James Gang wins @ moto-st
Another long day out in the beautiful sunshine in Topeka, Kansas.
Up at 6am to get the tire warmers on for the morning practice and qualifying. The team was a bit short-handed so I learned how to take the back wheel off for a race pitstop.
I think a little bad luck yesterday put everyone’s head in the game for today.
We finished in third place in the GST division making this the 8th podium finish in a row for the team. They really did perform well as a team during the race crunchtime. And, for a 3.5 hour enurance race everyone looked out for one another. It’s more like a family atmosphere than just a crew.
That said it doesn’t mean I don’t want some time away from the family, a hot shower and something other than track food (think carnival cuisine with a slightly better menu).
I’m now curling up in a bed at the Topeka Super8 motel. Tired. Drained.
Given the opportunity again I’d jump at the chance to be on their crew.
Anonymouse on 18 Aug 2008 at 9:25 am #
Hawt! That “uniform” looks awesome….maybe a new career choice?
Ric on 18 Aug 2008 at 7:06 pm #
Looks like it was a lot of work. How many times in the 3.5 hours did the bikes have pit stops? How many bikes were you responsible to take care of?
J on 18 Aug 2008 at 8:46 pm #
we did two pitstops. The first was a rider change (Jeff took over for Walt), fuel and a rear tire. I ran the impact driver while Mike, the crew chief, changed it. It took a bit longer than it should have at :51 seconds.
The second was also a change of rider (Paul took over for Jeff) and refuelling as well as changing a front tire. That took more than a minute to do and I was merely shuffling the tires in and out and doing a quick visual inspection of a possible problem area.
Fortunately for the riders I wasn’t responsible for any of the bikes. I was merely a cog in the wheel…so to speak.
Shawn King on 21 Aug 2008 at 8:35 am #
It looks and sounds like you had *so* much fun! If it’s a 3.5 hr race, and pit stops took a minute or so, what did you guys do in the middle bits? I can’t imagine you sat around shooting the shit and drinking beers….
J. Curtis on 21 Aug 2008 at 8:55 am #
Yah, we weren’t sitting around drinking beer. No alcohol, no smoking, no sitting on the pit wall during the race.
Most of the time it was prepping any items that *might* be needed for a pit stop –tires, shift levers, fuel, tools, etc.
We did, however, shoot the shit as it wasn’t specified in the rule book that we couldn’t.