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Months ago, my friend Zsolt asked if I had any garage space to spare for a handful of weeks. Seems that while he was out in California, his KTM 560SMR’s top-end bushing had went south, and he was in need of a rebuild. “Of course! In fact, why don’t you just do the whole assembly here?”

Zsolt introduced me into the world of Supermoto racing shortly after I bought my Husqavarna SM510. “Come to the track! Do a practice session, and see how you like it!” He knew what he was doing, as shortly after I found myself buying race plastics and 5″ racing wheels. Now I had a chance to let the pendulum swing and repay him for my countless inquisitions during the previous season, simply by giving him a garage door opener and a brief introduction to the ancient French coal stove that keeps the shop warm during the coldest months of the year.

Tirelessly he would show up during the week, and on weekends to work on his motor. As time allowed, I’d sit in a queen-mary chair passed down to me from my grandfathers law office, drinking coffee and pestering him while he worked. A perfectionist with an unyielding attention to detail, Zsolt would inspect, clean, inspect and clean every single part he touched. Every bolt was cleaned, and measured before anything was done with it. Mating surfaces we’re cleaned, planed, cleaned, inspected, and then cleaned again. He went through contact cleaner like he owned stock in the company, the garage in constant risk of going up in flames every time I’d light up in the haze of CFC fumes. Bearings and other parts, became a common sight in the freezer where the coffee was kept. Gradually, I watched as the motor came back together in perfected segments, until sitting on the bench was a complete motor with brand new internal parts. The KTM Racing logo emblazoned on the side of the clutch cover gleaming in the dim shop light. Could have been a brand-new crate motor from Austria, it looks that good.

Sunday, I helped him put the motor and swingarm on the bike and then set up the 900SS in a corner to finish connecting things. I halfheartedly worked on the 900SS, while Zsolt built the bike up from box of parts in a day. Halfway through the day (six hours of straight work on Zsolt’s part) he hit the only snag in the rebuild. The kickstarter assembly was in backwards. Frustrated, we shot to the local pub and talked tech over a few pints, and then headed back with clear(er) heads. Four hours later, Zsolt was splashing some 93 octane into the tank while I filled the crankcase up with fresh 10w50 oil. After a verbal checklist and the required pre-start smoke, Zsolt jumped on the kickstarter. *Ka-flub-flub-click*. He re-positioned it and jumped again. *Ka-flub-flub-flub-click*. We both figured we needed a few revolutions to get gas up and through the carb. Zsolt gave the bike another kick, and it simply became running. No protest, stammer or shudder. No noises of grave mechanical disappointment, just the smooth and rhythmic tick over of a precision built motor running, perhaps better than it did from the factory.

This is how rebuilds are supposed to go. Things just work the way they should, without hours, days of months of troubleshooting. Weeks of work vindicated by a single moment. I looked at Zsolts immaculate engine, nestled in the steel frame of his SMR, parked next to my 900SS. Under my SS, a few drops of oil from gradual leaks, road grime coating every external facing part of the motor reminds me that maybe my attitude to building motors is a little off.

Unfortunately, my race season ended early this year. Coming into turn three at NHIS on Sunday morning practice, I grabbed a few downshifts, feathered out the clutch and suddenly “KA-BLANG!, ka-blank, ka-blank”. Below are the results. Cylinder is cracked in several spots, piston is missing large chunks of metal which likely are sitting in the bottom end. Cylinder head is completely destroyed. All four DelWest Ti valves are chipped, bent or cracked. All four valve guides are cracked. One camshaft journal is broken. All told, the damage estimate is somewhere around 2,000-2,500$. I’ll get her back together, but I likely won’t have the budget to race after I buy all the parts.

I consider myself blessed, honestly. The motor blew up in the braking zone for turn 3, rather than at full lean in turn 1, or full acceleration coming out of “the bowl”, turn 6. I will miss my friends at the racetrack.

Got up early to prepare myself for the day. 5:30am, and its drizzling. Great. I threw on my long-underwear, cutoff cargo pants, and my combat boots, figuring that the complete lack of fashion sense might persuade the sun to come out and laugh at me. Maybe it’d dry out the track too. Brr, its cold.

I discovered the Checkered Flag cafe opens for coffee and breakfast at 6:00am, so after getting my bearings and picking up lola’s poop, I ran down there for a 1.75$ cup of watered down coffee. No matter, there is caffeine in it somewhere, and I’ll drink the whole thing. My first race wasn’t until the end of the day, so I spent lots of time going over the bike, meeting new people, and wandering around the pits. Brent (oreo_n2) made some great burgers for lunch, while the sun tried to peek out and dry out the track. By 2:00pm, most of the track had dried, and the experts we’re out putting down some amazingly hot laps. Humbling.

