russperry
Well-known member
Some of you folks out there might know but last year I started ruminating (my big word of the post) on an idea to tour the US and attempt to get to as many new roadracing circuits as possible, with focus on the MotoAmerica stops. My wife and I left on July 8th and got home last Wednesday (August 27th).
So let's go into the way back machine, all the way to early March, before the COVID shutdown came. I had spent a lot of time over the winter putting together a two part plan - a two month tour in the spring, followed by another 6 weeks in the fall. The idea was to avoid the heat of summer and get in as much riding as possible in the better weather conditions. I found a 30' RV that looked to be in good condition, relatively low miles, and happened to be owned by a guy I knew who had been the little league coach for one of my sons! So I pull the trigger on March 9th and take possession, then 7 days later the world shuts down!
So we go into a cocoon and by June are ready to emerge. Now that the spring is gone, I've got no choice but to venture out in the dead of summer so its gonna be a 3 month marathon, starting in early July, and returning by early October. The plan is for 14 track days in 90+ days which is gonna be a HUGE increase in dates compared to any prior year I've been doing this - generally I get in 5-8 events per year, so this is gonna be a real marathon.
The first leg of the trip is about a week crossing from NorCal to RoadAmerica, the first stop of the trip. Along the way, we met up with Big John in Spearfish. As is his usual method, John rolled out the red carpet, suggested we stay at the Spearfish City Campground (awesome suggestion), and lent us a car to visit around the Black Hills which was super generous. Next we headed to the Detroit Lakes area of Minnesota where an old friend of mine from the Navy days now lives. He and his wife live on a beautiful lake, on 10 acres including a really nice little peninsula where he's got his fishing boat docked. They've remodeled a summer cabin into their full time house and have a really nice thing going
So we're back on the road and head to RoadAmerica. An absolutely beautiful facility situated in some rolling hills near Elkhart Lake. There's tons of camping spaces, an 18 hole frisbee golf course, and miles of trails and roads you can explore. The track is just over 4 miles, and cuts through wooded hills where you come down from 150mph without seeing the next corner! There are three long, fast straights so this is a big horsepower special!
About this point we started having some RV problems. First thing was a leak in the shower. As most of you know water damage in an RV can be catastrophic, and unfortunately the leak is in a spot that neither I nor any roadside RV repair guys could get to. So the shower is out of action right as we're getting ready to head into the heat and humidity of the east coast summer.
Second problem was a failed slideout. When we stopped on the road to check the shower leak, the guy suggested to keep an eye on this particular slide mechanism. Sure enough, at our next stop I checked on the gear mechanism I saw that 4 of the teeth in the track had been destroyed by the drive! Unlike some hydraulic types, there is no manual backup mechanism so now we're living in a smaller space.
After RA the next stop was Blackhawk Farms Raceway. This is a small, privately owned racetrack not too far from Chicago. In normal times we would have ventured to the HD Museum in Milwaukee, and into Chicago before going to the track, but with all the rioting and virus stuff we steered clear. The track itself is a tight, narrow course that winds through a lot of trees. It seem to be a very family-friendly setup - I think we saw more little kids there than anywhere else on the trip. The track feels small time - there's no bridge or tunnel to reach the infield so cars and trucks cross the track at 90 degrees between sessions! The pavement was probably in the worst condition of any of the venues, but it was still a fun event. We got a break in the weather and dodged the worst of the humidity, but this was the last time that happened!
The next event was the following weekend at Virginia International Raceway. VIR is in the southwest corner of Virginia and out in the boonies! Its a huge facility, I think something like 1200 acres. The normal circuit that they use for racing is called VIR North, but I signed up for the full course which is a little bit over 3.2 miles. The facility is still a little rough compared to the other MotoAmerica tracks, but its really beautiful. The track itself has everything you'd want in a roadracing circuit - a couple of fast straights, high speed esses, tight corners, elevation changes, and a really fun section they call the Roller Coaster. But this was the first (but not last) of the crazy hot and humid events. The process was - ride for 20 minutes, jump in the RV to cool off for 40 minutes - repeat.
After VIR, we headed to Virginia Beach where some more of my old Navy buddies still live and work. One of them has recently remarried - he remarried well if you ask me - he moved into her house with a nice yard and big swimming pool! We ended up playing golf three days in a row which was an unexpected pleasure I played pretty well so it was a good stop! While there we visited another Navy guy who is actually an active duty admiral. He had an interesting story to tell about handling the COVID business (can't say too much about that - national security and all). From Va Beach we headed up to Easton Maryland where another of the navy crew lives. He grew up there and now lives in a beautiful old home (about 100 years worth) that they've been renovating for the last several years. He and his wife gave us a nice boat tour of the Tred Avon and Choptank Rivers.
Around this point, we decided to cut the trip short. The RV issues and the resulting degradation of the living experience (remember we're in this thing nearly 24 hours per day!) eventually lead us to the conclusion that once we got to Texas we'd turn for home, instead of turning north then east again as we had originally planned. I retooled the track event schedule a little bit and we kept on going.
After Maryland, next stop was at New Jersey Motorsports Park in Milville, NJ to ride the Thunderbolt circuit. Its a nice course, in great condition and a lot of fun to ride. The course is built in the corner of an airfield (supposed to be a nice aviation museum there but we didn't have time to see it) so there's not a lot of elevation change. But it was a nice ride - unlike some of the other MotoAmerica courses its not too long - only 2.4 miles so the lap times are relatively quick so there's more cycles to learn the track. I enjoyed that part of it - on some of the bigger courses you only get 7 or 8 full laps per 20 minute session whereas here you could get about 10 or 11. We couldn't dawdle in the area at all as Hurrican Isaisis was due to hit New Jersey the following day. So we loaded up the truck and we moved to Bev-er-lee - Hills that is......... Actually we headed west towards Pittsburgh. Jeri's cousin lives in the town of Greensburg, so we headed there to dodge the storm track and visited with her family for a few days.
