted action just 15 minutes later. Unable to restart by the 3:30 mark, the race was declared over. Here’s the stats:

Team Charm - 111 laps, 5th in LWSB of 10 entries, 26th overall of 41 entries, best lap 1:24.668, 12 laps down from lead. Race ran just over 3 hours 15 minutes running time, LWSB winners were : Team Info Tech, best lap 1:19.47, Maryland Motorsports, 1:19.32 (including Dave Yaakov & Brian Kraget), Intrepid, 1:20.18, Robin's Roost, 1:23.24. Here is a copy of our laptimes.

A fine start to the season, and after Collin graciously grilled some burgers the happy crew headed to New Orleans. None were impressed by the drunken idiots on Bourbon Street, and even less so after Collin and Steve got knocked to the ground by some brawling losers. Tired and now sore, we toasted a few drafts at O’Flagherty’s Pub, and dropped Steve off at the airport for his 6am flight.

Rich and Collin returned to NPR to spec-tate and assist Dave in his three-bike effort. In addition to his own SV650, Dave also races 600 and 750 supersport bikes, all Suzuki of course. Practice went well for him, and he came ever-so-close to turning a 1:14 on the 750. First race of Sunday had ??? set a new track record in the high 1:13’s, a record that would survive the rest of the day. Dave had poor start in the 600 race, and worked up from 10^th to 4^th in the 10 lap sprint. He had just enough time to pour cold water down his back before attacking the track with the SV650, turning an incredible 1:17.17 while leading every lap of the race.

One of the best races of the day for us spectators was an incredible duel between Jason Peters and Brian Kraget in the 125GP class. 20-year-old Peters had a two second lead at the end of lap one, but Brian turned a pair of high 1:16 laps to catch him by lap three. The next seven laps had the two swapping the lead four time and banging fairings at least twice. With three turns to go, Brian was up the inside of Peters and ran out of room, clipping the track edge and crashing out. This reporter was too far way to make a judgement call, but it does seem like Peters has much concern for the rider next to him.

Dave still had two races left, both on the 750. In Supersport he had to start from the back and finished an honorable 6^th. In superbike his quickly grabbed second place but could not match his earlier practice times and could not catch Lang up front. He was unchallenged for the runner up spot. He complained that he was tired and who could blame him. Sunday night Dave treated Rich to dinner in New Orleans, then caught his own 6am flight home.

Of final interest was the race of next weeks Team Charm guest rider Monty Warsing. He worked ran alone in third place for eight laps on his TZ250, turning times in the 1:19 range. But on laps nine and ten he ripped of a 1:18 and a 1:17. Care to explain your on-track epiphany, Monty?

Next up, North Flordia Motorsports Park 4/20/02, see you there!!!!

Hot, Hot, Damn Hot – We inherit 4th place – sweat a whole lot - Monty’s Trial-by-Fire. 

Our outing to the brand new, first-and-only "motorcycle only" race track in the USA was a success despite our poor bike set up. We ended up 4th in class and ?? overall, riding long sessions in sweltering heat near 100o. New to endurance racing, Monty Warsing proved an excellent addition to the Team Charm roster.

The weekend started off poorly with handling woes that were a marked difference from two weeks ago at No Problem Raceway, where we had No Problems. Two issues plagued us in Jennings. First, our soft suspension setup had the bike wallowing around. And second, it was hot. It was so hot that clichés aren’t necessary. Suffice to say that what ever description for heat you have, it’s not good enough. The heat was tearing up tires, and thinning both suspension oils and riders’ blood.

The new track is a nice layout, lots of high speed sweepers, brand new pavement that has gobs of traction, and despite prior warnings, fairly nice showers. Friday morning the team set out to learn the track, but in the first practice sets we had some problems with the machine feeling vague from turn-in all the way to corner apex. Once the throttle began to open, the bike would settle and track a line without issue. An inability to control or even predict your entry line at racing speeds is unsettling to say the least, and we spent much of our time Friday with the forks apart adjusting the damping, front ride height and triple tree alignment. Track designer Ed Bargy did his best to design turns that required a studied approach, and the lack of quality practice time Friday was unfortunate.

While we were able to get the front to work better, the rear still had wallowing problems when off throttle, and even when on the gas through some of the very fast sections. We didn’t have enough track time in Saturday’s practice to get the rear sorted out, so by the time the race started (11am) we had to make do with the machine set up as is. With six hours of racing, the Team eagerly anticipated Monty’s first endurance ride. Monty was racing in the early ‘90s against Rich and Steve, but took a few years off to race bicycles. Last year he returned as a Summit Point regular, and with his TZ250 proved that he hasn’t lost his touch.

After consultation with Pirelli tire reps, our tire and pit stop strategy was finalize. Rather than have five pit stops to divide the stints up into 6 one-hour segments, we decided to stretch the sessions to an hour-fifteen, theoretically saving about one minute for the extra in-lap, pit-stop, and out-lap. This means that one rider will ride only once. Steve, who was the slowest in practice at this track, quickly decided that he should do a single session and then be available to run the pit stops. The plan was set; Steve, then Monty, with a new rear tire before Rich, then Monty and Rich each ride again.

Almost missing the five-minute board due to the weak PA system, Steve barely made the warm up lap to scrub in the new front tire. The green flag flew on time at 11am with a clean start as the grid charged into turn one. As is normally the case, lap times during the race a little faster than in practice After running a string of low 1:30's, Steve settled into mostly 1:31-32 range for the balance of the 47 laps he did. Hot and sweaty, and not having seen any pit signals yet, Steve violated Team policy and attempted to calculate his in-time based on the on-board lap counter. The mental effort cost him several seconds per lap, and he has again been warned about on-board mathematics. The net effect was that Steve gave the "I’m coming in" signal just as he was not seeing the "please come in" signal he was getting from Monty’s wife, Diane.

Monty was ready to go, having been grilled repeatedly that his goal was to accumulate laps, not lap records, and the staying upright was job one. Collin Fagan stopped by to assist with the fueling, and Monty was off. He did exactly as instructed; stringing together smooth laps and working his times down to a repeatable mid-1:27. A little after the hour mark his speed slipped slightly, but the unmerciful Team strategists left him on track for his full hour-fifteen. As Monty sez from his web page;

Monty’s historic first-time-on-a-race-bike-for-more-than-an-hour was followed immediately by another first; we needed to swap the rear tire during a 6 hour race pit stop. Steve, his riding behind him, was fully focused on the task. The tools were laid out, the motions had been practiced, and the execution was fairly smooth. While F1 cars get fuel and four tires in 8 seconds, we were quite happy to have Rich on the bike and riding in about a minute.

Twenty minutes into this third session, the red flag brought all bikes into the pits. One of the other race teams stopped by to point out that our muffler bracket was broken, but WERA rules dictate that you can’t touch the bike during a red flag. So Rich had to re-start with the pack and come in after one lap for the fix. Steve drilled a new hole in the bracket and remounted it (just over two minutes lost) and Rich returned to the track for 55 minutes of fun.

