3/17 Roebling Road Raceway - 4 Hour
5/5 Barber Motorsports Park - 4 Hour
6/16 Miller Motorsports Park - 6 Hour
6/29 Cycle Jam at Road Atlanta - 6 Hour
7/14 Grattan Raceway - 6 Hour
8/4 Summit Point Raceway - 6 Hour
8/18 Talladega Gran Prix Raceway - 4 Hour
9/8 Nelson Ledges Road Course - 8 Hour
9/29 Jennings GP, Jennings, FL
10/12 Grand National Finals - 4 Hour

3/17/07, Roebling Road, GA, WERA Endurance

Team Charm begins a new season back in the saddle with a 3rd at the WERA National Endurance opener.

Reported by Team Charm Staff;

Fans of Team Charm have not had much to read about the last few years. Since 2002, the Team’s last full year following a championship points series, there have been a number of changes. Many of these changes have been chronicled in the sparse collection of updates in the five some odd years since, but some have not. Towards the end of 2005 Steve and new Team Charm member Bernie Conaster decided that they would undertake the 2007 the WERA National Endurance Series in the lightweight class. Initially the Team thought about procuring new equipment for the effort. After looking at the development in the lightweight class of motorcycles, combined with a frank assessment of our skills, it was decided to press ahead with the pre ’03 SV650’s we already had. The team already has a mass of parts for this vintage of machine, and the machine development is already well established.

After the choice of what machine to run was made the decision to choose the riders began. After reviewing the list of usual suspects the team decided to spread a wider net to fill the vacancy caused by retirement of both Rich Sturges and Eric Nordhelm. Early on in 2006 Steve Clark, former Team Charm competitor of Tight Squeeze Racing fame, expressed an interest to join the effort. Clark also had an equally high pile of pre-’03 SV650 parts wasting away in his garage. Since the two piles of pre ’03 SV parts were quite high, and general interest to join the Team was equally as high, it looked at first as if the team might try to run two bikes all year at all events. To try out additional riders, the team sojourned to Grattan, MI for the 6 hour WERA event in July of last year with Clark, Bernie, Steve and former Team Charm rider Joe Wooton to get a feel for the team dynamics. August saw the team enter the Summit Point round with the additional riders Brian Summers and Tommy Boucherio running two bikes. Readers of these diaries will recall Tommy was a rider for Team Info Tech, the team that beat Team Charm for the championship in 2002.

After running the two events in 2006 several things became obvious. The level of competition has moved up in the lightweight ranks quite a bit since 2002. To give you an idea of how contested the lightweight class is consider the Summit point round in August of last year. The Team Charm finished 8th & 9th in the lightweight class out of 9 entries. If the team had entered the two bikes in Middle weight Superbike class (600cc inline 4 with mods) they would have finished 4th in class out of 13. If the team had entered in Heavy weight superbike (unlimited 1000cc machines) the results would have been 5th in class out of 10. Interestingly, the race winners in lightweight superbike were only taking an average of 1:50 on their pit stop laps, while the Team Charm’s larger fuel tank bike we took 2:22. All the top teams have a dry brake refueling system and modified large capacity fuel tanks. Is $1500 for a dry brake worth 30 seconds per pit lap? Consider this; the race winner’s average lap time was a 23.9 while team charm averaged 27.7. Depressingly, both Rich and Steve averaged 24.5 & 24.6 respectively during our first hours at the Summit 6 hour in 2002. Basically the team is going a little over 3 seconds a lap slower in 2007 than it was in 2002. The older we get the faster we went...:-)

It was with the honest assessment of the level of competition in the lightweight class that the team decided to undertake the 2007 primarily running one bike. The team’s goal for 2007 is to score substantial points at every round and hope the experienced slow stead pace yields results. All of which brings us to St. Patrick’s day weekend 2007, the opener for the 2007 WERA National Endurance Series as Roebling Road Raceway, Team Charm’s honorary home track.

While most of the east coast was in the grips of a late season Alberta clipper, Bernie, Steve and Clark headed down to Savannah. The challenge with driving all night in the 34 foot motor home with a 20 foot trailer, in high winds, was compounded by failure of the lighting system on the RV. The running light circuit experience some kind of overheat that resulted in the circuit having to be shut down to prevent ominous burning smells in the cockpit of the RV. While the headlights, brake and signal lights worked fine, the running lights were out, only to be switched on for short period when passing other vehicles. The net effect was a rather stressful trip down, interrupted only by bitterly cold refueling stops in the chilling March night air.

