Road America Race Review
April 21-23, 2006
Team Simone Racing just returned from Elkhart Lake, WI from a 4 Day Race Weekend Event. We arrived at Road America Wednesday afternoon and had the pits setup that evening. We were pre-entered for Thursday practice which was hosted by NESBA.
Road America weather in April is known for being wet, cold and un-predicable, however this weekend would work in our favor and provide pretty nice racing conditions, considering we were in Wisconsin, at the end of April...
The weekend started with testing and setup on Thursday. This is only our 2nd time on the new R6 so we are still getting a base setup, and Gearing Selection for Road America is pretty important, as there are quite a few long straights, but still some tight areas where you still need good mid-range. By the end of the weekend we had out grown our gearing, but due to supplies, we elected to ride around our issues as best we could, and just stick with what we had, and it still allowed us to run in the consistent 2:32.3x range all day on Saturday, which is a good time for a 600 around Road America's 4+ Mile course.
As stated before, conditions on Thursday were excellent with sunshine and temps in the mid 70's all day. The course has been re-paved in most corners since last year, which helps to lower lap times as new, smooth pavement is a good thing...Thursday was a very successful practice day and we had a very good setup on the R6, ready for race duty this weekend. We took the TSR R1 out for the final practice session, but didn't make any changes to this bike for the weekend. After this session, we decided to run the R1 in one race, and then substitute the R6 for the R1 in the other Unlimited Race we had entered for this weekend.
Friday was the 1st day of races for the weekend, and we had two races with the 600 this day. Middleweight SuperBike and GTU. Both races were very intense as they were our 1st Expert Races since last year, and we also had very large grids, 30+ riders into turn 1 is a new experience for us. But overall we did excellent, considering our competition. We pulled off a 15th Place finish in MWSB and an 11th in GTU. Saturday was a whole new day with 3 MW Races, and a new thing for us, ASRA Qualifying, which would determine our grid position for Sunday's ASRA SuperBike Race. We had to qualify in the Rain on Saturday morning so, laptimes were pretty slow, overall. We qualified on the 4th row of the grid with a laptime of over 3:00 minutes, so needless to say, we were running pretty slow that morning. On the schedule for Saturday was MiddleWeight SuperBike, MiddleWeight GP and MiddleWeight SuperSport. The new TSR R6 would be the tested and tuned on Saturday to eventually allow us to run in the low 2:32.3x laptimes during our Middleweight SuperSport Race after a long and hard battle with Ryan Hall for 12th place we traded positions for nearly 2 laps before I was able to finally seal the deal, but at that point LM Rider Mark Schnettler was just to far out of reach to pull in and have a go at, resulting in a 12th place finish. MWSB and MWGP Results would be 23rd and 15th respectfully. We ran off on the 1st lap of the MWSB entering turn 5 as the field went about 5 wide into the turn, which forced us to move onto the rumble strip as we pull the bike down from over 150MPH it was to dangerous to brake on the strip, so we ran down off into the concrete then pulled back on as the field passed us up and over the hill; things looked grim, however we were able to put down some excellent times and put down 12 bikes even after running off and getting back on in last place...
Sunday was the final day of races which included the ASRA National SuperBike race. This would be our first race of this caliber and it was very fun to say the least. It is a 10 lap race which gives you plenty of time get your racing done. We had a fairly good start and were running with the very fast experts for about the first three laps. Once everything settled down, they started to pull away and we were not able to pull the pace they were running high 2:29's. At about lap 6 our rear tire started to give out on us and then a false neutral into turn 5 sealed our fate for this race. We finished in 18th which again, we are very pleased with, considering our competition.
The rest of Sunday would finish out with respectable finishes in MWGP in 11th place, MWSS in 24th Place, and even running the R6 in Unlimited SuperSport yielded us a finish of 11th, which is very good considering the advantage 1000's have over 600's at a Track like Road America...
Overall the different between racing as an Expert and as an Amateur is like night and day. As an Expert you actually have "battles" with other racers as times are much closer and strategizing and planning comes into play setting up passes etc...Many times we would pass entering a corner to hot to make the pass, run wide and the passer gets the inside line and re-takes the position, just like you see on TV. This type of racing is VERY exciting and really makes you a better rider....