The third planned fueling went well, again thanks to Steve and Collin, although Rich cautioned Monty that the tires were easy to spin up. If Monty’s first stint on the bike showed him to be a qualified endurance rider, his second session got him the MVP award for the race. Not only did he crank out another solid hour of steady low 1:30’s (as instructed to make the tires last), but he proved to be one cool customer in the face of adversity.

Early in his stint, a passing rider clipped his right side hard enough to break the front brake lever. Rather than immediately pit for repairs, Monty ran three more laps without any brakes, carefully pointing out the damages so that we had time to assembly the tools and spares. How sporting! For that he gets the Team Charm "Cool Hand Luke Award" for calm thinking. As Monty writes from his page;

With five down and one hour to go, Rich headed out to bring it home. Steve’s carefully chosen words of advice were "go slow, the only thing you can do is throw away fourth place." Since we were several laps ahead of fifth, and several laps behind third, fast laps would get us nowhere. Rich focused on smooth riding minimal tire wear, and growing familiarity with the track now put these ‘easy’ laps in the 1:29- 1:30 range.

The points are as follows;

Thanks again to Collin for his expert pit assistance, and a huge Bravo Zulu to Monty for an outstanding performance in his first endurance race. We just hope you’re not too sore for your 250 GP race on Sunday. Here is a copy of our lap times.

Next up, Putnam Park 5/4/02, see you there!!!!

 5/4/02, Putnam Park, WERA Endurance

Putnam Park, just west of Indianapolis, hosted the third WERA endurance race. It also marked the third new track for the Team Charm riders, as none had been there before. Historically we would use only two riders for a four hour race, with three pit stops each on the hour. But after transforming Monty Warsing into a bonified endurance rider, the trio decided that with three riders it might be possible to run three long stints and have only two pit stops.

Details of the race strategy are forthcoming, but first a little post-race analysis of NFMP last month. As you may recall, we were unhappy with the way the SV650 was handling in Florida, and within hours of our return home Sunday afternoon we had removed the front forks and shipped the rear shock back to Penske to be serviced. The forks were revalved by the expert hands of Dave Yaakov, super-fast guy and owner of Cycle Accessories Discounters in Maryland. The real news was the condition of the steering head bearings- teardown revealed that they were notched, and had been causing the bike to self center. This was the predominant cause of the inability of the riders to control their race line accurately. The suspension components were all returned within the week, and the bike was reassembled and ready to head west on Thursday morning.

Learning a new track involves not only the racing aspects, but also deciphering the idiosyncrasies of the surrounding facilities. Putnam was clearly understaffed for the influx of racers showing up at the gate for Friday practice. A queue of trucks and trailers literally a mile long developed while each competitor had to go pass two checkpoints to determine and pay the practice fees and sign the standard waivers. The general consensus was that everyone would have been happy to pay a few dollars more if there were more people working the gate, and we all would have started practice at least an hour earlier.

Since our bodies were still on Eastern Standard Time, we were in the track relatively early and easily made the first practice set. The Putnam course has several different set up options allowing different track layouts to be used. This is great in the sense that the facility can cater to different forms of motorsports, but confusing if you are the first person to go out in practice and you’ve never been at the track before. Steve took his first few laps very cautiously, wondering if he was even on the right set of turns. As the day waned and the weather warmed, all three riders memorized the track layout. Rich and Steve praticed on the SV, while Monty picked up the track on his TZ.

Friday night we met up with Terry and Karen Purke, Rich’s in-laws, for a scrumptious dinner at the finest restaurant in Greencastle. Here we are in front of Greencastle's best monument , a Vehrmacht V1 or "Buzz Bomb." Race-day Saturday promised to be even more pleasant than Friday, weather-wise, and practice picked up just where it left off for Rich and Steve. Monty, who had been learning the track on his TZ250 Friday, ripped off a dozen laps with the SV and seemed quite comfortable on it.

Our planned two-stop strategy requires a little explanation. With 4.2 gallon capacity on the bike, we figured we could safely go and hour and fifteen. But 1:20 would be pushing it, and running out of gas would immediately put you in last place. None of us would ever hope for a red flag during the race, but they usually happen. So our plan was to run 1:15 each rider, and if there were a red flag at any time then we could get away with only two pit stops. As it were, the race went clean for four hours and we had to pit three times.

Rich started the race, and slotted into 3rd place of the lightweight bikes. Within a few laps, however, Team InfoTech crashed out. Rich had difficulty matching even his times from practice, and reports having trouble maintaining mental focus. "I just couldn’t get my mind to flow from turn to turn. It’s unusual for me, as I normally knock a second off my practice times come race day." Able to turn 1:21s in both Friday’s and Saturday’s practice sets, Rich was struggling to string together consistent 1:22s. Somewhere near the one hour mark Tight Squeeze Racing’s Steve Clark took advantage, passing Rich to take over 2nd place in class. Rich finally worked into the 1:20s, but by then he was too tired to maintain that pace.

After a flawless pit stop Monty took over, and he to struggled to be consistent for the first 20 laps. But Monty got his groove back, and put together about 20 laps in the 20-21 range, for a team best of 1:20.5. His final 10 minutes showed some fatigue but not by more than a second or two. Tight Squeeze continued to outpace us, but Monty inherited 2nd place when MB Motorsports blew their motor. As Monty reports seeing MB's incident from his web page;

Steve took to the track at the 2½ hour mark, with another fast pit stop. By this stage in the race the lap times where telling a steady story: we were unable to catch Squeeze, and the closest team behind us was three laps down. Team orders were for Steve to get into the predictable 1:22’s range and stay out on the bike. Steve succeeded in his target lap times, but without any race stoppage it became apparent that Team Charm would have to pit a third time for fuel. At exactly the one hour mark for Steve, he threw a death stare towards the pit as he zipped past the start-finish straight. His desire to get off the race bike was so well projected that at least one other team took the time to tell us that our rider was tired and wanted to come in early. As Steve sez;

Rich was already suited up and ready to go. A third quick pit and Rich headed out for the final 30 minutes. "I felt better, mentally, now, and would have really liked to get into the 1:19 range, but the orders were clear: risk nothing and bring it home in second place." His lap times reflected a steady relaxed pace in the 1:22s, with a mid-21 tossed in on the final lap .

So we’ve finally run a full race without stoppage, and our day went without incident on the track or in the pits. MB Motorsports was clearly way faster than us, but we were within striking distance of all the other Lightweight teams, and that feels pretty good. Check out the mychron lap time data. The series points are as follows;

Thanks to all our sponsors, including Suzuki, Pirelli, Fast Lane Cycles, Cycle Accessories Discounters, and Hansen’s Energy drinks. Special thanks to Terry and Karen for coming out to support the arts, and for helping out in the pits.