Thirty minutes before the first race, it started to mist. Mist is the worst, because it creates a nice slippery layer on top of the asphalt, which won’t spit you off until you really need that last .001% of traction. Finding where that is before it spits you off, is even harder. I waited until twenty minutes before my race, to start changing tires. Stupid mistake. I get the front changed, mounted and re-wired. The rear tire is on, but whats this? I can’t get the bead to seat. I start to panic a little, and push 120PSI into the tube to try and get the bead to seat. No dice. Last call for the motard race goes out, and I know I’m going to miss it. There goes 60$ I’ll never see.

In a panic, I grab Mike Brayton to drive me down to the Dunlop guy, who (in about 5 minutes) re-mounts my DOT Race tires. As I’m putting the axle through the rear wheel, the first call for the SuperSingles race goes out. I get the bike started and put my helmet on just in time for the last call. The mist has stopped, and the track seems to be dry. Maybe it all worked out for the best anyways?

Supersingles race. Gridded all the way in the back, second wave with the rest of the novices. First wave takes off. Visor down, bike in gear, revs up. The green flag paints the sky, and I get a pretty good launch. I roar through the pack and go into T1 right behind #167, Zsolt. On the exit of turn two, I’m right behind him, when the raindrops start to whack my face-shield. I make a groaning noise in my helmet as I tip it in for turn 3. This is going to get interesting. Before I can try and make a move on Zsolt, the red flag goes up, and we go back to the grid.

Now its full out raining. I look around, and more than half of the group is on rain tires. Brent, myself, and “Puppet” are the only ones on DOT race tires. This is not going to be pretty. They re-start our race, and again I get a good drive into T1, running third behind Zsolt. I try to keep pace, but the slick rubber just spins up in the wet pavement, and I can’t keep Zsolts pace without sacrificing myself to the gods of road-rash. I’m forced to turn it down a few notches in the interest of self preservation.

Halfway through the race, I look behind me and see nobody. In front, way in the distance I see #720, Cynthia Bisagni. I needed someone to race against, so I put my head down and try to make up some time. My lap times show exactly when I started trying to ride the absolute limits of my race tires in the rain. A 1:43 is about the fastest lap I could do without ending up on my ass. I slowly caught up to #720, and on the last lap, I got a great drive out of twelve, and we we’re neck and neck. She caught another gear, and passed the start finish two feet in front of me. I finish 3rd out of four. Not to bad considering the rainy weather and DOT race tires. I shake Cynthia’s hand on the way back to the pits. She wasn’t in my class, but it was a good race regardless.

All in all, a very good weekend. No crashes (which is unusual for me), and some decent placement. Next race weekend (May 12th/13th) should be much busier, as half the racers didn’t show up due to predicted poor weather.

And I have to thank my lady friend, for all her help and support. The stress of getting ready for the whole weekend left my house an absolute mess, with piles of laundry so high, the Egyptians would have considered them great pyramids, and buried their dead in them. While I was out racing, she cleaned my house from top to bottom, did all my laundry and neatly folded everything. (And this is a day after she returned home from a 2-week business trip!) When I finally arrived back at my house to find everything spotless, a huge weight lifted from my shoulders. If I hadn’t said it before, she’s a keeper folks. Never met someone so selfless, or supportive of my hobbies. Thanks baby, I owe you bigtime.

Got up to the track late Thursday night, just in time to set up the pits, and my tent in the rain. Realized I forgot my air-mattress pump, and had to sleep (literally) on the bed of my truck. Those ridges in the bed liner are in fact, not comfortable. Woke up feeling like someone was standing on my back. Looked up and realized Lola was standing on my back, barking at people walking by the tent.

Stumbling out of the tent, I searched high and low for a cup of coffee, with none to be found. This is the last weekend I leave home without something that turns those ground beans into a formidable liquid. Spent all day Friday in the Penguin Race School, going through the paces to get my CCS/LRRS license. Finally finished the day with some open practice, and crashed around 8:00pm, exhausted. Borrowed a line off an air compressor so I didn’t have to sleep on my bed liner.

Saturday rolls around. First race of the LRRS series, the rookie race. The rookie race is everyone that took the penguin school to get their license, which ended up being about 30 people. Gridded middle of the pack in the lightweight wave, right behind the heavyweight wave. People are lining the track to watch the novices bin it in the first race. The one board comes up, goes sideways, and the first wave is off. I flip down my visor, click the bike into gear and concentrate on the one board for our wave like its the answer to all of life’s problems. I start revving the bike wildly like everyone else, and slip the clutch just to the engagement point as the board starts to turn. The green flag unfurls through the air.

