Group W Racing

Name:  Fats Fowlinski
Home City/State/Province:  Seattle, WA

Age: 50

Year’s racing:  20

Race Organizations:  WMRRA, CMA (Canadian Motorcycle Association), OMRRA,
AHRMA

Other M/C Organizations:  None at this time

Current racing motorcycles:  1965 Honda CB160

Previous racing motorcycles:  None
Tracks raced on?  Pacific Raceways, Seattle International Raceway, Portland
International Raceway, Spokane Raceway Park, Westwood, Hoquiam Street
Course, Mission Raceway, Sears Point, Thunderhill, Bremerton Raceway, Laguna
Seca Raceway

Favorite track?  That’s hard, I was only at Westwood once, otherwise it’s a
toss up between SIR and Sears Point.

Most memorable racing experience (good or bad)?  After twenty seasons, I
have a lot of memorable experiences; so many, I can’t remember them all.
Every season has its highs and lows. This year’s high point was rain racing.
Previously, I had either fallen off immediately, stayed in the pits, or went
pathetically slow. I got my usual poor start and used other riders for
reference on how slow to go. It’s kind of like feeling for the edge of a
cliff in the pitch dark. It finally started to click. In one race at Pacific
Raceways I went from last to 3rd place out of fifteen riders. You simply do
as little as possible, shifting, braking etc, with the emphasis on being
smooth. We were dicing in the rain, passing and re-passing on the brakes
into turn 3, side by side in 9 etc. It was a blast! I couldn’t believe it. I
came in grinning instead of hating it.

The low point this year was crashing in turn one at Portland
dong about 75 or 80 MPH. I was leading a 3-way dice, went in faster than I
was comfortable with and dragged the front brake in a little too far. The
front tucked and I was down instantly. I wasn’t on the brake hard, but at
full lean, full tilt, it doesn’t take much. Had I let off, I could’ve made
it. The bike is still better than me.

The next week we all went to Thunderhill (in California) and I had to learn
a new fast long track with a lot of blind corners. I had little confidence
having just had my first high speed get-off in all these years. I was slow
and struggled all weekend in the heat, 5 seconds off the pace of the fastest
160’s.

What started you racing?  I went to my first race at Westwood B.C. around
1986 or 1987. I distinctly remember Carl Rader speaking at a VME meeting and
ended with “If you don’t go to Westwood, you’re in the wrong club”. Once a
year they had a huge vintage car/bike weekend that was amazing. I packed up
my 305 Honda Dream, went, and was enthralled. Later the VME and SOVERN
staged a similar event in Seattle and I worked Turns with Dana Payne. I
remember Simon-Pierre Smith and Dave Smith battling for last in the 250
class on 125’s and thought “I could do that”. Around that time Carl had
built a CB160 café-racer he dubbed the Vashon TT special. It worked so well
on Vashon that he decided to race it.  At Westwood, the Watson brothers,
Robert and Ian, who’d been racing BSA’s, took it out in practice and were
hooked. Ian told me later that it was so much fun they had to get them. “You
just rode them flat out all the time.” The cam chain didn’t last the weekend
and the bike sat while Carl tried to give it away. I collected it that fall
and rebuilt it with Phil at MSI.

Why do you like racing?  The thing I really like about racing is railing
through corners in a group, 3-4-5 bikes wide, everybody at full lean, on the
pin a little chatter from the front end to let you know you’re going fast,
or coming down the hill jockeying for position trying to out brake everyone.

Winning the race has never been that important. For years
there were just 2-4 of us. Whoever got too far in front would sandbag on the
next straight so we could bunch up and go back to side by side dicing in the
corners. I was always the lightest so I had an unfair advantage. I used to
even drop back and tow the last guy back to the front with the draft.

Now there are a lot of guys and some are faster than me so
the only time I sandbag is when I’m by myself between 2 groups and can’t
catch the one in front of me after a lap or 2. Riding around by yourself is
boring; I’d rather be in a battle for 9th than all alone in 6th.

In a nutshell, I’ve always liked riding a small bike as fast
as I can around corners and really using all of its capabilities and the
street has too many limitations.

A huge reason I’ve done this so long is the good people I’ve
raced with starting with the Watson brothers, through the Bundys,
Simon-Pierre, Michael Bateman, the Portland guys, all the newer guys etc. We
travel, cook, pit, party, camp, wrench, and race together and it’s great.

Other remarks:  To thank or mention all the people who’ve helped out or
participated would fill this newsletter.