Ain't No Parking Lot!!
That's right, Team Swunk went racing down at Pat's Acre in Portland, Oregon over the weekend. When they got there Thursday evening and saw the track, they new they were in for an awesome weekend. No oil slicks, no painted lines, no cement islands. Only black pavement with curves that would make any woman jealous. It certainly would be a learning experience for the Team Swunk riders, especially when they would be racing against racers from all parts of California, Oregon, Washington and even as far as Alberta. The Hornet and Razor walked the track in the late evening ( they needed flash lights to see the track, with beer in hand of course), and was learning from a local who was showing them the lines they needed to be up to par with the rest. Well, it was off to bed for them now, and they went to sleep with smiles from ear to ear knowing that they would finally get to race on a "Real" race track, and not some parking lot.
All day Practice.
Friday couldn't come around quick enough, but when it did, Team Swunk was quick to throw on the leathers and try to conquer this beast before them. The first few laps were easy to describe, "Scary". It was nothing that they had ever imagined. Double apex corners, banked corners and hills. A far cry from home indeed. They had 8 hours to learn the track, yes that's right, 8 HOURS!! Practice started at 10 and finished at 6. After the first session of practice, both felt the blood pumping and the adrenaline rush. The next session went smoother, and they both felt at home, becoming more fluid in their turns and moving on the bike more confident. At 1 o'clock, a photographer came in from Cycle News and was to do a story on the 2nd annual event. The bikes were divided into categories and had separate times on the track for a photograph session. After that, now being around 2:30, they had a women's only session. Then an hour later it was an open session. Being tired from the traveling and all the excitement, Razor passed out in his chair for about 45 mins. The Hornet, I guess he was practicing on the track. After the snooze was over, Razor went out back on the track for his last chance to "BE FAST", he just came off the track when I caught up to him. "Wow, this track is awesome, nothing like this back home. The track is full of traction and not one bit of slipping. It did take some getting used to the banked corners and sort of corkscrew turn, but after this last session I feel quite confident that I can do well." As for the Hornet, all that could be heard was " I could go home right now, and be totally happy. This was awesome, I'm so glad we came down to race. Racing on this track has been better than all my 1 1/2 years of racing combined. " Needless to say, I think he's happy.
Saturday was race day, or crash day?
Well, it was up and at em bright and early on Saturday morning. Getting up late was not a good idea, as practice ended at 8:45 and the team got up around 8. They quickly threw on the leather and proceeded to get in as many practice laps as possible. Just as the practice session was about to end, Razor was following another rider into turn 2. WHAM!! the rider in front, locks up his rear tire and it does a 180. The Razor, with his cat like reflexes, tries to avoid running over the bike and rider. Just when it looks like he can, the rider decides to let go of his bike and fall backwards. BANG, Razor hits the rider and is forced off the track into the dirt and grass. Thank goodness, no one is hurt, and there is no damage to the bikes. That officially ended the practice session. With 12 classes to run, it was definitely going to be a busy day. Team Swunk had entered into 4 classes. First off was qualifying for qualifying. Go figure? They had to qualify to see where they would be grid in the next qualifying heat. The first race was 50 mod, then 80 stock, 80 GP then Extreme. All went well in the set of pre qualifying heats. Next, was qualifying. This is where the chaos starts. In the Mod 50, it was a 5 lap qualifier. The Razor and Hornet were doing well. On about the 3rd lap in, Razor was about to overtake another rider coming down the front straight into the 1st corner sweeper. Just as he was entering the corner on the inside line, the other rider decided that, that was his line. Razor had to quickly tap his brakes to avoid hitting the other rider. The bike stood up and went straight. Because of the speed Razor couldn't continue in the sweeper and went off the track. The runaway was a dirt field, Razor tried to keep it up as long as possible, but the runaway was disappearing quick. Another light tap on the brakes, BAM!! into the dirt. Razor got back up and proceeded to finish the qualifier on the last row.
Everything went well in the other 2 classes, no crashes there. Then, it was time for the Extreme class. That's basically any bike. There was about 25 - 30 bikes that started in this qualifier. When the flag dropped, as always, everyone took off into the first turn. As Razor and Hornet had talked about it earlier, they decided to hang back a bit due to all the congestion. Razor was just slightly ahead of Hornet as they entered the corner. It all looked good as everyone seemed to have their own line, even though at time it was 4 wide into the corner. Then out of nowhere, someone cut off another rider, just so happens it was in front of Razor. Well, he had nowhere to go and hit either the bike or the rider, or both, and down he went off the track into the grass and dirt. Next thing you know a bikes rear tire falls on his head and as he gets up he sees the Hornet standing next to him. It turns out, as Razor went down, the Hornet was right behind him and rode over the Razor and flipped and slammed his head on the track. Needless to say, the race was red flagged and Team Swunk went back to the pits to fix their bikes and recover. They started the qualifier over again without Team Swunk.
We still do not have any final positions of finishes for any of the above classes. We are still hoping to get those sometime soon. But if you look CAREFULLY at the picture below, you can picture how the Team Swunk riders finished. Just a side note, after the crash in the Extreme class, Team Swunk thought that they wouldn't ride in that class because there were way to many riders, (and a lot of them had WAY FAST bikes). But after thinking it over, they figured they would just at least go out for a ride and stay back, especially at the start. What was really funny was when the main race was about to start, the field dropped down to about 15 riders. So take your hat's off boys, you're not as chicken as we thought.