Next up, 5/24/02 Cycle Jam, Virginia International Raceway - see you there!!!!

Memorial day weekend held two major racing events in the Mid-Atlantic region in 2002. One at Summit Point for a F-USA National Road Racing Series event and the other being the WERA Cycle Jam at VIR. Last year, when faced with two events on the same weekend at our favorite local tracks we did the obvious, we raced the 6hr WERA Endurance at Summit on Saturday, then loaded up & drove to VIR to catch the CCS sprints at VIR on Sunday. This year, being committed to the entire WERA series, and our families struggling to reconcile 6 race weekend in three months, we wisely choose to only partake in the single event. When WERA moved the Endurance race to Friday May 24th at the last minute this dovetailed even better into our plans to salvage part of the weekend for non-racing activity - there is non-racing activity, right...?

Coming into this event we were in second place in the points which were as follows; 1 Team Info Tech Racing 279.84, 2 Team Charm 260.36, 3 Deals Gap Racing 241.26, 4 MB Motorsports 227.88.

Rich left DC on Thursday morning about 4AM to make the open practice day. Steve, who has been very busy at work helping all the tornado damaged customers in LaPlata, MD had to bail on the practice day & work instead. Rich got to the track in time to make his second set of the morning, but the set was red flagged after he only got a lap in. After lunch there were two lightweight practices which Rich was able to make. This was Rich's second time at VIR and he spent most of the day getting his shift points and turn markers down. His best lap times from practice were low 1:44's. Steve drove down Thursday night after work, arriving after dark at the track. After talking about gearing and pit stop plans for the race over a few adult beverages the two were fast asleep.

Friday morning the day broke clear with mild temps a tad on the cool side first thing in the morning. Before the race there would be one round of practice followed by a 30 minute endurance only practice. While Rich felt he only needed a few laps to gel his lap plan, both Steve an Monty needed track time. Steve took the entire first set, about 20 minutes getting down to low1:43's. As Steve sez;

The second endurance only practice found Rich taking the bike out only to pass off to Monty who hadn't had a chance to get on it. Also the new brake pads needed to be bedded in. Monty was able to quickly get down to '43's while Rich was still working on his points from yesterday. The bike seemed to be working fine, although oddly Rich remarked when he first got off the bike that the new brake pads didn't seem to have as much grips as the old ones, while Monty's first comment was a unsolicited "I wish I had these brakes on my TZ250, there're awesome!"

The strategy for the race was basically the same as the four hour at Putnam except the rider order would change a little. Steve, who felt comfortable the race pace would be '1:40's-1:41's with trips into the 1:43's-1:44's in traffic, would lead, followed by Monty, and Rich would ride third, and Steve would re-mount for a second stint to finish off any remaining time. Fuel consumption appeared to be slightly more than Putnam. We hoped to be able to get a hour and fifteen minutes out of a tank of gas, but to be on the safe side we decided to drop that to a hour and ten minutes to avoid bingo fuel. This would make three hour ten minute sets, with a thirty-minute sprint to the end after a fuel splash & go. If there was a long enough red flag delay we would be able to avoid the third pit stop re-fueling splash & go. We mounted fresh tires & used Monty's warmers to bring them up to temperature. Due to our overall points standing we were gridded on the fifth row in the first wave.

The race started on time with Steve putting his head down and riding hard from the start. Within a few laps he was able to get solidly into the low '41's as planned, only later in mid-set was he able to run a string of low '40's once traffic settled out, with a team best of 1:40.03 when there was no traffic. By the forty minute mark we were solidly in third place one lap down on Infotech and two laps down on MB Motorsports who were in first. At the 53 minute mark the red flag came due to a crash at the exit of turn three. Despite having just rode 53 mintues Steve felt great as he recalls;

The restart would be based on revised grids based on race position the lap prior to the red flag. This meant that Steve would have to start in the second wave getting stuck in traffic. The re-start went without issue and the first two laps or so the field had to get stratified before Steve could start working traffic on the lower powered SV. During this time Steve hooked up again with "blue and white leather guy" who in reality is Robby Card of Intrepid Racing, a guy who all season has consistently lapped which ever Team Charm rider as on the track at the same time. Intrepid was actually several laps down at the time, their motor blowing up after the start of the race, and were try to get points riding a spare bike. After a couple more laps the red flag came out again due to a huge oil slick from the exit of two all the way thru the apex of three. It took almost 1/2 an hour to clean up the mess. We decided that Steve would restart the race, do the regulation one lap, then pull in for pit stop & send Monty out.

Steve did his one lap after the re-start and came in for a flawless pit stop. Monty spent the next couple of laps getting down to pace, but was quickly on the 1:41 range with clear track, 1:44's in traffic. About half way thru his set the lightweight race leader, MB Motorsports, who were four laps up on us at that point, came in to pit. After the pit stop the outgoing rider mounted the bike and started to leave the pits, but stopped abruptly in front the Team Charm pits. After some obvious consternation over the rear tire, MB rolled their bike back the their pit space & removed the rear wheel. There the bike sat for about 15 minutes. It wasn't until after the race that we found out their rear tire blistered and they didn't have a spare ready to go. By the time they regained the race they were several laps out of the lead positions, and we moved up to second behind Infotech who were two laps ahead of us at that point, we being a lap ahead of Tight Squeeze and Axaion Arm. Due to their oversize 8 gallon tank, and the red flags, Tight Squeeze would be able to make the race with only one pit stop, compared to our two pits stops. While we were going faster than Tight Squeeze, it would prove to be close.

With about 45 minutes remaining in the race Monty came in for our second pit stop. Knowing that seconds lost on this pit stop could determine the outcome, Steve opted to try a new re-fueling strategy. Rather than using the filler cap on the dump can to meter how fast the fuel flowed into the gas tank to prevent spillage, Steve planned on taking the cap completely off to speed the re-fueling process, at the risk of spillage. The plan paid off, while Eric held the tank and ran the valve, Steve took the cap off and held rags around the filler base to absorb any spillage. The result was about 8 seconds shaved off the re-fueling process. Rich mounted and the entire pit stop was done in record time.

Rich took to the track with only a 45 second lead over Tight Squeeze. Rich was lapping in the 1:42 range when there was no traffic ,but slowed to the 1:46 range when he hit traffic. Tight Squeeze was able to get into the 1:40's when not in traffic, but only slowed to 1:43's in traffic. Slowly Tight Squeeze was making time up on us. Rich was repeatedly given the "go faster now" pit signal, but was still loosing time. With about 17 minutes left in the race the red flag came out again due a bike on fire on the top of the hill. That ended the race, which was a good thing for us because Tight Squeeze had whittled the lead down to about 23 seconds. We ended up second behind Infotech.

It was nice to hang out after the races, here we are on the podium. Leaving the event the points were as follows;

We'd like to thank Monty's dad, Eric, and Diana's brother Joe all for helping out during the pits. Also we would like to thank Diana for taking the pictures.

