Out of my element on the blind roller-coaster

Grattan was to be a new track for me in 2004, and one which everyone hyped as being absolutely incredible. There were many tales of the "jump", and blind off-camber downhill turns, etc. I was excited and really wanted to be a part of it. Fresh off my Keith Code California Superbike School 2-day camp, I was ready for a new challenge.

CCS does not run Grattan, it is done by Fasttrax which has a much smaller turnout and fewer classes. I talked to Bob Stanley who runs Fasttrax and he recommended I come out and practice on Saturday and then race 2 classes on Sunday. He promised more than ample practice time, and delivered more than I ever expected.

We left on the 320 mile journey from Sussex, WI to Belding, MI at 1:00pm on Friday, hoping to be at the track long before dark. Chicago traffic would allow none of this. Courtesy of a semi fire, we suffered a 4 hour stop-n-go stretch through a few miles of 94. Getting to the track at around 11:00pm (central, but the track was in EDT, so it was actually midnight), we ended up sleeping on the access road.

Saturday 6/12 -
We set everything up around 8:00 AM. I talked to the Fasttrax folks and ran through tech inspection, etc. Tech was a unique experience. They are safety-wire freaks. I ended up coming back twice after wiring more and more (and they were STILL complaining). Funny, how I could run through tech inspection in my shorts with no helmet and they'd pass me, but a torqued down locknut had to be wired. CCS is heavy on inspecting gear, but Fasttrax is all about the bike, and if you have less than 2-lbs of safety wire on your bike, you can't possibly pass.

Out for first practice, the track was still wet from an early morning rain, and the ground was completely saturated because of weeks of rain previously. No big deal, I'm used to riding on wet tracks. But wait. This is a new track to me... The rain on this track might as well have been oil. It was absolutely terrible. To make matters worse, the elevation changes caused literal rivers of water down the track, and the cracks/seams in the track (which there was no shortage of) wept water even under bright beating sunshine.

I spent a few sessions running the track in 4th gear with no brakes, really working on the stuff Keith drilled into me just 1 week prior. It took a LOT of time to find correct reference points. There are only a couple of turns on the whole track that you can actually see. Most of them are blind. This actually helped with reference points since you HAD to use them, but it made finding them more difficult.

Here's a run around the track (click here to skip it)

• Start - hard off the line and deep into T1.
• T1 is deceptively fast. It is a decent surface and goes uphill and widens out like a parking lot on the exit. You really can't carry too much speed here.
• T2 is a 90-degree right hander which (as most others) is nothing but sealer and is rough as hell. Out of T2 you are coming downhill slightly.
• T3 is a completely blind, off-camber downhill left turn. You come into it, and before even seeing a hint of a turn you pick a point and pitch left. Again, this is done without even seeing anything. I found my point and pitched left, aiming for the grass and it opened up to put me on a decent line. The problem with this turn is that it too is rough and full of sealer. Plus the track drops AWAY from the turn (off-camber), and immediately starts going back uphill after the apex. You have to brake before the turn (as usual), but then accelerate down the hill and around the corner or you'll lose the front end from the weight/force. Out of T3, you're up the hill, click a gear and hit the right hander of T4
• T4 you go into up hill, but the track then goes downhill after the apex. Again. Rough and sealant filled. Flying out of T4, you go downhill and over a small hump, then the "jump" into T5.
• The Jump - you can brake before or after it, but over top of it is pretty risky because it unloads the suspension so much. Once you crest the jump (at mach 1), you see T5.
• T5 is a right hander which can be taken with more speed than you really think, which throws you into the S bends of 6-7-8.
• T6&7 are an immediate left right combo, and you need to come out of T7 on the middle to inside of the track so you can get into T8 which is the bowl.
• T8 is a steep banked bowl which puts you out into a sweeping right hand section of T9. I found a good line for the bowl by running in deep and then pitching down the banking. The scary part of this is that you could get negative lean angle because of the banking. This is not something you can do except at a few select tracks (Daytona is the other that comes to mind).
• T9 is over a hill and again strewn with sealer and runs you into the hairpin turn of T10
• T10 turns right, back on itself really tight, and is pretty blind. Again, turn in by reference point, not by looking at the track. Out of T10, up the hill to a blind set of right lefts (T11-12) which spit you onto the straight (or into a guardrail should you be unfortunate). And there you have a lap at Grattan.

Now, to jump on my soapbox and rant (whine) a little bit about the track. The surface of this track is quite possibly the worst in the country. I liken it to racing around a track made of full beer cans laying on their sides, covered with tar. And every 12th or so can you hit spits water out. The track was NOTHING BUT Sealer and horrific bumps. And there was water coming up through the cracks in the track all over the place. The old Blackhawk Farms (before repaving) was GLASS smooth compared to Grattan.

