Sears Point, by Fats Fowlinski
The APEX * Sept/Oct 2000

You Should Go Sometime

Are you tired of long straightaways? Find Portland soporific? Want to put an S into Spokane's straight? You owe yourself a race at Sears Point. This was our third trip there for the AHRMA nationals. The first was in 1994 when Simon Smith and I borrowed his brother's van. "We' re just going to get beer, we'll be right back." Last year we got wood and I won a set of Progressive shocks in a drawing. This year John Bundy had an unrelenting work schedule so it was just Simon and me again.

We stayed in Sonoma Thursday night, got to the track early Friday and pitted with fellow Northwesterners, forming our own mossy ghetto. We got out our mildewed blue tarps and EZ ups and set up a sprinkler system so everything would be wet and drippy and we'd feel at home. We even set up our tire coolers which Californians find particularly intimidating. "We find the only way to make tires last is to chill them to 39F. Don't you?" We were going to bring some VHT as well but it got put in the crate with the wine coolers which we forgot. People told me that California was overrun with underage actress/models and we should have wine coolers to ply them with, but I didn't see any, and I even went over to the swap meet twice. I did find a 160 gasket set though and some fork gaiters for my 500 Triumph.

AHRMA offers two classes for us, 200 GP and 250 GP. That's two races a day plus a practice day Friday, which I can't recommend strongly enough. Fees are 50 bucks a race plus $60 for lots of sessions on Friday. Practice is split into several groups based on performance or lack there of. It never seemed very crowded and the bikes in our session aren't far apart power wise. 14 to 25 hp on the little bikes, maybe 40 hp on the old handshifters, pre 40 and class C bikes. I say 14 hp because that's what we have and as always we have the least. That's not much of a problem at Sears except for one steep hill where if you don't downshift you'll stall. That takes the place of a straightaway as far as having guys just leave us with motor. So we were out with the same classes we would race with later, in other words slow old clunkers barely fit to hang on the back of a motor home, no, I mean exquisite thoroughbreds from days of yore. Practice became more like a race with every session as riders adjusted to the track.

I kept thinking, "I went full throttle through here last year. Why can't I do it now?" especially on the back esses and high speed bumpy turn 10. It wasn't until the end of the day that I came close to last year, when I spent most of practice with both knees squeezing dents in the tank with that sort of glazed eye, clenched teeth frozen grin that people get riding rollercoasters. Simon and Frog were more analytical and their input helped a lot. They kept telling me I could go through turn 10 full throttle. "Just turn in late and go for the apex." My bike wheel jackharmmered away on its 34 year old shocks and the bike wiggled and drifted but it worked. Now that I had a set of Redwings on it, it still shivered but didn't try to bounce me off the seat as much and the tire seemed more in contact with the pavement.

Our original plan was to park the Smith Performance Services rolling garage and 4000 dollar bike stand at the track and commute to Sonora on a CB160 renta racer street legal parts bike and a 1955 NSU Max 250 that I've had for 12 years. It still sports the yellow crayon numbers from the wrecking yard from which it was extracted. In practice Simon's bike would run fine for a few laps and then crap out. In the process of troubleshooting we cannibalized the renta racer, eventually dismantling the whole damn bike. Let's just say the rings sure are seated now.

That put two of us on the 250 which worked OK. However, once we found we could camp at the track, we ditched our motel room on Saturday night, which left a minor logistics problem. All of the stuff in the room, clothes, gear, food, beer in bottles, batteries and charger, a shoulder bag, two backpacks, and a tank bag plus the two of us, over 400 pounds on a geezer 250 that weighed 375 pounds already. Weight is strength! Germans in the '50s loved to overengineer massive pressed steel frames and fenders. None of this effete steel trellis or pantywaist aluminum lawnchair crap. Where would you put the sidecar lug on those anyway? We had no problem. Thank God no one asked us to stop they were too blinded by out 6 volt headlight and froze in terror. We even touched 60 mph on the downhills throttle to the stop most of the time. The Krauts won the 1955 world 250 championship with one of these motors although they weren't carrying beer, battery charger and a tool design engineer. With this outfit we could blackmail WMRAA into paying us not to represent the club.