Waking up in the AM just outside Savannah, GA the team made it to the track after practice had started, but two hours before the scheduled start of the lightweight practice. Steve opted out of practicing on Friday due to forecasted rain that never materialized. Bernie having only had one successful outing to Roebling Road Raceway needed the track time. Clark was only interested in doing the race if the WX was nice.

After tech-ing and the normal figuring out what practice we can and cannot enter, Bernie headed out on a drying cold track on the B machine while Steve & Clark began working on the A bike by installing the large capacity fuel cell. Here is a picture of Bernie working the infield on the B bike. The gearing issue raised its head. The B bike had Summit normal 15/46 gearing. Bernie didn’t really get going fast enough to confirm that would be ok. The issue was complicated by the fact the A bike still had a 528 chain installed, meaning its drive chain & sprokets were not compatible with the rest machines. Maddenly, Steve had left a couple of 520 chains at home. The A bike had taller 15/44 gearing, and the concern was that this would prove too tall for the race. Based on this, and the fact the WX started clearing after lunch, Clark decided to do ½ the practice in the afternoon session. The focus of this practice would be to confirm what gearing was since Bernie did not have the speed or experience early on to determine if we were going to be OK with the 15/44. Steve, who still held out the rain was just around the corner, pressed on working on the bikes & getting the tires mounted & taking care of the excessive brewed malt issue the coolers had developed on the way down.

In the PM session Bernie went out first and did a couple of laps before handing off the Clark. Clark was able to get a couple of laps in the minute twenty four range to judge the gearing, and felt it was ok, but he was not using sixth gear. Bernie on the other had was getting into sixth gear. The concern being that if the wind and or draft presented an issue doing the race we would not have the gearing to pull peak torque down the straight. Toying with the idea of taking one of the 520 chains off the B or C bike to allow gearing fine tuning, the team finally came to the consencecious to have another beer, eat some pork, and decide tomorrow. The rider order was decided to be Clark, Steve then Bernie. Each would be out for one hour and twenty minutes.

Saturday AM broke clear and cold. The low temps would prove to be a day long vexing issue for how to dress for all riding. Not quite cold enough for long underwear, but too cold for the leather liner only, each rider had to come up with a solution. The first practice was the lightweight group, and Clark & Bernie nominated Steve to go out & freeze his ass off. Steve was at pit out when the green flag flew and took to a very green track, literally. Spring had already sprung in GA, and the track was, unbeknownst to Steve, covered in greenish pollen. Each bike was kicking up a wake of pollen in the turbulent airflow behind the bike. Steve had no idea of this until he came upon his first lapper, whom he immediately assumed had a blown engine and was spewing coolant vapor out the back. Not wanting the crash in the guys fluids he assumed was leaking, Steve rocketed pass the rider & waited for the red flag. Two turns later he happened upon another rider who, amazingly enough also had a blown motor. As Steve sez:

“I was positive there was going to be a red flag on the pratice session with two bike having blown motors, but once I looked behind & saw I was leaving the same trail is dawned on me what the issue was, my bike kicking up pollen that had collected on the track surface over night. It was so cold that be the end of the session I stopped using the clutch or brake levers as the cold handles were burning my finger tips. The gearing is fine, I'm hitting 9.5k in sixth.”

With cold times in the 25’s when braking & shifting it was clear that Steve had not forgotten his favorite track’s layout. The next practice would be the endurance only practice and would be split by Bernie and Clark. While Steve Green was kind enough to loan the team his truck to haul their kit up to the pit lane for the race, Bernie got ready to go out first & then hand off the Clark while Steve schlepped pit materials. Bernie, in a fit of brilliance, accidentally went out in the 750 & open expert practice instead of the endurance practice. Oddly, the WERA officials did not notice the slip up and did not give him the meatball flag he deserved. Bernie ended up coming in a little early getting down to the low ‘27’s after feeling a bit surprised with guys going almost 10 seconds a lap faster than he on liter bikes.

Clark was next up on the practice for the endurance only just before lunch. With just enough laps to wet his whistle he came in early glowing about how good the bike was. This allowed an extra bit of time to get the tires changed & give the bike the once over before the race. With everything set for the 12:30 start Clark loaded up his camel back & took to the track for the warm up lap almost first. We were gridded at the front of the second wave as you can see here as Clark demonstrates what 215 pounds of love can do to the rear suspension…?