Next up, 6/8/02, Savannah (yes I named my dog after a race track that I like so much, but Roebling sounded so stupid), Roebling Road Raceway - see you there!!!!  

Despite over a decade of endurance racing experience, Rich tossed away second place after just one lap of a six hour race, on an otherwise beautiful Georgia day at Roebling Road Raceway. Frantic bike repair followed by five hours of expert riding salvaged a fifth in class, and may have even left Team Charm second in the championship points chase.

After a slightly troublesome drive south on Thursday night (the van’s radiator sprung a leak), Steve and Rich found that the intrepid SV650 needed nothing but tires and gas to run fast laps at one of the Team’s favorite venues. Rich was soon into the minute-22 range and Steve was easily able to string together 1:21’s in morning practice. Lap times in the afternoon tapered off due to high track temperatures in the 90o heat.

Rich planned to run the final afternoon session, in order perfect passing lines, but a violent thunderstorm ended the day for all riders. The rain continued on-and-off all night, and totaled more than 4.5 inches, most of which was accompanied by ear-splitting thunder and lightning.

Every summer afternoon in Georgia offers a threat of rain, and the Team spend most of the evening pondering the advantages of various tire strategies. Starting with grooved DOT tires was the safest bet if rain were to fall during the six hour event, but it was unlikely that a DOT front tire would last six hour if the race were dry. Eventually we set the plan as follows: start the race with slick tires and have a set of DOT tires mounted in reserve. We knew that we would need to change the rear tire at some point, but if the race were dry we expected the front slick to go for six.

Monty had skipped Friday practice, but took the SV out on a damp track for Saturday practice. He also picked up some seat time in the ½ hour endurance-only practice. New tires were mounted, the bike was running great, and the race strategy was set: Rich would start, then Steve, then Monty, each doing a planned hour fifteen. After Monty’s set, at 3 hours 45 minutes into the 6 hour race, a new rear tire would be mounted, then Rich and Steve would split remaining time with Rich going first.

Such are the grand plans of mice and men. Rich dialed up the horsepower at the green flag, and got a great start, picked off a few places through the infield and completed the first lap with a solid tow (slipstream) thanks to the gang of big-bore bikes.

But traction, gravity, and inertia took Rich into the Dark Side, to places on the track which, although only several feet of tarmac from the normal raceline, offer little hospitality to any bike that slips that way in an unhappy moment. Rich squirmed through the dark side and off the edge of the earth, defined in this case by the asphalt-sand interface. The bike lowsided on the right, and Rich slide along for a fast and unpleasant ride.

An ambulance quickly scooped Rich up, and the cornerworkers apparently returned the scarred bike to a pit full of shocked teammates. The injuries, although painful, were not too bad. Initially unable to walk, breath, or turn his head, Rich was soon hobbling toward the pits, testing his foot and already thinking about a second chance to redeem himself.

While Rich was relaxing in the ambulance, the SV650 was delivered back Team Charm central. Steve had already instructed Monty to suit up, but had no idea what to expect in way of a motorcycle.

Banished to the opposite side of the track, Rich sat dejectedly and watched as the mystery crew swarmed the bike. The major items repaired, Steve had to reposition the fairings, which had shifted during the crash and were rubbing the rear wheel. A dozen zip-ties later Monty mounted the bike and tore out of the pits, with instructions to carefully evaluate the bike for hidden problems.

But Monty never looked back, and having clearly decided that the bike was fine, spend the next hour amassing mileage at the rate of one lap every minute-22. Team Charm was dead last, 18 minutes behind, and back on track.

All our carefully planned race strategy was now out the window. It was initially assumed that Rich had completed the only lap he would ride, and that Steve and Monty would now have to split the remaining 5 ½ hours between the two of them. A clean pit for gas put Steve out for a planned hour-twenty. Steve proved his mastery of Roebling to anyone in his path, stringing together lap after lap at 1:20 or 1:21 when clear, with trips to 1:22-1:24 in traffic. At an hour ten minutes into his set, Rich gave Steve the "10 minutes to pit" signal. About 2 seconds later the SV started to sputter and loose power. Short on petrol, halfway down the straight, Steve at first thought that the engine blew. With his left hand in the air, getting off the racing line to prevent from oiling the track, Steve finally figured out he was just running out of gas and the motor was fine. Rich had already instructed Monty to don his helmet in anticipation of the pit stop, an order that was now repeated with added urgency. But before we could swap riders, Steve had to get the bike back to the pits without the benefit of gasoline. In a brilliant tactical move, Steve coasted power off through to the dirt in turn four and returned to the pits via the infield. His quick thinking avoided a second ride in the crash truck. As Steve sez;

With a nearly full gas tank (the dump can holds a little less than the bike’s tank), Monty headed out for his second stint. While Monty clocked off valuable lap after valuable lap, Rich offered up a revised schedule. Since the next pit would need to include a rear tire swap, and since Steve wanted to perform this action unencumbered by the need to wear leathers and a helmet in support of being the next rider, Rich decided that his ankle, although swollen and sore, would support additional racing.

So in rode Monty, and out rode Rich with a new rear tire. The tire swap, normally a frantic race against time to avoid lost laps, was just a little more resigned, since we had already given up a top three finish with Rich’s incident. Rich ran a full hour, although the last twenty minutes were painful and slow. "Initially I could run 1:23, but I quickly lost the ability to hang off the right side of the bike and it was slowing me down. I’m glad I went back out today, since it takes away most of the tentative riding that follows a fast get-off."

Meanwhile, the day had taken it’s toll on the competition. MB Motorsport and InfoTech, the only two teams who challenged us with consistently fast lap times, had a lengthy pit stop and a crash, respectively. Team Squeeze crashed just before Rich went back out, and great riding by both Steve and Monty had worked the Team back up to 6th in class.

With an hour-45 left, Rich handed the bike to Steve, the Team’s fast-guy now for two weeks in a row. Steve was confident that he could ride the remaining time with just a splash of gas halfway through.

And he could have, if he had just remembered to pee before taking to the track. Steve claims that bladder pressure had overcome his ability to manhandle the machine, and when we pitted for gas, Steve ran three steps into the pits before relieving himself, Team Charm Style, along the fence. With the gas tank full, and Steve still not empty, it was Monty who took to the track for the final 45 minutes.

Monty soldered on, but was cut short by the first Red Flag of the race just before the 5½ hour mark. In the meantime, Deals Gap racing had broken a chain, moving us up to 5th in class. Not bad after our Captain’s colossal crash on the first lap!

Team MVP (most valuable pit person) – Diane Warsing. Heartfelt thanks to Tight Squeeze, Deals Gap, The ambulance crew, the cornerworkers, and all the anonymous friends who pitched in to help get us back on track. Thanks to all that helped out. Here is a copy of our lap times

Final Top Five: MB Motorsports, Maryland Motorsports, Backmarker Racing, Team InfoTech, Team Charm. The points are as follows;

Next up, 6/15/02, Talladega Raceway - see you there!!!!

