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Daytona Fall Cycle Scene Saturday Report

Posted by Kenn Stamp
Monday, 29 October 2007
Page 2 of 5 I decided to go into the hot pit area and see how the teams were setting up for the MOTO-ST race that was to start in a couple of hours. The hot pit area is similar to the garage area but has much less room to maneuver. It was quite interesting to see the difference between the different teams. Some were more privateer and had smaller tents, while some were dealer and/or manufacturer backed and had multiple tents and really cool stuff like on-bike diagnostic software streaming live data back to laptops. I basically wandered around and talked to a few people in the industry that I knew while waiting for the race to start so we'll skip a lot of that as it would be quite boring for you to read. After the Moto-ST race started, the atmosphere in the pits rapidly changed from chaotic energy to watchful anticipation. Most of the pit crew basically had nothing to do until the first pit stop came around and it was interesting to see the difference in attitude and activity between before the race and after the race started. After the first pit stop and rider change I sought out Paul James who is not only one of the James Gang Racing Team's riders and Director of Communications for Buell, but also a heck of a nice guy. I asked him how it was going out there after the first hour of the race and he said something very interesting. He said that there was a lot of nudging and banging going on out on the track. Being in an endurance race is much different than being in a sprint race and so I thought it was odd that there would be that much playing rough out there. Paul's theory was that there were a lot of hired guns in the race and since they almost always run sprint races they go out and ride WFO right from the start as this is what they're used to. After about hour 3 I was over by the Pair-A-Nines tent and Andrew Trevitt walked over to say hi. Andrew works for a print motorcycle magazine and we had met before. Unfortunately for Andrew, the bike he was riding had overheated and was no longer in the race. I asked him about the WFO mentality that was out there during the first hour. He agreed and said that he had seen the same things out there. As a matter of fact, he said that he saw one rider go down in the chicane right in front of him on the parade lap! He said that right at the moment that he was trying to keep the bike upright, not run over the fallen rider or bike, and not get tangled up with anyone else, the bike's crew chief started asking him questions over the two way radio! Talk about bad timing! While we were talking the pit crew decided to restart the bike that Andrew had been riding as they thought they fixed it. Well, it turns out they didn't, although they did create a nice motorcycle shaped fountain as coolant went gushing out everywhere. That trick garnered a few raised eyebrows and about 3 people all trying to shut the bike back off again at the same time. See all the fun you miss sitting in the stands! After a few minutes I decided to go see how Alan and Marc were doing with the video camera and interviews. << Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 5 Next > End >>

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