Clark started the race and made excellent use of his wheelie controlling mass, which the rider next to him could not manage as you see here. Clark started out with times in the 22-23 range in traffic behind some slower 600’s. By the ½ point of his 80 minute stint he began to pick up the pace, getting into the 21’s and 22’s. Here he is in T4 and T5. On lap 42 he turned in his best lap of the race, a single time into the 20’s with a 1:20.906. At lap 52 the onboard lap timer failed when the transmitter was inexplicably removed from the pit wall, but more on this in a minute. On lap 59 Clark was given the pit signal. Since the Team only had three member, the pit stop would require impressing two onlookers for assistance. Fortunately we were able to get the experience Evan Semoff and crew from the Team Velocity Crew pitted next to us to assist with catch and fire bottle. Steve, suited up to ride next did gas cap. The pit stop was uneventful and Steve hopped on the bike for his 80 minutes.

Once on the bike Steve quickly got up to speed, but spend the first 8 laps trying to get the lap time to reset & start working. Once it became obvious that the lap timer would not work, Steve just forgot about it & concentrated on riding. The problem came when Steve tried to judge how hard to push. Without the feedback of the lap times Steve lost focus how hard he needed to push. At about the ½ point of his stint, just after race leaders Blue Ridge Performance ran off putting Team Charm into 3rd place, Clark began to give Steve his lap times which was a good thing. As soon as Steve saw that he was doing ‘23’s he wicked it up to mid ’22, followed that lap with a mid ’21 then did two ‘20’s with a best of 1:20.705. With this feed back Steve was able to stay in the ’21 & ’22 range when in the clear. Lappers would slow him up, but at least knowing where he was gave him a reference point. Steve began to pace a fellow lightweight rider for the last 1/3 of his stint but before he could make the pass for keep he got the pit signal. The pit stop was uneventful that to the kind assistance of Team Velocity Crew. As Steve sez:

“Man, that was fun, I could have stayed out there another ½ hour. I was chasing this guy down & didn’t get a chance to pass & put him to bed because the pit signal came out. The lap timer thing screwed me up. I had the same thing happen to me at Summit last year. When I don’t know how fast I’m going I have a tendency to slow down because I’m worried I’ll either cook the tires off or wad pushing too hard. I should be able to ride any pace without reference to the time, but for me it doesn’t work that way, not having my lap times is a big distraction when I’m riding. Oh, and I dragged the racing rear sets in T5!”

Bernie took to the track for his 80 minutes. Turning in laps consistently in the ’23-’24 range, with a best of 1:23.101, Bernie performed like a robot on the machine that was starting to show it wear to the tire. Here is Bernie in T4, and T5 entry and apex. Bernie finished out his stint with one large slide in 8.

Oddly, each of the riders was shifting at different points. Clark was lumbering thru T9 in fourth, shifting at the exit, then once more down the straight, while Steve was shifting into fifth coming out of 8 to get the RPM lower for the fearsome T9. Bernie was sailing thru T9 in sixth gear, down shifting into 5th for the rest of the infield. Only on a V-twin can you have three riders all turning laps within 1.5 seconds of each other using three different gears! Bernie finished off the red flag free race bringing the machine back in one piece. Here he is on the cool down lap. As Bernie states:

“I had Clark's words burning a hole in my brain during my first three laps to not throw it away, as that is the hardest part of the stint. After that I just tried to drop my lap times (one second per lap for the next 4 or 5 laps) to an area that seemed as fast as I was going to go without getting into trouble. I had a pretty uneventful stint, little slide here and there, until the last few laps when I was trying to catch another in-class bike (the Kawi that unknown to me was several laps down) when I had my really big slide coming out of 8 that I thought was going to end in a highside. Given my reputation, I decided to not try anything silly and just focus on bringing the bike home.”

Post race pictures were in order. The final results were 3rd in class behind Touring Sport Ducati 2nd and Ghetto Customs 1st. Both first and second were on the same lap, with Team Charm two laps down, and four laps ahead of fourth place.. Overall standing was 22 out of 37. The third place was a nice start to the season points chase. Here is the Team on the podium thanking the cornerworkers, Team Velocity Crew and WERA. After a night celebrating and downloading the lap data from Mylaps.com the team drove home uneventfully on Sunday. Looking at the lap data Bernie opined:

“After looking at MyLaps for a while, I must say that we rode a very consistent race compared to our competitors. While others may have had some blazing fast laps here and there, they were very inconsistent. Like all over the place. All of us definitely had a consistent groove going. It looks like everyone else totally smoked their tires. Even as slow as I was, by the time the last 20 laps rolled around, we were the fastest lightweight bike out there. I know we can't count on everybody else trashing their tires to help us at other tracks, but it is nice to see the results of a good steady pace while taking care of the equipment!”

Thanks to our wives, friends and families for their support. Next event, 5/4 Barber. See you at the track!!!

5/5/07, Barber Motorsports Park, AL, WERA Endurance

Team Charm gets the 3rd place attendance award while having fun at a wonderful facility.

