NASCAR Sprint Cup 350 @ Infineon Raceway, 2011

NASCAR's Toyota Savemart 350, at Infineon Raceway, June 26, 2011.

What can I say? After growing up watching "stock car" racing on Sundays, I lost touch with a sport that became mundane to me, what with all the left hand turns on oval tracks. All the drama didn't interest me, still doesn't, but damn....when it comes down to some fast and loud cars, plus a road course (Infineon Raceway, Sonoma, Ca.) I couldn't help it, and decided to go to my first NASCAR event. To be honest, I'm game to watch just about any kind of racing.

(A photo of the bike parked up the hill.

I had a chance to sit in a top fuel funny car, very cool.

And then Steph stood by this wheel for size reference. hahahaha)

For me, if you aren't bringing much with you, riding the motorcycle turned out to be the best. In California, you can lane share to the front of lines, so traffic didn't bug us. Go in thru Gate 1, and immediately turn to the left up the hill. You will see a sign that says "Motorcycle Parking starts here". Park your bike. :) we changed, and off we went to explore.

On the way out, we would ride down and out of Gate 1 as well, and CHP has the lanes well figured out, and honestly, we suffered no slowing due to traffic, thanks to the moto.

I live in an area where NASCAR events get a lot of flack. Racing motorcycles myself, I see why. All I hear is, "they only turn Left, what kind of racers are those" and " they can't turn right, how boring". haha So I called the one person I knew would be down. My friend Steph. Who's usually off mountaineering, and bagging peaks in the snow. We had actually talked about doing this almost 2 years ago. Finally we would be able to coordinate our schedules to go.

She's chinese, and a huge country music, bull riding fan (strange but cool, lol), and also wanted to go to a NASCAR event, so off we went.

I saw this old Ford Galaxie decked out for stock car racing. Very cool. Then we went over where Darryl Waltrip (I remember watching him race, and even remember when he retired) was getting ready to host the intro to the race weekend, with his co-hosts. We got in there and then yelled for the camera. Just look for the beer hats at the beginning of the race events. haha

much like other sports, I'd rather watch in person, and experience it in person.

and let me tell you, NASCAR was very cool. haha I'll go to see them at an oval track as well...hell, I remember watching Dale Earnhardt, King Richard Petty, the Allison's, C. Yarborough, etc... as a kid.

oh, Steph's a huge Car's fan, so we had to stop by the Car's tour trailer. They brought out Lightning McQueen (a remote control full size electric car), pretty cool actually.

Of course, this event would not have been complete, without our beer hats. hahahaha

we were foiled though, as they only sold bottles, but we used them as best we could.

A few photos of the pile up in T7 where we were sitting, after one of the restarts after a yellow flag. They were coming 2 and 3 deep into this turn bumping over the track corners.

1st place: Kurt Busch He dominated the lead throughout the race (76 of 110 laps). This was also Kurt's 1st road course win, in 22 years of racing.

2nd Place: Jeff Gordon, from Vallejo, Ca. just up the road. Probably why he has 5 wins at Infineon Raceway. He came from far behind to reel in the #99 car, and pass him with 2 laps left, for 2nd place.

3rd Place: Carl Edwards, matching his best finish here.

all in all, a great day. Near the end it felt as if it was dragging on some. Next time, I'd probably go and find other seating...which we did with 15 laps left. Turn 9 stretch, has a grassy open seating area. Probably would have been more comfortable here.

AFM Rd. 3 - Infineon Raceway - race report

May 23rd and 24th was the AFM Rd 3 races at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma.
I did very well at my last race here only 1 month earlier, so I was looking forward to another fun filled weekend, hopefully without the drama and injuries that marred the first round at IR.

I decided to skip practice on Saturday to save some money, and try and budget my weekend, hence only 2 races on Sunday.

Some of the guys were already up at IR, so I drove my things up there on Saturday morning to set up my pits and hang out at the track. It was cold on Saturday and a few guys had gone down due to cold tires and pushing it too hard.

Mid morning we heard that the track was red flagged and they were out picking up some riders, about 15 min later we saw the chopper coming in. Fuck. Never a good sign. Wishing whoever it was a speedy recovery.

