5th Annual Toyota 200 - My first Bonk

Driving to Willow Springs International Raceway for the 5th Annual Toyota 200 race my head was full of questions about this race weekend. As I made the turn onto Hwy. 14 and saw wind advisories posted all over the Freeway I soon had two more questions. Did I really want to try to put in my hottest lap around Willow Springs for Toyota 200 qualifying in these kind of conditions? And if this wind holds up, do I really want to race 200 miles in 40mph winds? Well, considering I already took the day off work and my pit crew was arriving later in the day I figured I wouldn’t be too popular if I wimped out now.

It’s been my plan to race the Toyota 200 for the last few years but due to injuries (A broken ankle in ‘04 and broken hand in ‘05) I haven’t been able to compete in the race the last few years. Also, I have been following the motorcycle racer trend of training on on my road bicycle all summer so I felt I was in better shape than I’ve been in a long time. I mean I haven’t been wrapping my skinny white chicken legs in skin tight spandex all summer just to look sexy, it was time to put that training to use!

The first practice sessions in the morning actually didn’t feel too bad in the wind and the bike was feeling pretty good. I softened up the settings a bit to get the bike a little less twitchy in the wind because everything was feeling a bit stiff. As usual I ran my Dunlop slicks past the wear markers in practice until I nearly highsided myself to the moon before deciding I better park it until I get some new rubber for qualifying. Despite running destroyed tires my times in practice were fast enough to put me in the quicker of the two qualifying sessions. This can definitely be an advantage because your chances of getting stuck in traffic while trying to put in a good lap are a lot smaller in the fast group and if you are lucky you can get a bit of a tow off one of the faster riders if you time it just right.

If there is one thing I’ve come to love over the last few years doing the nationals it’s qualifying, so I was looking forward to trying to put in a good lap even if the conditions were going to be less than ideal. My best lap definitely didn’t feel perfect. I nailed the first half of the lap pretty good but then blew the last few corners. Thankfully I didn’t abandon the lap because it turned out to be ok and I qualified 18th out of 45 riders with a 1:26.4. No turning back now, I was going to be racing come Sunday!

I arrived at the track Sunday morning with my crew from Cyclemall.net and we went over a few things before the morning practice. It was going to be a hectic morning since most of my crew were competing in the morning novice races. There was only one Toyota 200 practice in the morning so this would be our last chance to perfect our pit stops for the race. We were practicing both front and rear tire changes as well as fuel but we were hoping to run the front tire the entire race if it looked like it would make it. I came barreling in on my fourth lap of practice with thoughts of Miguel Duhamel in my head. Not the Miguel that highsided this year and landed on his head, but the Miguel who has won more 200 mile races than I can remember. Rear wheel off, front wheel off, here we go. The pit stop got underway ok and then things went bad. We managed to spill fuel all over the side of the bike and forget to put safety wire back on the front left brake caliper. Well, at least we got that horrible stop out of the way. We were going to have to calm down and try it again. I came in a second time around and the crew went to work, this time with out any hitches and I was in and out in a relatively quick time. The fuel tank was taking longer to fill than we wanted but we had some ideas to try before the race to improve our time there.

Leading up to the race we had our fair share of drama. Our crew member assigned to fueling the bike crashed on the first lap of his novice race breaking his arm. We managed to find a replacement crew member who hadn’t already started getting drunk for the day, gave him a quick sobriety test (which he passed), filling in the missing link of our crew. Adding to the drama was a nasty crash in the Roadracing World 250/50 race earlier in the day which caused our race to be delayed two hours.

The race strategy was to come in for two pit stops, both times adding fuel and changing the rear tire. We would look at the front tire on the second pit stop and see if it needed changing. Dunlop allowed me to use two new technology rear slicks for the race previously only available to the AMA factory teams. I was very grateful for the use of the tires (which had to be returned to Dunlop after the race) but I was a little nervous starting the race on both a front and rear tire I had never run previous to the race.