Reported by Team Charm Staff;

The second round of the WERA National Endurance Series brought team charm to Leeds, AL after a rather stressful evening driving the RV & trailer down thursday night. At about 2am the rig was brought to a complete stop in the middle of the highway for a traffic jam. Bernie, who was driving, began to curse forcefully. Steve, who was just awaking in the passenger seat in the bridge, wondered what Bernie was so upset about. Not a moment longer did Steve ponder this while looking across at Bernie when a semi truck flashed by at about 60 mph, the bow wave rocking the RV onto its left side wheels. The truck barley missed the rig, and almost didn't stop for the traffic jam, pratically rear ending the stopped vehicles in the left lane. Bernie had cursed because he saw the truck in the review mirror was having a hard time slowing down. After the shock wore off the team, plus passenger Jeff Atwell, parked on the highway for about hour waiting for whatever the problem was to get cleared. The net effect was a delay to arrival to the track. During the delay the team watched the AMA superbike coverage from the preceding weekend. It was a great opportunity to get a idea of what the track was like. Jamie Hacking horrendous crash was also something to see.

Friday practice day was a bit hectic as the team scrambled about getting tires and everyone enough practice. This event was the first time to the motorcycle Mecca for Bernie and Steve. The famous turns and museum are worth going to if you have never been. During the last practice set of the day Bernie and Steve were out on the blue and yellow bikes. Bernie passed Steve on the slightly faster blue machine and made it stick. Or as Steve sez;

“Bernie was moving fast, he totally schooled me. He went around and I tried to get back around him but could not muster the pass. I’m having trouble with the last turn getting on the front straight and the Alabama roller coaster in front of the museum”

The rider order was decided based on practice lap times, which had Clark fastest, Bernie second and Steve last. This weekend saw the A bike with a new paint job courtesy of the students in the collision refinishing department at CATN. Obviously when one has a race bike with a new paint job, you always take pictures BEFORE the racing starts. With that in mind here is our team on Saturday morning before the start of the race.

Clark started the race. Clark will update with his observations of the ride. A red flag came out during his stint. He did a restart. His best lap time was a ’42.4

Bernie rode next. The neat thing about this track is that there is a clock that shows overall race time in the infield that you can see while going down the front straight. It made being aware of how soon you had to pit very easy. Bernie’s best lap was a ’43.5

Steve hopped on the bike for the last hour and twenty minute ride of the four hour race. His best lap was a ’44.6. Here he is going down the straight. Into Charlotte’s web. Out of Charlotte’s web with fellow Mid Atlantic rider Paul Youngman behind him.

The results were Team Charm was dead last and third place at the same time as there was only three entrants in the lightweight race. As Bernie put it:

“I was looking at the MyLaps data and being the eternal optimist, I am encouraged. Ghetto did indeed spank us and Bad Rad has one really fast guy, but we did not have our ass handed to us. Both Ghetto and Bad Rad started with a very fast guy. But Clark was on pace with Ghetto's other two riders, and Clark was significantly faster than Bad Rad's other two riders. Harris and I were either on pace with, or were slightly faster than Bad Rad's last two riders. We all just have to marginally up our pace just a little to combat the lead built up by their fast first rider and then ride a good clean race and let their slower riders bring the race back to us.

The glass is half full!”

Thanks to our wives, friends and families for their support. Next event, 6/15 Miller. See you at the track!!!

6/16/07, Miller Motorsports Park, Tooele, AL, WERA Endurance

Yea, its a dry heat, Team Charm earns 2rd place while having fun at a wonderful facility.

Reported by Team Charm Staff;

The third round of the WERA National Endurance Series brought Team Charm 2/3's of the way across the country to the high desert to continue the assault upon our sweat glands. The Miller round promised to be a start of a grand two weeks for Team Charm, involving more logistics, travel and effort than our 24 hour Nelson event back in ‘93. The effort would pay off with two good finishes and a week of outstanding trail riding.

Joining the team in the pits for this event was Team Charm founding member Rich Sturges and Jennilynne Guthridge. For the first time the team would have to pack the trailer for two 6 hour endurance races and a week of trail riding. This would involve loading 3 road racing motorcycles, 3 trail riding motorcycles, road racing gear, trail riding gear, camping gear and miscellaneous luggage for two and a half weeks travel in the trailer. Since the drive involved too much distance / time for the team to all travel together, Clark volunteered himself and Jen to make the trip out west, stopping to visit relatives in the Midwest. Bernie, Rich and Steve would fly in on Thursday night the 14th. After the race, Clark, Jen and Bernie would fly back to DC leaving Steve and Rich to start the drive to Atlanta for the next round 10 days later. Joining the two in Colorado would be Drew Marcum, a former student of Steve’s, for a week of trail riding in the Breckenridge area. The Friday following the Miller race Rich would fly home from Denver leaving Drew and Steve to make the drive to Atlanta. Theoretically Clark and Bernie would drive the RV down to Road Atlanta for the next race ten days hence, or so the plan looked.