Only four days after returning from Roebling Road Raceway, our intrepid racers headed south along the Blue Ridge mountains, past Knoxville, through Chattanooga, and finally arrived at Talladega Gran Prix Raceway in Alabama. Friday morning practice was washed out do to steady rain, but by afternoon the track was dry and the trio began the process of learning yet another new-to-them racetrack.

Talladega GPR is close to, but distinct from, the famous NASCAR track of the same name. Our Talladega is a tight, twisty track with eight turns packed into 1.3 miles – the lap record is under a minute. Short gearing was installed and the SV’s engine oil changed during the morning downtime. Visual inspection of the used oil revealed our worst fears; three seasons of racing had the taken its toll on the bearing surfaces. There was enough metal in the oil to plate a propeller shaft. Our plan is to rebuild the engine after Talladega, and we all crossed our fingers that the poor little bike would last another four hours of flogging.

Afternoon practice had Steve turning a respectable 1:08 with the SV, while Monty focused on riding his TZ250. The big question was Rich’s ability to ride after his 100mph get-off at Roebling. Although there were no broken bones, his ankle was sprained and it wasn’t until Friday morning that the swelling subsided enough to don a racing boot. Fortunately, riding proved less painful than walking. It was clear that he would not be able to go fast, but at least he could ride. This would prove important during Saturday’s race.

Saturday’s weather was post-card perfect, sunny and in the low 80’s. Rich was able to turn a few 08’s, and Steve continued to improve his times in morning. Monty finished up his practice with the TZ250 with laps in the 1:03’s, and final practice with the SV showed that both Monty and Steve were able to run steady 1:06 or 1:07 laps.

During the executive strategy conference, the race plan was formalized. Steve would start, followed by Monty, then Steve would ride a second stint. Our fuel capacity was estimated at an hour-ten, so these three stints would leave a ½ hour for Rich to ride.

Steve’s start was solid, following Infotech into turn one. Infotech was charging hard & immediately pulled out a lead, leaving us in 2nd place. For the first ½ hour or so Steve was behind a duo of 600's in the middleweight class. The 600’s had more speed down the straight, but were slower getting into and out of the turns. The mismatch in speed was holding Steve up. He would run up behind the 600’s going into the turns, only to have them pull away on the short shoots in-between. Lap times for the three bikes hovered in the 1:07-1:06 range. Bernie Huntt on the MB Motorsports bike came past around the 12 lap. Bernie made quick work of the 600’s who prevented Steve from rallying a counter to Bernie’s challenge and MB slipped away to take over the 2nd position from us.

Tight Squeeze’s first and fasted rider, Chris Reynolds, was matching Steve’s times, who still couldn’t get clear of the 600’s. Squeeze slowly reeled Steve in and passed, dropping Team Charm to fourth in class. Finally on the 41th lap Steve got around the 600’s and charged off after Reynolds, who had pulled a several second lead. In the process Steve turned a team best lap time of 1:05.65 but unfortunately tangled with lap traffic, momentarily hooked handle bars, and was forced off track at about 100 mph for a grass trip to the outside of turn five, the bowl. The lapper he tangled with was Deal’s Gap racing who was having a tough day of their own on a borrowed Ducati after getting the wrong seals shipped in to repair their bike from damage caused by throwing a chain at Savannah. Steve was able to keep the bike upright and regained the track, only loosing 30 seconds off his normal lap time. As Steve sez;

Our first pit stop put Monty on the bike at 1:10, and he quickly set a steady pace in the 06-07 range. Tight Squeeze pitted for a new rider and the chase was on. Monty was able to cut nearly two seconds per lap off their lead, and had Charm back in 3rd place before he handed the bike back to Steve at the 2:20 mark.

Steve spent another hour-ten turning quality laps, while Rich sat in the pits doing math. InfoTech and MB Motorsports were several laps ahead and outriding us. Squeeze was behind, and slower, but with their larger gas tank, they need one less pit stop than we do. Calculations showed that we needed Steve to be at least one lap ahead when he handed the bike to Rich for the last 30 minutes.

And that’s exactly what we did. With pit boards coaxing first Monty, then Steve, to build the lead, our third and final pit stop put Rich on board with a 59 second lead and 32 minutes to go.

InfoTech and MB rode a great race, but we executed a solid plan of action to maximize our healthy riders. It was a real tactical race for us, Diana and Rich felt a lot of the excitement as they stood at the pit wall, using cryptic pit boards lap after lap to put Steve and Monty exactly where they needed to be to keep us ahead of Squeeze. Rich is still in the doghouse for tossing it at Roebling, but at least he’s halfway through the penance period. Here is the riders at the end of the race . Here is a copy of our most excellent lap times.

The best news is that we now have a six week break before the next race!! Summit Point on August 3rd should be a good venue for Team Charm, as we all have lots of experience there. With six races in the last 10 weeks now behind us, we can finally head home and mow the lawn.

Points year to date as follows;

Thanks to all our great sponsors, including Suzuki, Pirelli tires, Cycle Accessories Discounters, Fast Lane Cycles, and Hansen’s energy drinks. Special thanks again to Diana for being 100% of our pit crew.

Don’t forget that Team Charm is buying the beer at Summit Point!!

After seeing four unfamiliar tracks in the first six races, we were quite happy to be racing at our home track, Summit Point, WV. Unfortunately Monty was not available for the six hour race on Saturday, but Rich and Steve were joined by second year racer and old friend Eric Nordholm.

One week prior to race-day, the Washington area was oppressively hot, with temps over 100 oF and a heat index near 110oF. Optimistic weathermen predicted a cooling trend, but it never arrived and the weather on both Friday (for practice) and Saturday (for the six-hour race) was in the 90’s, with a heat index of 98 oF on both days.

Thursday Rich took the new, Phil Dodd built engine up to CAD for some dyno tuning, and under the expert hands of David Yaakov, proper carb jetting yielded a little over 70hp with a nice, broad powerband. That’s adjusted horsepower, theoretically scaled to a nice cool day with low humidity. In our current weather conditions, the actual engine output was significantly reduced, but in any case we’re talking about a 10% increase over the engine we had been using to date.

Friday’s practice went well, and our trio used both Rich and Eric’s SV’s to get plenty of practice. We spent the late afternoon prepping our pit setup, mounting tires, changing oil, etc, and finally relaxed for dinner with a good head start on Saturday’s duties. Rich joined "Sturges World", where Mom, Dad, brother Dave and Emily and James had setup camp outside of turn three, while Steve, Eric, and Tara headed for an air-conditioned restaurant.

Saturday morning practice was again uneventful, and there was a fairly relaxed feeling in the Team Charm pits as Steve suited up to start the race. It was just before noon, and already Cajun hot.

