Round 7 of the National ASRA Pro Thunderbike series headed to Road America in Elkhart Lake, WI. This is the fastest track on the circuit; yes, faster average speed than Daytona. With the national championship getting closer, I knew this would be a pivotal round. Getting ready for the race weekend was tougher than I realized. I rented a truck from Enterprise and loaded as much as I could into the 6 ft. bed and I was off. Arriving 17 hours later (at 1am), knowing I needed to be at the track by 7am, really set the tone for the day. No worries, I knew Jim Doyle from Kansas was coming! Jim has selflessly helped me from Topeka, now to Road America, and onto Barber.
There was so much riding on that weekend that I could not have done it without him. To top it off, a USGPRU race team based out of Nova Scotia called RAT (Remote Access Technologies) was ultra helpful with the pit space and canopy we could not fit in the truck. I met them at the Summit Point round of ASRA and we all clicked really well and had fun.
So, feeling rather sluggish and cramped from the straight drive, I did not expect much, lap-time wise. We got one of the R1200S's ready and went out for practice. To my surprise, I was 0.3 seconds (1'29.7 in 2007) off of my fastest race time from the season before. That really made me feel better and it was on from there. With the National Pro Thunderbike race as priority, I knew there would be two opportunities to race my top competition, Factory Buell racer extraordinaire Dave Estok. Dave is a great racer and pushes me and the BMW R1200S pretty hard. There would be two CCS Thunderbike races, one Supertwins, and the National ASRA Pro Thunderbike.
Not to bore youse, but all I can say is - it was on! Dave was ready and so was I. From the start, the first CCS Thunderbike race came down to the line, with a draft pass for the win with under 0.1 seconds separating us.
The second race was the Supertwins race, where we ran our Thunderbikes again and Dave got the better of the battle by exactly 0.1 seconds at the finish line...this time.
The second CCS Thunderbike race was rather uneventful, due to Estok's bike breaking on the warm up lap. We won by a wide margin.
Now it's time for the ASRA National Pro Thunderbike race. We wanted it. I was on pole, with Estok on the front row also. The flag dropped and this 10 lap sprint on the huge 4.1 mile track was a barn burner. The most ferocious braking battles took place in T1 and T5, drafting and side-by-side corners all throughout the race. We swaped the lead four times on one lap. With a way shorter wheelbase, Estok was able to pull about 4 bike lengths each time from Canada Corner to the front straight. On the last lap, we had a braking battle into T5 from top of 6th gear down to 2nd gear as fast as we could. I won, but then he came down hard but under control into Canada Corner, hoping to pull a bigger gap with 3 turns to go. I really put my head down and made sure I optimized contact patch for traction off the corner, through more body position off of the bike and less lean angle. The center of gravity we are keeping off of the top of the bike by hanging off into the direction of the corner allows the bike to keep turning, but having the bike more upright allows us to get on the meat of the tire sooner and pull the trigger/throttle faster, while clearing the cylinder heads over the raised rumble strips.
Off of the last corner the gap was not nearly as big as previous laps and with a perfect draft pass, Team BMWXPLOR.com nipped the competition at the line by 0.09 seconds!
Thank you BMW riders that rode from all over to witness and share in the fun! One race closer to that # 1 plate that all you BMW riders deserve.
Nate
N8!
There was so much riding on that weekend that I could not have done it without him. To top it off, a USGPRU race team based out of Nova Scotia called RAT (Remote Access Technologies) was ultra helpful with the pit space and canopy we could not fit in the truck. I met them at the Summit Point round of ASRA and we all clicked really well and had fun.
So, feeling rather sluggish and cramped from the straight drive, I did not expect much, lap-time wise. We got one of the R1200S's ready and went out for practice. To my surprise, I was 0.3 seconds (1'29.7 in 2007) off of my fastest race time from the season before. That really made me feel better and it was on from there. With the National Pro Thunderbike race as priority, I knew there would be two opportunities to race my top competition, Factory Buell racer extraordinaire Dave Estok. Dave is a great racer and pushes me and the BMW R1200S pretty hard. There would be two CCS Thunderbike races, one Supertwins, and the National ASRA Pro Thunderbike.
Not to bore youse, but all I can say is - it was on! Dave was ready and so was I. From the start, the first CCS Thunderbike race came down to the line, with a draft pass for the win with under 0.1 seconds separating us.
The second race was the Supertwins race, where we ran our Thunderbikes again and Dave got the better of the battle by exactly 0.1 seconds at the finish line...this time.
The second CCS Thunderbike race was rather uneventful, due to Estok's bike breaking on the warm up lap. We won by a wide margin.
Now it's time for the ASRA National Pro Thunderbike race. We wanted it. I was on pole, with Estok on the front row also. The flag dropped and this 10 lap sprint on the huge 4.1 mile track was a barn burner. The most ferocious braking battles took place in T1 and T5, drafting and side-by-side corners all throughout the race. We swaped the lead four times on one lap. With a way shorter wheelbase, Estok was able to pull about 4 bike lengths each time from Canada Corner to the front straight. On the last lap, we had a braking battle into T5 from top of 6th gear down to 2nd gear as fast as we could. I won, but then he came down hard but under control into Canada Corner, hoping to pull a bigger gap with 3 turns to go. I really put my head down and made sure I optimized contact patch for traction off the corner, through more body position off of the bike and less lean angle. The center of gravity we are keeping off of the top of the bike by hanging off into the direction of the corner allows the bike to keep turning, but having the bike more upright allows us to get on the meat of the tire sooner and pull the trigger/throttle faster, while clearing the cylinder heads over the raised rumble strips.
Off of the last corner the gap was not nearly as big as previous laps and with a perfect draft pass, Team BMWXPLOR.com nipped the competition at the line by 0.09 seconds!
Thank you BMW riders that rode from all over to witness and share in the fun! One race closer to that # 1 plate that all you BMW riders deserve.
Nate
N8!
posted by nate_kern at 7:29 PM
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