Clark and Jen left on Tuesday 6/12 for Utah. Bernie’s flight from IAD was uneventful on Thursday, and was Clark and Jen’s drive. Rich and Steve on the other hand got delayed leaving BWI due to a mechanical problem with the aircraft. The result was Steve and Rich making a tour of the bars of BWI & closing them all down. Upon arrival in SLC Rich and Steve called Bernie, who was asleep in the hotel to please come pick them. Fortunately the race track and hotel are only about ½ hour from SLC. After going to bed Bernie and Rich were awoken by the sounds of Steve getting profoundly sick in the bathroom. Steve was ill enough that he had to stay in the hotel room & miss morning practice not even being able to hold down water. It looked like food poisoning, but Steve started to turn the corner & got to the point he could hold down water so the risk of dehydration passed. Perhaps it was an adverse reaction to too much alcohol, lack of sleep preceding jet lag or general stress from all the headaches of getting ready for the trip. By the afternoon Steve was able to get our for a few laps on the stellar circuit.

Meanwhile the rest of the team unloaded & got into the fray for the normal practice day routine. The yellow bike had a noticeable bog up top, likely due to the almost mile high elevation of the race track. In addition, with temps in the 90’s and about 13% humidity, it was a real challenge to keep enough water in your system. The track is ridiculously fast 3.5 mile circuit with a 3800 foot main straight that had the thin air wheezing motor and rider gasping at max after pit out. With the bike totally topped out about 2/3 of the way down the straight, if the wind blew, it would have a large effect on terminal velocity. This combined with the lack of visual reference marks on the track, the long distance parallax making judging distance difficult and newness of the track to make chronic too slow entry speeds. If you blew the entry to a turn, it took you two turns to get back on pace. It would be a long race. Steve joined the team in the afternoon. Despite queasiness he managed to put in several laps in the last two sessions of the afternoon. Here is an example of three riders in the final turn getting up on the straight. Which one is wiping the vomit off their face shield?

Friday night the team went out to dinner at a Mexican place that has portion control problems. Steve managed to eat some food & everyone went to bed early well stuffed. Saturday the forecast was for temps close to 100 and high winds from a front that went over the night before. Hydration would be a issue at this event. Bernie and Steve would attempt to use hydration packs during this event for the first time. Clark, who has used camel back hydrations systems for years, acted like it was no problem using them. During practice Bernie tried his out & did not feel that he could use it during the race due to the shape of the hose end. Steve, feeling much better then he did the day before, managed to run off the track in Tooele turn. In doing so he discovered that the off track surface, which looks like sand & rock, is actually graded & flat with only slightly less traction than track surface. Bottom line, at this course, if you find yourself running off at Miller, do not despair. The plan was to have three 120 minute stints to make up the 6 hour running time. Consumption measurements indicated that we needed 5 gallons of fuel to go the 120 minutes, the problem is we did not know exactly what our useable fuel load was on the enlarged fuel cell due to prior crash damage. More disturbing, the fuel level warning light was disconnected on the tank with the wires having been cut some time ago because the tank capacity exceeded what was needed then. More on this in a bit.

The 6 hour race was flagged off at its normal time. Like Barber, there were only three entrants in the lightweight class, and only 32 total in the main race. Apparently most teams choose to not drive across the country. The rider order was decided on practice lap times. Clark would ride first followed by Bernie then Steve.

Clark started in grand fashion. He will update the web page with his observations. Once we got to the hour and a half mark in the race Steve had Bernie ready to go incase Steve couldn’t go the full 120 minutes. With just shy of an hour and 40 minutes into the race Rich noticed that Clark was overdue on his lap at the same time Jen her the radio call of a rolling mechanical. The bike started to sputter running out of fuel going into T5. Clark was able to nurse it around at a reduced race and pulled in for the pit stop. While coasting in he was able to pull the gas cap off ready for the dump can, which suprise everyone when we thought he had lost it. "No wonder he ran out of gas, there is no cap on the tank" was Bernie's observation. Since everything was ready, the only time lost was about a minute of a slow lap. This was very lucky, because with a 3.5 mile track lap distance, had he run out of fuel else where it could have been bad. As Steve said:

“You could see Clark coming around, he was right there, but then again you can see the mountains outside the track, there right there also, 20 miles away… I gotta fix that fuel sender switch.”