Fortunately we were gridded in the first wave of the start, thanks to our overall standing in the points. At most tracks we take a dim view of charging exceptionally hard at the start. Endurance racing does not reward this sort of thing with results. However, Steve, who all year long, has been following Bradly Champion of MB Motorsports, or more correctly been regularly lapped by him, decided that at this track he would give his best to try and not only keep up with Brad, but pass him. The large amount of track time that Steve has at Summit put him in a prime position to leverage that knowledge for some fast laps and a chance to show up Bradly. When Al Wilcox let the green flag fly at the start of the race Steve dropped the trip hammer in "sprint" mode to chase Brad down, who was gridded next to him at the start. Brad was the first lightweight bike into turn one, with Steve hot on his heels. Pushing hard for the next few laps Steve stayed within a .5 second trying to come up with a plan for passing. The only place Steve was making time on him was turns four, nine and ten. The pace was in the high 1:22 range, with Steve's best of a 1:22.6. Interestingly, a malfunction of the onboard lap time displayed times in the high 1:20 range, but more on the lap timer in a minute.

Steve couldn't come together with a pass plan, then Brad made better work of some slower traffic and started to creep away at .3 or so a second rate. At that point, a scant 6 laps into a six hour race, discretion took the better of Steve, who took it back a notch into "Endurance" mode for the remaining of his stint Steve's average lap time for the remaining hour was 1:24.6. As Steve Sez;

"I really wanted to pass Brad. All year he has been the speed benchmark in the lightweight endurance class and I wanted to run him down at our home track. I tried every trick in the book, but just couldn't do it. If I kept at it I might have gotten around him, but I would have put the thing in the trees doing it..."

In the 2001 version of this same race, the Team ran 70 minutes stints without issue. Today, when Steve came in at the 67 minute mark, then entire fuel can was emptied into the tank. The faster pace (about 2-3 seconds faster than last year for each of our riders) would limit us to an hour on the track. Rich rode off, but not before Team Cycle Pros (#210) slipped by while we refueled. Rich blurted;

"I didn’t know that we had slipped to P4 (racer-speak for 4th place), so when I saw MB Motorsports (#55) run out of fuel, I figured we were P2. I kept my head down and was just getting into the zone when Brian Kcraget crashed on the exit of turn three, and the race was stopped."

The red flag halted all racing for just over 30 minutes, and Rich restarted to finish his hour set. Review of the standings revealed that InfoTech (#31), Cycle Pros, and Team Charm were all on the lead lap, and would restart side by side. For the next ten laps or so, Rich battled with Tommy Bauchiero (InfoTech) and Chris Ekland (Cycle Pros) for the lead in the Lightweight class, eventually building a several second lead before we had to pit for fuel. Rich average 1:24.5, or one tenth of one second faster than Steve did in his first hour and seven minutes

"That was just about the best time I’ve ever had on the racetrack!" quoted Rich. "We swapped the lead several times. It was real close, but comfortable since I trust both of those guys as great riders. I think I averaged something like 1:24.5 for a half hour, with a best of 1:23.0, my personal best for a lightweight bike. Man that was fun!"

We slipped to 3rd place as soon as Rich pulled into the pits, and Eric took the next stint. He was doing fine for about 20 minutes, then suddenly signaled that he was coming in. As Rich struggled into his still soaking leathers, Eric pulled in complaining about fluids blowing up out of the dash. Steve sent Eric out to do two more laps while the team prepared for a premature pit. Eric, soldiered on, but later relayed that the front of the bike was covered in gas, resulting in a near crash in turn five when the front end abruptly pushed, presumably due to the fuel sloshing over the tire. Upon return to the pits, Steve, Eric Knight, and Bernie fueled the bike and swapped the rear tire while we tried to resolve the problem. Gas was definitely leaking, but with the tank halfway off Rich decided that it was just the overflow tube and took off on a hot lap. Rich said later;

"I should have talked with Eric more about what the problem was, but I steamed off for turn one, and when I hit the brakes I got a huge face full of gasoline. I looked down and could see it squirting out of the gas cap."

Rich pulled back into the pits and screamed for duct tape, which was used to secure the cap in place. We lost about 10 precious minutes in the pits, and slipped out of the top five. Rich headed back out with a full tank of gas, and left Steve to figure out what to do about filling the tank once we pitted again. That time came earlier than expected, as Rich became dehydrated after the ½ hour mark.

"I should have left Eric on the bike after we fixed the leak" moaned Rich. "I didn’t replenish enough water in my short break, and I was getting dry – a headache, then dry mouth, and when I stopped sweating I knew brain fade would get me in trouble if I tried to go a full hour."

Steve took the helm after we untape, fueled, and retaped the gas cap, and he put a hour a three minutes, averaging 1:25.6 per lap. There was no need to match his earlier 1:22 lap time, but Steve’s steady riding and an unfortunate crash for Cycle Pros worked us back up to 3rd place. With an hour-ten left in the race, Steve pitted and handed off to Eric. Due to Rich’s early stop, we would now need an extra pit, since Eric couldn’t ride the hour-ten on our stock fuel capacity. So we split the time, and put Rich back on for the final half hour. We were running low in duct tape so we were glad to finally take the checkered after six long, hot, hours.

But the excitement of salvaging 3rd place was immediately extinguished when Rich returned from the victory lap without the on-board timing transponder. A racers worst fears confirmed, the missing transponder meant that as far as WERA was concerned, Team Charm stopped racing 25 minutes again and the official results listed us as 7th place. Rich stormed off to protest the results, and thanks to the data from our own onboard lap timer, an accommodating WERA race director, and most impressively a team willing to gracious relinquish third place, Team Charm was awarded the missing 23 laps and restored to third place. Oddly, in going over the data in the lap timer, every couple of laps would have one that was listed short or long. The total time was in agreement with WERA's transponder data to a but individual laps would be off slightly. Later someone stated there were two Micon transmitters up causing the confusion. The podium presentation of the Lightweight class was postponed while all this was sorted out, and eventually we made our "I love you man" speeches.

Team Cycle Pros could have easily kept third place if they had not accepted our protest, but their attitude is one of the reasons we love this sport… racers like Sabastian DiPinto, Chris Ekland, and Romeo ?? are more interesting in outbraking you into turn one than winning by a lost transponder.

Hats off to them, p-style!

Racing for six hours in August is, somewhat like reading these race reports, a long and grueling effort. We’d like to thanks to all who helped out by slinging wrenches, toting water jugs, baking meatloaf, or cheering us on. We love you, man.

Special thanks to:

Bernie Cossffjfl

Eric Knight

Mom and Dad Sturges

Mom and Dad Harris

Dave, Emily, and James Sturges

And all our wives!!!!

And to our Sponsors… Suzuki Motorcycles, Pirelli tires, Cycle Accessories Discounters, Vesrah brakes, and Energy drinks. We use them because they work.