In the pre race practice Saturday morning I finally got up to "speed." I could carry top gear again through 3 and went wide open through the esses. The 200 class had six entrants. The current "powerhouses" of the class are the late '60s 250 BSA/Triumphs that are allowed into the 200 class because of their pushrod motor and extensive, historic warranty problems. They do make half again as much hp as a stock 160 but the trick is to keep it together. This year there was only one. He took off and left us to duke it out ourselves. I diced with Simon and we kept Rick Levert in sight, ending up second, third, and fourth ahead of two 175 or 200 Bultacos. You could Dyno our whole class and not get 90 hp.

The 250 race was a lot more interesting with 16 entrants. The winning bike this year and last was the Bultaco Metralla, taking the first four places. It's a stone simple'60s air cooled piston port 2 stroke street bike with five speeds that probably weighs 200 pounds and really handles. 250 Ducks are the other main ride, being a little heavier with better torque and the same handling. We diced with two Ducatis all race. The only way I could pass was on the brakes, especially turn 11, but I'd always lose the drag race to the line, which doesn't really bother me. This is gentleman's racing, at least in the back of the pack, no paint trading or bump to pass. A lot of the riders are mature, lots of gray, white, and missing hair. Some started or restarted racing recently, others have been at it for years. Even the slowest guys are smooth and take predictable lines. Since a lot of these guys have been riding since the Eisenhower Administration, you don't see much you could call erratic.

Later while spectating I run into Lance Raber and Tim Marek from Portland and Lance said he was one of the two Ducks we had been dicing with. Battling with friends away from home and you don't even know it. I think we wound up in seventh and eighth place out of 16.

In the 200 race it was us 160s with the BSA out of sight. It was so out of sight it stayed in the pits with warranty problems from bumping up into yesterday's 250 race where it ran as high as fourth. So we swept our class of five bikes, which I didn't even find out until later that afternoon. Cool. A national victory.

In between races I got a speck of grit in my eye and it scratched about every fourth blinks despite my frantic efforts to dislodge it with water. I gridded up for the second race 20 minutes later and forgot about it. We got to the hill way in the back as usual and the leaders were already gone. I got one or two riders between 2 and 3, one on the brakes into 4, and one or two at the crest of the hill into the carousel. Things are kind of settled after that and I hounded a 250 Duck, which was good in fast corners but light on the brakes. Brakes are my last resort weapon they sort of work, especially if you're a skinny guy. Maybe that's why my fellow 160 riders often have me over to dinner and ply me with roast duck and chocolate cake.

After a few laps a Bultaco Metralla went by, I repassed him in a slow corner and then he shot by again. I figured I'd get inside him on the brakes downhill into 4. 1 braked hard and late and the lever came back almost to the bar and as I almost ran off, he got away. I foolishly hit the kickstarter instead of the rear brake. Curses! I almost always use the rear brake, a habit ingrained from years of old street clunkers, where it's mandatory. The only problem on the track is to back off before it locks and comes around or makes you go straight. A lap later I get a moment in the carousel when the back steps out halfway down the hill on the gas. I think I leaned it over more than I needed to, which gave me a much wider exit than I had planned. I passed the Duck in 7 and led all the way into wide open bump turn 10 when he pulled alongside and passed me, a ballsy move, but I knew I could get him on the brakes in 11. I was still drafting him when he sat up so I swerved around him, grabbed everything, got off the now downshift twice, got my boot up on the crankcase and turned. He still got me right before the finish line but that sure was fun. He gave me a thumbs up and he's got white eyebrows and hair. I've been stalking and dicing with someone's grandpa! I feel a little guilty then I realize, if I can still do this in 15 20 years that's a lot to look forward to. We battled with this guy last year and had a blast.

After the race the eye grit returns and I wander around wearing a pair of pointy women's sunglasses found in the truck with a stream pouring out of my eye. I run into Lance Raber again and he says, "I'll roll your lid back and I can get that out with a paper match." I've been through this at Harborview before and Lance beats them hands down. We're done in less than five minutes. The torn match end works like a very soft brush. Nothing like having a fire department EMT with 20 years of experience around. I could never thank him enough. Turns out he's the same guy who treated a friend of mine when he broke his shoulder on a motorcycle tour in Bolivia. We forklift our vast accumulation of wood and season's points (Simon is third in the nation in 200 GP) into the truck and head out Sunday evening leaving the competition lying stunned like so many drowned worms on a wet sidewalk.

We'll be back