We got to working on bikes, and then I saw the crash truck come through the pits, and a friend of mines bike was in the back. shit! Went over to his pits, and after looking at the bike, it looked in really good condition....so where was Mark. Turns out, he was the one that got life flighted out. He lowsided in T2 and in the process of vacating the track, he was struck by another motorcycle, hard, and was thrown down the track. It's basically like being hit at about 50+mph...as from the reports from the NMP's (National Motorcycle Patrol) the yellow flags didn't fly immediately, and the two riders that came up on him, didn't realize their was an incident on track. First bike saw Mark, and went around him, but the 2nd bike couldn't avoid him. He hit Mark, and also went down, fracturing a jaw and getting beat up. Marks injuries were worse, with several fractures, from scapula, 4 ribs, pelvis and elbow. update: he's out of the hospital and recovering at home, as cantankerous as ever. hahaha great thing to hear.

With Saturday pretty much being just a day of hanging out, I went home to get some sleep, and come back on Sunday: May 24th.

I arrived just a bit late, so didn't have everything prepped, and I hadn't teched my bike the night before, so down to tech, registered and got the bike started, as Practice session 2 was coming up fast. I got out to the hot pits by 3rd call, and only did about 3 laps in the hot pits, no where near what I should have, or usually do, and went out on track with cold tires. The weather was overcast and cold still, and I thought I was taking it slow, but as I came around T3b (a cresting right hander) the front just tucked all of a suddent and I lowsided as I went over the crest and slid to the outside of the track. WTF?! Well, this sucks, I've now crashed my bike in the first lap of first practice and I'm Race #1. :|

After I stopped sliding, I looked around, hopped up and ran for the fence, lest I get run over by anyone. We managed to prop up the bike, and I had to wait for the end of that session, which seemed like forever. Afterwards, I was given a quick break to grab the bike and take it down the hill. After getting her started, I managed to bring the bike back into the pits. With all the guys there, they immediately jumped on the bike, without even asking me if I needed help. They quickly assesed the damage (broken brake lever, frayed throttle cables, bent clip on tube, bent Right rear set, some rash, otherwise good to go).

The guys started grabbing parts, and tools and immediately went into action tearing apart the parts that needed either replacement or repair. It was very cool to see the comraderie of a race weekend and all of these guys working super hard to get me out on track for my first Race.

Random racers (Thanks #517) stopped by to lend parts, after going to their pits and bringing everything they had to help with the rear sets.
Alan came by to see if I needed anything, and offer help with repairs.
The craziness ensues, tools flying, repairs made, and trying to keep track of who I owe parts too, and who helped was getting out of hand. hahahaha
Rear sets torn apart and I managed to frankenstein functional rear sets on the bike, from all the parts donated.
Hands everywhere. Throttle cables replaced, reset and tube replaced, front brake lever replaced.
On On mofo's.
Determined to do something, or at least give it a good effort, although at this point I had mostly resigned myself to missing the first race.
Cleaning out the rest of the dirt and grime that was all over the bike. Luckily nothing went down those blue tubes, which feed through the carbs directly into the motor. One little rock, and the engine would have been toast. I really need to get some type of filters on them.
Well, long story short......the guys managed to get me rolling out of my pits, down to the tech garage, teched the bike, got my grid position, and made the riders meeting as it was starting...and hell yeah, I made my first race. Race #1, Formula IV. Fucking awesome...but with the quick turnaround, I didn't have time to tweak the throttle tube, and it was a bit stiff throughout the race, not letting me get on the throttle to full throttle as quickly as I would have liked coming out of the corners. Oh well, I was racing dammit! haha
Cresting over T3b where I earlier low sided in the morning. Under full throttle trying to keep the front tire down on the ground.
A nice shot apexing T2 I believe.
T2, with Marcus behind me. haha He is very fast, and is the guy who lent me the other set of throttle cables. Thanks dude.
I wanna say thanks to all the guys that helped out. Stan, Conan, Dimitry, Alan, Marcus, Bryan Davis, #517, #791, and everyone else that I may have missed.