 9/14/02, Texas Wold Speedway, WERA Endurance

With our two favorite tracks, Summit and Roebling, now behind us, the chance of a race victory seemed slim. But Team Charm was still holding second place in the points chase, and we are determined to keep it for the last two races. Facing a 3,100-mile round trip drive, we hooked up with Tight Squeeze Racing and Steve Clark’s new RV for a multi-team attack on middle America.

The trip began festively Thursday evening with Steve Clark, Steve Harris, Rich Sturges, and Monty & Dianna Warsing headed south at 70mph and 6mpg in Steve Clarks huge RV. Twelve hours later we picked up Chris Stevenson at a seedy parking lot outside of Atlanta, GA. The six happy campers continued on towards Texas, stopping at Vicksburg to sight see, but Rich picked up a stomach flu and was ill throughout most of Louisiana. By the time the RV rolled into Texas World Speedway Thursday night, Rich was fitfully trying to sleep off the lingering effects of food poisoning, possibly caused by some rogue cream cheese. The rest of the crew claimed a pit garage and quickly settled into a somewhat more comfortable sleep in the spacious RV.

By late morning Steve had introduced the SV650 to the high speed action of TWS, Monty was ripping around the high banks on his TZ250, and Rich was feeling good enough to try a little practice himself. The track is huge at 14 turns in 2.8 miles, and includes a three lane banked front straight, three high speed sweeping left handers, and a tight chicane. Turn one in particular is quite fearful, as you can run into it at full throttle, sixth gear on the SV. Like the other two fast sweepers, it tightens up in the second portion of the turn so the rider finds himself hoping and praying that turning forces will eventually scrub off enough speed to survive the tighter section.

Friday’s practice went well for the whole group, each of us slowly learning the idiosyncrasies of the track. Rich was still a bit nauseous and light headed, but was happy with the day’s learning process. Monty focused on the TZ, but did squeeze in one practice set with the twin. Travel mates Tight Squeeze racing completed their team with a Czechoslovakian ringer, Martin, and also set about learning the track.

Saturday brought decent weather, and the Texas heat was not excessive. Tires were mounted, water coolers filled, and after final practice was completed the race strategy was laid out. With our stock fuel tank, track time of much longer than one hour was not possible, so we planned for an hour each, in the following order: Steve, Rich, Steve, Monty, Rich, Monty. A new rear tire would be mounted at the 4th hour if necessary, and the front was expected to last the full six hours.

Steve started well, and the drama of endurance racing began to unfold on the first lap. MB Motorsports, just behind us in the points, were having engine troubles again. They would retire in last place after only 24 laps. On lap seven, AoD sidekick, Neighbor of the Beast, blew a motor in spectacular fashion heading into the back section and caused a red flag, albeit somewhat delayed. Steve, who started the race as was right behind the GSXR600 when it blew, had a front row seat. The bike was smoking so bad that the cloud completely blocked the track. Faced with the impossible choice, Steve had to run head long blind into the wall of smoke hoping that he would emerge on the other side. As Steve said;

Steve restarted, but our second place position on track was eventually challenged by two local teams, Scotty’s Shop Racing and Robin’s Roost. Steve completed his hour of riding (aggregate time) posting the team's best lap time of a 1:56.3 and handed the bike to Rich with a quick gas-n-go. Rich explains:

Steve took his second stint after another quick pitstop , but Tight Squeeze passed us for 4th place as their 6-gallon tank and ironman attitude allowed a two-stop strategy. Steve's second stint in the saddle was a little harder on him physically. His legs kept cramping, giving him charlie horses in the middle of turn one. He managed to tuff it out, but the net effect was Steve was real happy to see the "pit" board.

Remember if you would that Team Charm is running a newly rebuilt engine, used at the 6-hour Summit Point race. Post race maintenance revealed that the engine was burning a surprising amount of oil, so an oil level check was performed during our third pit stop. Sure enough, we were low and needed to top it off. The process was bobbled somewhat, and all told we lost 90 seconds during the process. Monty was finally on track, and cranked out the longest stint of the Team, with an hour-ten set. As Steve said; "I gotta get that oil bomb hardware from Ted Burnham if he still has it..."

Time lost to the oil fill was painful, but the slow pit was compounded by two more distractions from our goal of turning as many laps as possible: Rich was still ill and we still needed to change the rear tire. Had we changed the tire at the three hour mark, while we were screwing with the oil issue, would could have saved the one minute it took to swap the wheel at the four hour mark. Even that pit was a bit slow, due to a borrowed air wrench. Rich screamed off with the new rear tire, and again felt confident that he was up to the task.

Despite all this, we had moved up to 4th in class as the lightweight points leader Team Info Tech broke a transmission late in the race. In our fastest pit of the day (only 30 seconds including the pit entry, gas, rider change, and pit exit), Monty took to final session. Unfortunately Rich was left behind the pit wall hugging a trash can and unable to track the race progress. Team Charm was less than two minutes behind 2nd place, but a lack of pit board information left Monty unaware. Here is Monty giving the pit crew thumbs up near the end of the race. As Monty sez:

So after six hours we ended up one minute behind 3rd place Tight Squeeze, and two minutes short of 2nd. Here a the lap times. Victory in the Lightweight class was only one laps ahead of that. As it turns out, we had the speed to win, but with Rich’s reduced performance and poor pitstop strategy we had to settle for 4th. Hats of to Steve, Chris and Martin of Tight Squeeze for running two hour stints. Damn kids.

Monty topped off his TZ250 season by clinching the #1 plate in F2, brightening the mode for the 28-hour drive home. Now we ponder our next move… the good news is that Team Charm has clinched at least 2nd place in the 2002 National Endurance Championship, Lightweight class. But for us to achieve ultimate glory and everlasting fame, three things must occur:

A pretty tall order, and we’re losing sleep over it this week, wondering if it’s worth the trip to Atlanta. It costs us about $1,900 per weekend, before winnings, so we may decide to stay home and rake the leaves instead. Stay tuned.

Here’s the points spread. Bear in mind the each team gets the toss our the worst finish.

Hoist a beer in honor of Steve Clark’s great new RV. It was great to get to know Chris, and partying with the Check mafia was a weekend highlight. We wonder how Dianna put up with five days of smelly, flatulent, juvenile men who howl at every scatological joke , but we are all thankful for her help around the pits and during the races.

 10/25/02, Road Atlanta, WERA Endurance

After eight races, and with one to go, Team Charm trailed InfoTech by just under 34 points. But due to the fact that each team gets to "throw away" the points from their worst race, the path to a Team Charm National Championship would require the alignment of three events:

Team Charm had to win at Road Atlanta

Our winning effort had to include at least 116 laps

And InfoTech had to finish 8th or lower.