Bernie went out for his revised 90 minute ride instead of 120 planned. This would mean another pit stop to make the race distance. Since Clark rode first he would have to ride the last stint. As Bernie commented:

“Miller was an awesome track. During my final practice set on Friday, I comfortably turned several 18s in a row. Given my predictable progression at other tracks I have learned, and knowing that I still had several seconds left on the table, I was very confident that I would be turning consistent 16s in the race on Saturday.

I made the tactical mistake of not trying my Camelback before Saturday morning warm-up. Not good. The hose and mouthpiece crowded me in my helmet. I got a strange claustrophobic feeling from it and it was very distracting. I wasn't able to get below a 22 in warm-ups and was pretty discouraged. I was planning on riding two hours and I knew that I would be very dehydrated at the end of my stint. I thought about it after warm-ups and decided it would be better to be really thirsty after my stint instead of being refreshed, yet distracted enough to pitch the bike down the track during the race. As it turned out, the bike was thirstier than I was, and riding without the Camelback for an hour and a half wasn't that big of a deal.

The hind winds on Saturday on the other hand, was a big deal for me. It was a real learning experience for me and I struggled to hit my marks during my race stint because I was being blown around. I couldn't help but focus on the track right in front of me instead of looking up the track. That of course made it impossible for me to string anything together on the track, so each lap was a series of mistakes that compounded each other and turned me into a slowpoke. My fastest race lap was slower than my Friday practice laps. Bummer.

The one highlight of my race stint was passing one of our LWSB competitors Bad Rad's riders and getting a lap back from them. As I caught up to him and realized that he was an in-class bike, the red mist went up. I showed him a wheel a time or two, but every time we got on the gas, I had nothing for him. We would arrive at the next corner only to have him hold me up through the corner. I passed him around the outside two turns from the front straight (in full view of their pit) and I am sure that made him pretty mad! He re-passed me on the front straight, but it was on! Shortly thereafter I passed him for good in the back section and settled into the 19 range, which was sadly all I could muster.

I felt like my pace had cost us about 90 seconds over the course of my stint compared to what I expected to do, but like Clark told me at Barber, "Upright is alright". I'll take it like a man and look forward to Atlanta in two weeks.”

At 82 laps into the race Bernie came in after being out for about a hour and a half. He was starting to cramp & would have pulled himself off had he not been given the pit signal. During the pit stop Bernie inspected the rear tire but did not notice the rear shock nitrogen reservoir hanging down from the stainless steel wrapped hose. Neither did Steve notice it. Apparently the piece of metal it was hosed clamped to was copper that was painted black to match the steel sub-frame by the person who originally set up the bike. Obviously copper is not the material something like should be fabricated from for an endurance bike. Lesson learned, just because something you didn’t do looks right, check it anyway.

After re-fueling Steve went out for his 90 minute stint. Almost immediately he noticed something hitting his left leg in the turns. After looking down he saw the reservoir hanging off. Realizing it was only a matter of time before race officials noticed it & he was black flagged he came up with the plan to come into the pits, point it out to Rich, then go back out for two more laps. Rich then would have time to come up with a impromptu repair plan while Steve was circulating the course so stopped time would be minimized. Classic endurance racing strategy, except the red flag came out as Steve was on the pit lane.

This meant the team could not work on the bike during the red flag. Worse yet, the team had to take the re-start or suffer a one lap penalty. While other racers had noticed the reservoir flapping in the breeze, thus far no corner-worker or official had seen it. One theory had that Steve walk out to the bike and somehow zip tie it in rough position for the restart, then pit after the green flag for a real repair. It would be unsafe and it was unlikely the officials would not notice the shock hanging dangerously off when gridding up for the re-start. Furthermore, the team was one lap down on first place and 5 ahead of third. Steve opted, and Clark put it, to go with safety over results, and to take the one lap penalty. Here the team plans the repair prior to the restart. After the green flag flew the team went to work on the machine and got the reservoir back on.

The remaining hour and 10 minutes of Steve’s stint went uneventfully. As Steve said;

“I really wanted to get into the ‘17’s. I did a couple of ‘18’s flat but between the wind and everything I didn’t get to my goal. I’m just happy I’m not face down in the toilet still or face up in the ambulance after that shock thing.”

Clark rode the final stint cut short be the red flag. The team ended up 2nd in class, two laps down on first place and 8 laps up on third. Here is Clark coming in. Post race pictures and winner circle speech were in order.

Thanks to our wives, Jennilynne Guthridge and families for their support. See you at the track!!!

6/29/07 Road Atlanta, Beasleton, GA 6 Hour, WERA Endurance

A red flag fest,Team Charm earns 3rd place after two weeks of splendid travel.