Wide open, I get a great start, the front wheel skimming a mere 3 inches off the ground as I click through the gearbox towards turn one. The pack opened up for me, and I find myself somewhere near the front. Somehow I forget who was in my wave, and who wasn’t. The red mist starts spraying, and I crank my bike for all I can. Catch two people coming out of turn two, and another rider on the brakes into three. Pass two riders I know are not in my wave around turn ten, and keep going. I see more bikes up ahead of me, and I still can’t remember if they we’re in my wave or not, so I put my head down to make up time on them. Get the rear squirrelly on the binders into three again, and almost loose the front going up four I’m pushing so hard. Catch the two riders down turn 9, and pass one more on the brakes into 11. Wait. That guy was on a GSX-R 750, and definitely not in my wave. Where am I in the pack? I have no idea, but I’m not about to relax and loose all that ground I just put between me and the riders I passed. I keep riding as fast as I know how to. I cross the checkered flag, and lean back, still not sure where I am as I cruise around for the cool-down lap.

Riding back to the pits, I get a number of thumbs up from people watching, and one guy claps for me. I start thinking I either did very well, or at least put on a pretty good show. As I roll back into the pits, my friends whack me on the back excitedly and inform me that I was moving pretty good, and that I passed half of the first wave! Wow! I finish fifth overall in the race, and first in my wave with fastest lap of 1:30.82. Considering I’ve done a 1:29.00 on my 900SS, I’m not terribly happy with the time, but I’ll take it. The Penguin School gives me a paper trophy for first place and a Red Bull. I grin, but its just the rookie race. The real races are yet to come.

Got back from the trackday at 11:00pm Tuesday night. Man, what a blast. Beautiful weather, great conditions, no crashes, and lots of hot laps. I put my Maxxis Supermoto Slicks on for the day. Started to get an uneasy feeling about them when I was really cranked over. Through turns 2 and 6, when I was really hauling applesauce, I would get a violent chatter throughout the whole bike. The bike stayed planted and true, but it was highly unnerving.

Anyways, worked until 2:00am last night getting the bike ready for tommrow’s races. Oil change, filter change, safety wiring everything, drilling holes, checking and changing valve clearances, dropping screws halfway down the motor, loosing shims. It was a long night. Called in this morning and took the day off, because there was still so much left to do. Grocery shopping for three days worth of camping, getting together things for the dog, packing up the truck, double checking important lists. Finally all packed up, and all I want to do is sleep. Still have to drive three hours back up to NH, set up camp, and get to bed early, because at 7:00am, its on like donkey kong.

Its 5:00pm, my lady friend is flying back home after two weeks away on business, and I’m about to depart for a racetrack. Figures. Race report coming soon, hold tight.

The season hasn’t even fully started yet, and I’m already exhausted. Work on the bikes ceased bringing me the thrilling enjoyment it once did, and has turned into what can best be described as a robotic task. Come back from a race, offload the bike and equipment. Unpack needed equipment and put the bike on the stand. Drain oil, pull off parts, check clearances, replace filters, clean screens, take off wheels and chain, change tires. The list goes on. The constant stream of parts, and tires has me on a first name basis with my week-day UPS man. His name is Mike. He drinks beers with me when he comes over.

At work, it gets worse. Stuck in the middle of a major responsibility shift (that is, shifting the responsibility to me), leaves me at work later than I can afford to be, struggling to keep up, and keep racing. If there is anything I’ve ever been good at, its working under pressure, but burning the candle at both ends means I crash. Yesterday, I was at the Lady Friend’s house, feeding her cat (she’s away for two weeks doing training in other states). I fed the cat, fed the fishes, and sat down in a recliner for what felt like a second. I woke up close to four hours later, still exhausted, with no idea of where I was, or how I got there. Got home, and slept like I’ve never slept before.

This week will test everything. Tommrow I leave after work for a trackday at NHIS. Get home late Tuesday night, work Wensday and prep the bike. Then I leave Thursday night for NHIS again, and camp out for the races, all three days. Somewhere between all this, I still need to find the time to do dishes, clean up the yard, keep the dirty laundry pile under control, and the rapidly mounting list of house-hold fixit-uppers.

If there we’re more hours in the day, I’d stay caffinated longer, and try to get more done. But alas, I’m still only left with 24, no matter how I try to stretch it. Race reports and other errata to come. I’m sorry for the lack of posting, but time is short, and the computer has been neglected these past weeks.

Its 3:45am on Sunday April 1st. After tossing and turning for the last forty minutes, I decided that I just couldn’t sleep anymore. I quietly get up, and leave the dog and lady friend sleeping, careful not to disturb either. A fresh cup of coffee, and I go outside to smoke a cigarette and talk to the race bike. “Be good to me today, and I won’t be forced to tear you apart again, ok?” We had a nice chat. She agreed to get me through the day’s festivities, and I agreed not to wrench on her important parts.

At 4:45am, I tried to gingerly rouse the lady friend, and the dog from their sleep. The dog groaned. The lady friend said “You have the biggest stupid grin on your face”. After ushering everyone into the over-packed truck, we we’re on our way. Lola had a little spot in the backseat between the toolbox and my leathers to sleep, and made quick work of curling up and letting us know she was not happy about the early wake-up.