The race finally got under way at around 4:00. I got off the line ok but managed to lose about six positions in the first lap. I was being quite tentative on the tires the first few laps until I got the feel for them and didn’t want to throw it down the road just a few laps into the race. I started getting into a pretty good groove about eight laps into the race. I was in a group of five and we were all riding well together at a pretty comfortable pace.

On lap ten I started to go to work and one by one was picking off riders when the red flag came out on lap twelve. We decided to keep the same tires on and just refueled for the restart. After about a ten minute clean-up we were back on track and this is when the race really got going. I tried to put in a solid string of laps and always seemed to be riding in a group of at least four jostling for position. I seemed to be making up all of my time up out of turn nine, down the front straight and onto the brakes in turns one and three. I was struggling in turn two, the long right hander and going through the ultra fast turn eight. My bike was bouncing and sliding so much I thought my teeth were going to rattle out. In a long endurance race you definitely don’t want your advantage to be on the brakes because after 80 laps you don’t have much left for brakes. I found myself trail braking way later than I wanted to be on more than one occasion trying to get the bike stopped while fully leaned over into turn one.

We were able to get better gas mileage than we had estimated and as fatigue was starting to set in I was looking for the gas light to come on just to get a quick drink and stretch out my legs and hands which were starting to get numb. The rear tire was also begging for mercy after 42 laps on a track that is notoriously hard on tires. The light finally came on and I signalled to my crew by tapping my helmet to let them know I would be coming in on the following lap. I probably should have picked a better signal because lifting your hand to your head at 160 mph while trying to control a headshake across the finish line after being on the bike for over an hour is not as easy as I tried to make it look. As I signalled the crew, my lack of arm control made it look more like I was trying to slap myself across the face repeatedly. As I exited the track I was hoping the crew had noticed me punching myself in the head. Luckily they had and when I came barelling into pit lane they were ready for me. We threw on a new rear tire and dumped in the fuel. The stop went perfect and it’s seemed to go by so fast I barely had enough time to inhale the water I had so desperately needed.

Visor down, bike in gear and I blasted out into turn one feeling much rejuvenated. I mean I felt really good, surprisingly good. I honestly started to think this race wasn’t so bad and I decided to make a push for the racers in front of me. I picked off a few guys in those early laps after the pit stop but that surge of energy and excitement soon came crashing to a screeching halt about 4 laps into my last stint. I don’t know how many of you are familiar with cycling but if you watched the Tour De France this year you may have heard them mention the "bonk" Floyd Landis was suffering. The definition of the "bonk" is when a rider suffers extreme exhaustion, mental confusion, hallucinations and generally is "Out of it". Ya, I would definitely say I was feeling some serious "bonk" going on! If only I had some of those handy wonder drugs that helped Floyd Landis recover so nicely at his "bonk" at the Tour De France this year I would have been jabbing myself with needles faster than a damn junkie. Those last few laps were tough and my mind started to wonder. I found myself staring off into the beautiful Antelope Valley sunset which was conveniently blinding my entry in turn one. Weird 80’s tunes started creeping into my head and mirage's started to appear in the distant desert landscape. I had completely lost track of how many laps were left. Fortunately for me as I was praying to the fuel light god for the light to come back on so I could get a break I saw the white flag indicating the last lap.

After taking the checkered flag I came into the pits and the crew were there waiting for me with congratulations and hand shakes (but mysteriously no cold beer). Out of a grid of 40 racers I was expecting to hear we had finished somewhere in the top 30 but was pretty surprised to hear we brought it home in 17th spot. Just finishing this race was a great feeling for me so getting into the top 20 against a field this tough made it all worthwhile.

Jeremy Toye riding an Attack Kawasaki went on to win the $50,000 followed by Steve Rapp and Jason Perez. It was nice to see a local rider take the win and the money.

Doing this race for a first time was a great experience and a good way of testing my riding and endurance. I’m already excited for next year and will have a much better idea of what to expect and how to train. The guys at Cyclemall.net are already coming up with ideas on how we can make our pit stops even faster. Now if only someone could get me the phone number to Floyd Landis’ trainer!

Brad Puetz