Reported by Team Charm Staff;

The fourth round of the WERA national endurance series brings our team to the Cycle Jam at Road Atlanta 2007. This event is always well attended as it combines national challenge series event with a national endurance series event and a double points regional event over three action packed days of racing. This year would be no exception. After thin grids in the lightweight class at the last two rounds of the series there was a full grid of lightweight bikes with 7 entries in the lightweight race out of 39 total.

When we last left off our team was leaving Tooele, Utah for the 2500 mile trip home via a week in Breckenridge, CO for some trail riding. In January, after looking at the map, it became obvious to Steve that he should be the one to drive the rig home as school would be out during that time, and the by driving directly to GA almost $500 of fuel costs could be saved. This would also make an excellent opportunity to do some trail riding out west. Occasional Team Charm rider Ken Masson was kind enough to offer the use of the Masson family condo in Breckenridge as a home base drop the trailer at for some off road riding. This offered an excellent, safe place to leave the truck and trailer rig while Steve, Rich and newly graduated Drew went trail riding. New to off road riding both Rich and Steve learned a lot riding down the trails in CO that frequently ended in snow before the summit would be reached. The threesome did manage to top out at 14,172 on the top of Mount Bross after a short hike when the bikes became mired in snow at about the 13,600 elevation. It was tough riding, but very rewarding. The town of Breckenridge was charming and we are deeply appreciative of the Masson’s for allowing us to use their condo, thanks again!

After dropping Rich off at the airport Drew and Steve pointed the truck east and set the cruise control to 65mph. The trip went uneventful save for running out of fuel in the truck 8 miles from Dodge City. Apparently being challenged by fuel management does not only apply to the race track for Team Charm. Steve was asleep when the truck got the ¼ tank, by the time he woke up and the yellow light came on they were 18 miles from Dodge City. Figuring the truck had to be able to go at least 18 miles once the light came on the twosome agreed to press ahead rather than back track. Well the truck sputtered to a halt 10 mile later. As luck would have it, we rode a bike to Dodge City where we got 5 gallons of diesel. The only hard part came in priming the engine to purge all the air in the fuel system. Apparently the GMC foreign made diesel product does not auto prime like the Ford domestic product when run out of fuel. Oh well, the team must soldier on with the equipment on hand

Upon arrival to Road Atlanta Steve and Drew unpacked a little and promptly went to bed after a stressful drive in Atlanta rush hour. Bernie and Clark pushed the speed up for the converging after stopping for some bike swap-page somewhere in NC. They arrived around 2am and racked out.

Thursday morning the weather look good for practice. Steve and Drew were up early since they went to bed early. Well actually, Steve was up early, then woke Drew got woken up. After they got the team registered and both bikes tech’d everything looked good for the morning practice. Steve went out first one the yellow bike with Bernie on the blue bike.

Steve was under-whelmed at the “new” to him chicane at the top of the hill. The last time Steve turned more than 5 laps at Road Atlanta was 1997. Most of his experience is from the “Gravity Cavity” days. In fact, in 2002, the last time he was at Atlanta, he only turned a handful of laps in the rain. As Steve said;

“I justdon’t get the new chicane. It just sticks out like a sore thumb in what would otherwise be a wonderful lap. It’s like the Alabama roller coaster at Barber. Why is it there? Really, the heart and soul of this place went with the elimination of the Cavity. I can say that because I have only had to ride lightweight bikes here.”

The good news is the bog at the top on the yellow bike that it had at the near 5k foot elevation Miller was gone at the 300 foot elevation Road Atlanta. I guess we’re a little rich on the main, huh. Clark and Bernie took both bikes out in the next lightweight practice. Clark came back into the pits early after a crash coming into T10 at the bottom of the hill. The damage was minor, limited to some fairing repairs and left peg replacement. As Clark said:

“I was feeling my oats riding it like a sprint bike, the yellow machine was running much better than at Miller. I tried to pass two slower riders in the lightweight group going in which was too much for that spot. I’m really glad I didn’t hit anyone”

First time to Atlanta, Bernie kept refining his lines and figuring out where he wanted to go. After repairs to the yellow bike Steve took it out in the afternoon and opinion that the bike was easier to hang off on the left side due to the peg being ground down by Clark. A scheduled oil change for the blue bike and replacement of a broken exhaust hanger rounded out the evening’s maintenance. Drew mounted the 17 inch rims on his DRZ400SM. After dinner the group watched the pre-recorded AMA superbike race coverage from Miller then went to bed.