Despite the unlikelihood of this scenario, the mathematical possibility meant that our competitive, speed-addicted race-aholics couldn’t possibly sit home and graciously accept 2nd overall. So on Tuesday, Rich headed south with Tight Squeeze racing in the RV, to be joined Thursday night by Steve. Monty, high from clenching his Formula Two championship at Texas, rented another RV for his sprint team and met us Tuesday night in the overcrowded pits at the Grand National Finals (GNF) at Road Atlanta.

Wednesday practice was overcast and cool, but Rich went about relearning a track that he last visted in 1994. Since then the back straight had been modified, adding a chicane before the frightful, blind right hander under the Suzuki bridge. Although practice was limited due the huge turnout for the finals, Rich was able to turn comfortable 1:42 lap times, and predicted a dry race pace around 1:39 or 1:40.

Tight Squeeze owner and lead rider, Steve Clark, unfortunately crashed in practice. The bike was repairable, but Steve’s collarbone was broken and he was done riding for the weekend.

Thursday hosted one short morning practice, after which Rich had little to do while sprint racing consumed the afternoon. The bike had been difficult to start that morning, and it made sense that the carburetor jetting was too lean, since the last tuning was done in the Texas heat, and we were now working in an oxygen rich atmosphere at 65 degrees. Rich pulled the carbs and installed larger jets, but had an unpleasant surprise when he checked the spark plugs, as the ground prong was eroded off of both plugs. This was our first hint of the disaster ahead, but all we could do was richen the mixture, install cooler plugs, and hope the engine would last four hours. Over the winter the engine would be disassembled for inspection.

Monty had a busier afternoon, as his TZ250 seize the engine in morning practice. The little two stroke was stripped, fixed, and reassembled with a new piston and cylinder, and he looked to be in good shape for his late afternoon race. Racing against some of the fastest SV650s, he was near last at the start but was steadily working his way to the front when the front brakes started binding. He was naturally upset as he would have surely won, and picked up another championship. Read all about it on Monty’s web page: www.furiousmoose.nbracesites.com

Here’s the offending piston from Monty’s TZ250. It looks like a small chip broke from the crown, which lead to exhaust blow by, overheating, and eventually seizure.

Friday morning was damp and misty, and rain was forecast for most of the day. While Rich and Monty were now familiar with the track, Steve took the first morning practice to relearn the turns of Road Atlanta. Rich headed over to the Pirelli/Metzeler dealer to begin a game of tire-roulette, first mounting DOT tires, then switching them out for full rain tires. Rains proved the choice of the day as the track remained wet all day (as did most of the racers). When Rich returned to the hot pit Steve was just getting off the bike after the wet practice. His first comment was "I don't think the motor is going to make it, I can hear a valve tappet noise over the exhaust and slip-steam noise going down the straight" which did not bode well for the days event, but we'll come back to this in a minute.

Final preps were made, and Steve put in a few laps on the rain tires, reporting that the tires work great, but the bike was sputtering like it had a loose electrical connection on the battery. Sure enough, the battery positive terminals were discovered loose after the seat was removed. Practice was over, but we tightened the connection and prepared Monty to start the race.

Like all season we were gridded in the first wave, and the race was started in light rain. Then six turns into the race, the bike quit on Monty. Eventually the bike was returned to the pits, where we frantically tried to fix non-existent electrical problems , hoping against hope that there was a simple problem, finally verifying the engine was seized and calling it a day. Only post-race teardown can reveal the extent and expense of the damage, but we suspect the top end on the forward cylinder has tightened up.

With our race finished, we chilled out in the pits, popping to life when Tight Squeeze needed to pit. Although their primary bike lost time due to mechanical problems, their second bike went on to third place. InfoTech almost pulled off the win, but wound up second. The race was won by AxxionArm.com, with only 93 laps due to the wet weather pace and several red flags.

So, the season’s over, and we can return to our normally scheduled lives. Here’s the final numbers:

Team InfoTech: 781 points

Team Charm: 728 points

MB Motorsports: 669 points

Deal’s Gap Racing: 638 points

Expenses: $16,000 spent, $3,000 won.

Race Time: 9 events, 48 hours scheduled, 43 hours 34 minutes raced.

As Rich said:

Steve Chimed in:

Stay tuned for the date of the year end victory party, time and location T.B.A.

Well the 2002 season is over. We've had our victory party at the end of November, and took apart the engine to view the damage done at Road Atlanta. Here is a good picture of the damage. Looks like the valve stem snapped up near the top where the keeper engages it. This was our "big" motor with 72HP on pump gas (as measured by Dave Yaakov's dyno) that we built just before the Summit round. Oil consumption was high on this motor, after the 6 hour at Summit we found it was almost 3/4 of a quart low. In hindsight we should have attached a quick fill oil bomb adapter like we used for the 24 hour at Nelson. Since oil consumption was non-measurable with the prior motor that we got lulled into a false sense of security with respects to oil usage. Hindsight is 20/20. The only good news is the most expensive part of motor, the cams, were undamaged. We're looking at a forward cylinder head, valves, piston, possible cylinder and con-rod - crankshaft.

We've exceeded our expectations, in our results, and in how much fun we had. 1st we'd like to thank our spouses. Without their indulgence this would not have been possible. Also, we'd like to thank all our sponsors; Suzuki, Pirelli/Metzler, Cycle Accessories Discounters, Hansen’s Energy Drinks, Fast Lane Cycles, and Veshra brake pads. In particular we would also like to thank Dave Yaakov for his general assistance. We would like to thank WERA for bringing back the lightweight class. While closing speeds can be a issue at some tracks, having a lightweight class is a great place for people to Endurance race more economically than in middleweight or heavyweight.

Speaking of money, to get a good idea how much (or little) money it costs to do a season of endurance racing, following is a fairly complete summary of the expenses incurred by Team Charm Racing as we fought for the 2002 WERA National Endurance Championship in Lightweight Superbike. The costs to not include the cost of the bike itself, nor the cost of setting up the bike (like shocks, fairings, steering dampeners, etc). Also excluded are any repair costs, since we already had the spares for our one and only crash, which did very minor damage. Not crashing is the first best way to race cheaply.

"Racing Total" includes entry fees, practice fees, tires, brakes, pump gas, etc. Typically we would use one set of tires for practice, one set for a four hour race, and one additional rear for a six hour race. Transportation includes motel and gas for the truck or motorhome. Note that we flew to NPR and shipped the bikes. Food costs aren’t very reliable since we didn’t enter the data when the dinner check was split evenly.

Net costs after winning was $9,191.00. We completed 2680 racing miles. Not including practice this works out to roughly $3.43 per mile raced. Figure another 600 miles of practice and the track time cost is roughly $2.80 per mile.

If you are interested in a complete listing of all our expenses you can download a copy of the excel document that details our entire racing season costs almost to the penny. Please don't tell our wives how much we spent...:-) If you want to do a entire season of endurance racing on a SV650, this will give you an idea how much $ you will spend.

Merry Christmas and happy New Year from all of Team Charm!!!!