Road-Race Report, Spokane Washington

[Dave H.]

Hello folks,
this might be a tad long...
Saturday, July 21, 2001 was 'round five' of the Washington Motorcycle RR Association series, and, well, I didn't do so good this weekend. The good news is the 'mean, green Sachs machine' is repairable, but the bad news is I didn't complete even one lap of this 5 lap, two heat,  sprint race held on the eastern side of the Cascade Mountains near Spokane, Washington. Saturday was perfect weather, slightly overcast, and cool, having rained the night before. The elevation is around 2500 feet and the Penton wouldn't run right on the only main jet I had. Try finding Bing parts any where on the spur of the moment. Suffice to say I was frantic. My sollution was to ding the bing with a drift punch, crushing the orifice to a smaller diameter...violla! It worked! I did about 16 laps on this unfamiliar track and was satisfied that I knew the corners sufficiently to race on Sunday. I got a great start off the line when the light went green,  and lead the group into the first two turns, but some of the competitors held the throttle on longer than me in turn two and passed me. Someone crashed in turn three, and when I got there, he was in the middle of the pavement. I went on the inside, and the other guys tried to go wide which gave me the chance to duck under them and take back my lead. No waving yellow was evident at the time, so it was a legal pass, I think. I lost and regained my lead several more times through the chicane of five, six and seven, and kept it through eight and nine, and then blew it big time in the last turn of the first lap, causing the race to be red flagged, and restarted, without me. My leathers and Arai helmet are toast, and the bike has broken rear sets, since I low sided and then flipped at about 65 miles per hour. Well, I sure feel lucky, 'cause I walked away from a landing on my head, and survived.
Next race at Seattle Raceway on August 4, and 5. Wish me luck.
POG 414

 

[gooey]

GOOD LUCK !

 I would NEVER get on a road course again after landing on my noggin at 65 mph .... 'course I suffer a disadvantage in that department ... an empty container will crush MUCH faster than a loaded one ... so my egg would be crushed for sure !



 again,, good luck ! very interesting reading .... and,, the happy ending was good too !



 everyone likes to win ! But my philosophy is much simpler ..... I just like to live thru it !

 

[Mark Annan]

Good Luck and Keep up the Penton name up front.  I would love to see some pictures of your machine.  Do you have any posted some where?

Mark

 

[Dave H.]

Mark,
I don't have anything at present. Is it possible to post pictures to this bulletin board? If not, I will post to Yahoo or something, and put the url on pog...soon.
I'm still a bit banged up, and I've started to take the broken bits off the bike...so far, one bent and cracked front fender, one chain with six cracked links (?!) one pair of crappy shocks, a pair of mangled shop manufactured fork steering stops, one broken foot peg, one Avon race tire, and the list goes on.

 

[gooey]

send em to me @ [email protected] ... and I will post a url here so all can see ... I kinda wanna see too !