The rain dried up, and I continued to run the track to understand the lefts from the rights and gain reference points. I also spent time going through several sets of gearing to figure out what would work best. Ultimately I settled for a 15:45 combo which is slightly taller than the 16:47 I run at Blackhawk. One big difference is that it added about 12mm to my wheelbase which caused the bike to require a touch more effort on turn-in, but was far more stable through the bumps than my other combo's.

Saturday afternoon held a 3 hour endurance race which I did not participate in.

Pics of T3&T4 from our pit and a closeup of the off-camber downhill blind left of T3.

Sunday 6/13
3 rounds of practice this morning, and the weather was overcast with chances of afternoon rain. Practice had me running 1:32's, and the fastest people I clocked on Saturday's races were running 26's, so I didn't feel too off.

Race 1 - Middleweight Superbike
I was gridded on pole position but suffered a terrible launch when the green flag flew while the 1 board was being turned sideways (I'm used to a 2-5 second delay before the flag). Head down, I ran the track as best I could. I started immediately clicking off 1:30's flat, and held that pace comfortably. I managed to keep the locals in sight for about 3 laps, but after that, they were gone. A fellow CCS racer came around me on lap 2, and I held onto his tail, pretty confident that I could pass him, but another rider got between us and it gapped us to the point that I could not recover.

I finished this race 4th.

4th place?! Wow! Well, no... Oddly enough, in my racing career, this is the worst finish I've ever had! I was 4 out of 4... Dead last :-( But it wasn't all bad, as the #1&2 guys were locals that run there constantly, and the #3 guy had raced the track before as well.

In from my first race, with about 3 hours on my hands until my next race, I decided to pull everything down and get it packed up so all we had to do was load bikes after the last race.

Race 2 - GT1 (basically an unlimited class)
The grid was much larger on this race (15 of us I think), and again I was on pole. Again, they caught me sleeping with the green flag flying as the 1 board turned sideways (I don't know what the deal is here... That's just wrong...). I came into T1 probably 4th or 5th, and in T1 as well as most other corners on the track, water was coming UP through the cracks in the track. This REALLY SUCKED. But it did offer the perfect opportunity to employ some of the Keith Code stuff I learned the week prior. By flicking the bike in quick, I could point it through the corner, and then just pick the bike up slightly over the wet spots. It worked well.

About 3/4 through the race, light rain started coming down. I was following a fellow who was on an F4i pitted right next to me. There were a few spots that I felt I could pass him in, but I wanted to wait until closer to the end (I guess I shouldn't ever wait, that's pretty dumb come to think about it). Anyhow, on the white flag lap, the rain started coming down good. He backed off and I followed him around. The last 2 turns onto the straight, I flicked the bike in as quick as I comfortably could without sliding, and then picked the bike up while dialing on the gas but still hanging a bit off. I got a MONSTER drive out of T12, and came past him for the finish.

I ended up 6th in this race.

A few random shots around the back side of the track including the last shot of the 'jump'

Pulling in from the race, the sky opened up and began dumping BUCKETS of water. Pouring monsoon type rain. I didn't even stop, I ran the bike straight into the back of the trailer, and got off and changed there while the rain dumped for 15 minutes. We then finished packing the few remaining items and headed out, returning home around 11:30pm.

Wrap-up.
I don't know how I feel about the weekend. I didn't have a "bad" weekend, but it wasn't as fun as when I am around the normal 200 or so people that I've been racing with for the last 5 years. The track layout was neat, and the viewing was spectacular, but the surface was really disappointing. Talking to some of the locals though, they did say my times were quite respectable for a newbie at the track. This made me feel a bit better.

This was my first race weekend since spending 2 days with Keith Code, and it was funny in that every time I screwed up, I could hear my day 1 instructor Deb correcting me ("you're pushing the bike Jeff", "why did you just hit the brakes there?", "turn in faster or you're using excessive lean angle"). It was also funny to watch racers in front of me make HUGE and classic mistakes which affected them so much. I.e., watching people take a series of corners starting from the middle of the track and then just lazily steering into it while I stay at the edge of the track and quick flick it in. I could show wheel to the riders that did this EVERY time.

The one thing about the Code school which really showed up this weekend was the large number of things to remember about the "basics". When we went out during the school, it was working on 1 thing at a time and eventually integrating them. Running this race weekend, there were times when I felt a bit overwhelmed with things I "needed to do", and when I felt that way I simply went back to the absolute basic step of controlling the throttle and not fighting the bike. From there I'd relax and get a few more steps in (visual steps, etc).

The Fasttrax race organization was interesting. They are a much smaller club, so the overall structure is much more lax. The practice sessions were MUCH longer and better than CCS, and their sprint races were 12 laps as opposed to 5-8 laps, but this is only possible because of the small turnouts.

All in all, my goals were to stay upright and break into the high 20's. I ended up staying upright and was .01 seconds (repeatedly!) off of goal #2. I guess this is successful. The wisdom Keith shared with me before I went to the track was simple. "If you can master Grattan, you can race ANYWHERE".

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