Friday race day the team slept in late which was nice. Since there was only endurance practice at 9am it was a easy ramp up to the days riding. After getting all set up at the hot pit the team had time to get the spare wheel mounted, tire warmers one and tools spread out. Rider order for this event was decided based upon two parameters. Based on running out of gas at Miller the team knew it could only count on 90 minutes of fuel. Since it was a 6 hour race, that ment a minuim of three pit stops. Therefore that meant four hour and a half stints for three riders. Obviously whomever went first would also go last to give them time to recoup. Dispite crashing Clark seemed most settled, doing '43's in pratice. Both Steve and Bernie got down to '45's comfortably. Bernie would be next followed by Steve then Clark again for the finished. Or so the plan went.

The race was flagged off at the normal time. Here is Clark coming onto the front straight .Within a few laps there was the first of five red flags that cut the overall race time almost in half. Clark took the restart & set about finishing his stint mainly in the '42 range with best lap of '41.4. The team was getting ready for its first pit stop. Steve insisted on everyone being in place ready to go incase Clark had to come in early for some reason. Sure enough, about one lap before he was to get the pit signal, Clark was late coming around. After a few tense moments, Clark finally came out from under the bridge coasting along at about 20 mph. He had run out of fuel. Fortunally it is all downhill to the pit area, and he was able to bring the bike in for the pit stop. After refueling Bernie went out for his stint. As Steve said:

"We have got to get that fuel level send fixed. Given the option between being lucky or fast, we have been lucky on the gas thing. If he ran out elsewhere on the track we would have waited 20 minutes for the crash truck to bring him around."

Here is Bernie at the red flag caused restart that happened just into his stint. To be safe Steve decided to cut rides down to 80 minutes. The balance of the time lost in the red flags would still mean the team would not have to do an extra pit stop.

By this point in the race the team had settled into third place, just two laps ahead of Bad Rad and five laps behing Getto and Ducati. Looking at the positions, knowing that after Bernie came in both Steve and Clark would have to ride, and knowing that Clark would be about a second or two per lap faster than Steve the decisgn was made to send Clark out first. Due to further red flags the second pit stop went uneventfully. Just after Clark was back out there was another red flag race stoppage happened. Looking at the clock, the team almost but did not have enough fuel to finish the race. 4th place Bad Rad still had to pit for fuel. Steve decided to pit Clark with 45 minutes to go, and two gallons of fuel, and ride the ride the final 45 minutes. At this point Clark came around and signalled he needed to get off and would be coming in in four laps. Here is Clark going by on the straight. Since everything was ready in the pits, Bernie gave him the pit signal. Clark came in for the splash and go and Steve went out.

Settling on the bike Steve noticed right away how good the tires were still, only have just a little over three hours on them. Steve had left instructions with Drew to let him know if he needed to speed up or slow down based on 4th place Bad Rad. As it turns out Steve got about 3 laps before the red flag came out again for a spectacular crash caused fire on the outside of T1. By the time the fire was put out the race clock was below 1/2 hour and WERA called the race. The team netted third out of eight entrants one of which was a DNS. A big thank you to first time pit crew member, 18 year old Drew Marcum for taking all the pictures, which provide a curious back and fore ground composition. Since out hot pit was almost in the winner circle it was easy for us to be on time for our podium victory speech thanking the corner workers who truely had an epic challange on this day with all the red flags, the other lightweight teams for showing up, Virginia Arms, Louden Motorsports, Vesrah, Perelli and Pit Bull. Of course there is always the trophy bike team picture. The team has finished on the podium at ever event thus far this year.

With 4 of 10 events completed Team Charm currently leads the lightweight superbike points chase with 37 over second place Bad Rad and 68 over third place Getto Customs. In the overall point chase the team is 13th out of 77. While there are teams out there that are faster, none are having more fun than us. Our consistant and thoughtful effort is yeilding results in the endurance format. More importantly, the remaining 6 events are all at tracks that we have been at before, so we hope to increase our competative results while leading the "have lots of fun" goal.

The class points can be viewed at http://www.wera.com/points/2007/classpts.htm

The overall points can be viewed at http://www.wera.com/points/2007/oapts.htm

Top 5 lightweight superbike points this far;
LSB # Roebling Barber Miller Road Atlanta Total
1 Team Charm 911 97.62 89.76 106.4 91.75 385.53
2 Bad Rad Racing 23 49.16 95.48 117 86.5 348.14
3 Ghetto Customs 419 113.06 105.96 98 317.02
4 Touring Sport Ducati 38 103.06 108.25 211.31
5 Twin Works Factory-East 651 84.32 75.25 159.57

Thanks to our wives, Jennilynne Guthridge and families for their support. See you at the track!!!