George McConnel's RC51 BLOG
| Date: | April 28-29, 2007 |
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| Track: | Nashville SuperSpeedway |
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| Bike: | 2002 Honda RVT1000 (RC51) |
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| Weather: | Sunny, highs in the lower 80's each day. |
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| Sponsor: | N/A |
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| Conducted By: | WERA |
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Track Diagram |
The Nashville SuperSpeedway is a combination track. NASCAR racers use the outer oval, basically
just a large concrete track with a back straight, two ends and a tri-oval front "straight".
The road course drops off the tri-oval into the infield, winds through turns 1-6, then exits
briefly onto part of the back straight before dipping back into the infield for turns 7-10. Turn 10
is a long non-banked sweeper that exits back onto the front straight. There are transitional seams
at each of the four places where the infield road course joins the NASCAR oval. At these points you
have to be careful to choose a line that avoids too sudden a transition or you end up getting jarred
really hard. |
Actually I only rode on Sunday this time, although I did arrive at the track late Saturday afternoon
in order to drop off my bike and get set up in the paddock. The Music City Marathon was going on
that same weekend and I was able to make a little extra racing money by hauling a photographer
around on the back of my Gold Wing for a few hours Saturday morning.
I pitted with Dewayne. Tom Lees was going to be there the next morning, so we left plenty of
room for him to pit in the same garage. Sunday morning I arrived very early and then proceeded
to stand in line for a long time waiting for a chance to register. Registration went pretty
quickly once they opened the line (at 8:00). By 8:10 I was back in the paddock filling out
the tech form. The bike passed tech easily. In spite of these easy developments I was still
just a bit hurried to try to get everything ready for my first practice session.
Heading towards the high speed transition onto the Tri-Oval...
I only had a chance to put the tire warmers on for maybe 15 or so minutes before they issued first
call for my practice group. I tried to leave them on as long as I could. Finally they called
my group and off the warmers came. I headed out of the paddock and onto the track, taking it easy
during the first lap to try to heat up the tires a bit before starting to push. Unfortunately,
just as I was starting my second lap a rider went down in front of me. He slid way up the banking
on the back straight so he was well out of my way. I entered the chicane with a little more speed
but just as soon as I could see around the entrance to the chicane I saw a red flag waving. My
practice had already been red flagged in less than 2 laps.
They promised they'd try to give our group a more time during our second practice to make up for
the early red flag but as nearly as I can tell that never happened. We did get our second practice
in but I believe they just gave us the normal 15 or so minutes of track time. No matter, I was
still a little tenuous on that track that I had wiped out on twice in one weekend scarcely 7 months ago.
For some reason the guy who usually drives the crash truck ("Fuzzy") wasn't able to remain at
the track during the afternoon. Jeff (Mr. Microphone) asked if anyone had a small trailer they
could use for a crash truck during the afternoon. I happened to be standing nearby when the
announcement was made, so I walked over and offered the services of my Land Rover and the snazzy
little red trailer I had bought at Harbor Freight recently. My offer was accepted, and suddenly
my truck got to be "crash truck for a day". Unfortunately it got a lot of action as the afternoon
wore on.
My "nephew" Jackson sitting on my bike
For the first time, my "great nephew" Jackson came to the track. Awhile back we got him an official
looking tee shirt to wear whenever he can come to the track. He posed for several cute shots on
my bike in the pit.
Once again I signed up for just one race, Heavyweight Twins Superstock Novice. It was the fourth
race of the afternoon, so my day was going to be over pretty early. I felt strangely calm as
my race approached. I had checked the grids and I was in the first wave, gridded in 2nd place (which
for us Novices meant lining up on the 7th row), as the experts were gridded beginning in the 1st row.
Gridded up for HWT SS Novice...
The green flag came out and I actually got a pretty decent start. In fact I passed one of the
expert riders during the start and stayed ahead of him for about three laps. Of course eventually
the other riders managed to get in front of me (I'm still a pretty slow rider, relatively speaking)
and I ended up with a 4th place finish. That sounds good, but there were only four riders in my
class.
I finished the race just fine and was grinning at the end of the day. My best lap time on NSS
this time was in the low 1:18's, which is still 2 seconds slower than I was going before I crashed
the first time, but I was a lot more comfortable and having fun out there this weekend. For now
I am officially cured from the crash.
More pictures of Jackson...
Most important lesson learned during this race day: Racing is fun again!
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