Rolled through the gates at Englishtown at 8:05am. Five minutes late, but then again, I’m always late. Its raining. A number of vulgar words escape my mouth, and we started setting up the pits. Zsolt rolled in with a bunch more swearing about New Jersey roads, and MapQuest sodomizing him for the last time. With him and his swearing, came his old rain tires. The full race slicks I had on the bike wouldn’t have been much fun in the rain that was still coming down. With a sigh and a bit of urgency, we started changing tires. I’d never done it before, so Zsolt gave me a crash course, and I went to work scratching up my new rims.

An hour later, I had rain tires mounted on the bike. The wind was blowing, the sky was clear, and the track was just about dry. It never fails. Rain tires are made of super-soft rubber, thats meant to heat up in cold (wet) conditions. If ridden on dry pavement, they simply ball up and wear to nothing in short order. Not to mention that the tires get incredibly greasy and have a tendency to spin up coming out of corners. By now practice was half over, I had already missed one, and I needed to get out and see what the dirt section was like before I gridded up for my heat race.

Practice was sketchy. The rain tires have a much less aggressive profile than the racing slicks, and started sliding around at what seemed like 60% of my normal lean angle. Spent a lot of time jamming my foot into the ground to save the front end from tucking. The dirt section was worn all to hell with huge grooves. Kept repeating what Zsolt said about looking past the dirt section, and just whacking the throttle. Got bucked from the seat a few times, but made it through pretty quickly (by my standards) each time. After my first and only practice, I hear that they are moving me up a class. Not because I’m doing so fantastically well, but because I’m the only entry in that class. Apparently you don’t get a trophy for being the only person in the sportsman class. Open Amateur is where they put me. Open Am! I’m a novice! Zsolt’s been racing for 30 years, and he’s in Open Am! More vulgar slurs and explicative’s.

Race #1. Novice Supermoto. Gridded second to last. Hand goes up and I start revving the motor and click it into gear. Flag goes up and I punch the throttle and slip the clutch, front wheel comes up a little, and I find myself entering turn one with five other racers. I bang bars with #427, and he gets the inside line. I try to keep with him, and the rear steps out on the exit. Horrible start, and I’m running dead last. I see #691 ahead of me a bit, so I set my sights on him and start pushing as hard as I can. One lap down, and I see him getting on the brakes for turn one, just as I’m getting off the dirt section. I put my head down, and whack the throttle open. I wait until I feel a twinge of panic before I jam onto the brakes and click it down from fourth to first. Bike gets a little sideways on me, and I go through as fast as I can, rear wheel slipping out every time I get on the gas. By turn 3, I’m right on his rear tire. He waits just a hair-second too long to turn in for turn 4, and I zipped up the inside. I didn’t look back, and just kept on pushing. I see #20 up ahead in the dirt section, having some troubles. I think I can take him. Two laps down, and #20 is moving on the asphalt. I try to keep my current pace, hoping I can catch him in the dirt section, but he’s getting all his time back on the pavement. Last lap, and he’s still five bike-lengths in front of me into turn one. I’m already going as fast as I think I can, and the bike is sliding everywhere. I give up, and tour around the track for the last lap. #691 is so far behind me, I even have time for a little wheelie down the front straight. I finish second to last.

Race #2. Open Amateur. Gridded dead last. Hand up, and everyone around me is bouncing off the rev limiter. These guys are serious. I look to my left, and Chris (#455) gives me a thumbs up from atop his CRF150. Flag goes up, and everyone’s off. I catch #691 right off the line and put him behind me. Up in front, three people go down at the first turn. Bikes spinning in front of me, and racers running after them. I dodge the bikes and people, and get the hell out of dodge. I’d just been given a break, and I wasn’t about to let it go to waste. After the first lap, I realize I’m in fourth. The third and fourth place guys are running away from me, and I’m running my tires to the limit. All I want to do is finish in the top five. I hold my position until lap eight, when #424 comes back from the dead and blows my doors off on the exit of turn 2. My fault for giving him a opening to get a wheel in. Last lap, white flag and I’m done. The dirt section has gone from rutted to ridiculous. My tires are sliding out of every corner. Leg is sore from saving the front end around corners. I can hear bikes thumping behind me. I hold them off, and finish the race 5th place.

One thing is for sure, I won’t be winning any Trophies soon. But man, its a whole lot of fun. Big thanks to Zsolt for all his supermoto advice, and tire-changing how to. Huge thanks to Cyndi for all her help in the pits. I never thought I’d see the day where my girlfriend would be putting on tire warmers, taking care of the dog, making me sandwiches, putting away tools after I so quickly scattered them around the ground. She’s a keeper folks.