Minuteman
Well-known member
B) Me and my brother went to the California Speedway on Saturday to watch the practice , qualifying and leg one of the Superbike races. At noon they let riders for $10 take a couple of laps around the track.
One thing I noticed was a lot of guys, about 50 or so lining up to ride the track and they were only wearing short pants, tee shirts, military boots and those Nazi half helmets , they all looked the same. Only thing was different was the brand of custom looking rocket they was riding. One guy was in line revving the hell out of his bike ?
Now I am starting to get second thoughts about this so called parade lap thing, and more and more riders are lining up . My quess around at least 200 riders. I payed my $10 so I thought I would ride wide and high and try to stay out of the line of squids traffic jams.
The Highway Patrol offered 2 of there finest Motorcyle cops to lead the way so I was thinking this is going to be a really slow parade lap, but to my surprise they took off really fast. I was about mid pack with the Metal Milisha group about 75 yards in front . Every thing was going well except for a girl rider who was going to take the line no matter what ? that almost caused a couple of guys to run into each other. But when we hit the long front straight with the chichain at the end, where the racers are doing 175 and hit the first left hander around 130. This is where it got interesting as everyone including me spead up. I took the top of the enbankment thinking this could be a disaster and I didn't want to be in the middle. I got up to around 80 at one time and sure enough as the group was setting up to enter the chichain, the one clown who was revving his bike sitting in line , he was riding on the bottom of the track got pinched trying to enter the turn and hit the 3 inch high curb which was not a big deal if he would of stayed straight and just rolled over the curb, but no he turned his wheel so to highside himself right in front of the group. I went high off the track to miss him and luckely he dident get hit . It took only seconds when I was looking back to see the ambulance going to see how rashed up he was. Quess they knew that was the place to be.
Needless to say we only got One lap.
The racing was excellent, and we had a good day and a safe trip home.
Thanks, Dan
One thing I noticed was a lot of guys, about 50 or so lining up to ride the track and they were only wearing short pants, tee shirts, military boots and those Nazi half helmets , they all looked the same. Only thing was different was the brand of custom looking rocket they was riding. One guy was in line revving the hell out of his bike ?
Now I am starting to get second thoughts about this so called parade lap thing, and more and more riders are lining up . My quess around at least 200 riders. I payed my $10 so I thought I would ride wide and high and try to stay out of the line of squids traffic jams.
The Highway Patrol offered 2 of there finest Motorcyle cops to lead the way so I was thinking this is going to be a really slow parade lap, but to my surprise they took off really fast. I was about mid pack with the Metal Milisha group about 75 yards in front . Every thing was going well except for a girl rider who was going to take the line no matter what ? that almost caused a couple of guys to run into each other. But when we hit the long front straight with the chichain at the end, where the racers are doing 175 and hit the first left hander around 130. This is where it got interesting as everyone including me spead up. I took the top of the enbankment thinking this could be a disaster and I didn't want to be in the middle. I got up to around 80 at one time and sure enough as the group was setting up to enter the chichain, the one clown who was revving his bike sitting in line , he was riding on the bottom of the track got pinched trying to enter the turn and hit the 3 inch high curb which was not a big deal if he would of stayed straight and just rolled over the curb, but no he turned his wheel so to highside himself right in front of the group. I went high off the track to miss him and luckely he dident get hit . It took only seconds when I was looking back to see the ambulance going to see how rashed up he was. Quess they knew that was the place to be.
Needless to say we only got One lap.
The racing was excellent, and we had a good day and a safe trip home.
Thanks, Dan
I learned to save my $10 next time.