After a couple of days in western PA, we head over to Lancaster to hang with the Amhish folks. Not that we were thinking of converting or anything, but we were looking for some food and craft-type stuff. The fresh fruits and vegetables were great, lots of fruit preserves, and the never ending clop-clop-clop of horse drawn carriages. And we almost got flooded out of our campsite which was pretty interesting. We got about 8 hours of steady rain, and the fields and creeks around the campground were overflowing. The buildings at the campsite were flooded, and the ground around the RV was underwater in many places but we were able to stay dry.
From there the next stop was Summit Point, West Virginia. A nice private facility - they seem to have the process pretty well sorted out, and the track itself was in perfect condition, probably the best asphalt of the entire trip. Again it was hot and humid, but it was a well run event and I had a good time.
From West Virginia we headed towards Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham Alabama. What a treasure! The track is the most fun I've ever had on a road racing circuit. There's all kinds of corners, lots of elevation change, and blind corners (Turn 4 is exhilarating - blind, fast, right hander over the top of a pretty steep hill!). And of course you have the Barber Museum which is fantastic! I know many of you have been there but if you haven't it is definitely a destination worth seeing.
Another bad news event happens - on the way out of Barber, a car cut in front of me when I was making a left turn and we collided. Very little damage to the nose of the RV but pretty much tore up the Honda. The girl who got out of it looked a little jumpy to me, and later Jeri told me that she could see her fiddling around under the right hand passenger seat. I called the police and they showed up pretty quickly. The officer asked us our stories, then in only a few minutes told me I could leave, while he stayed with the girl. When we got the police report later we figured out why - in the narrative it was mentioned that not only was she NOT the owner of the car, but she had been arrested for possession of a controlled substance. Even thought the police report stated that it was her fault, and that she had been arrested, State Farm (their insurer) has told me they won't accept liability!
After Barber we headed towards Texas and the crown jewel of the trip, riding in Austin at Circuit of the Americas. For those following MotoGP you know its the only stop in the US now so its kind of by default the epicenter of motorcycle roadracing here.
We did get unlucky and at the same time lucky along the way to my cousin's house in Galveston - leaving an RV park, we found that the only door on the coach would not open! Jeri was outside with the dog, and I was inside, but we could not open the door. Through some phone calls and investigation, we figured out that the lock mechanism had broken, and luckily one of us was inside the coach when it happened so we could disassemble the lock and get the door open. If it had happened as we closed the door from the outside we probably would have had to drill the entire lock out!
We did get down to my cousin's house in Galveston Bay and spent a really nice two days there. He's got a great place right on the water, with a nice new home built in 2012 (original destroyed in 2008 by Hurricane Ike). He's even got a 1990's vintage pinball machine (KISS theme!) Again, it was hot and humid, probably the toughest conditions of the entire trip, but having a nice swimming pool to cool off in took the edge off .
Once we got to COTA, things got off to a rough start. There were thunderstorms overnight, and we had heavy rain in the morning. So far we'd been lucky and missed any rainouts, but this looked like we might have a washout at the last event. But the rain stopped by about 10:00 and the track dried very quickly, so we got started by about 11:30. The track itself is great - it was super fun to be on the same course that we watch every year (except this year dammit) as the fastest riders in the world tear around the very same course. But with the rain delay, and the 4 group format (usually there are 3 run groups) I only got 5 sessions and the last two were shortened, so there wasn't as much time on the track that I would have liked.
But there we were, about 1500 miles from home and it was time to high tail it across the southwest and get home. We took about 3 days to get to Mesa Arizona where Jeri's cousin lives. He and his wife put us up for a night, but a near disaster struck that night Our dog Lily is nearly 12 years old, and last year we had a cancerous tumor removed from her right flank. At the time, we decided we weren't going to go down the chem/surgery route if more tumors were found. We had noticed over the previous 2-3 weeks that she had a lump on her chest under her right forearm that was growing rapidly - it was very hard and was nearly the size of a golf ball. We had decided to wait until we got home to find out what was going on, but we didn't get that far. That night in Arizona, the growth seemed to have burst and she would not/could not walk. Early that morning we went to a 24 hour vet clinic where their first assessment was that it was another mass cell tumor. They did send the sample out for complete pathology, but we decided that morning to cannonball run for home and get her to our normal vet.
We got home last Wednesday night just before midnight, then went to the vet in the morning. They took a look at her, and based on the Arizona vet's feedback they suggested that we were looking at only pain management and potentially euthanasia. I wasn't ready yet for calling the end, so we took her home. About 3 hours later, the Arizona vet called and said that the final pathology report did NOT confirm the tumor but found only a very bad infection. It was about the best news we could have gotten, so they opened her up to drain the infection (the vet said she smelled like a dead animal ) and put her on antibiotics and almost immediately she started to rebound. We're a week into it and she's acting like her old self and eating well. I think back at how close we were to putting her down and it freaks me out. Anyways, we know she doesn't have a whole lot of time left but at least she seems to have a good quality of life for now!
So we're home - in the end I was able to ride on 7 new racetracks and visited a lot of friends and family along the way so I would call it a success! The big debate here at home is whether to keep the RV or to sell it. I'm not convinced it makes sense to keep it but Jeri wants to keep it around for shorter trips. I know for sure that lengthy trips far from home are risky. Poor reliability of these things seems to be well accepted and its hard for me to deal with that given how much money it takes to run, store, insure and repair them.
That is all!
If you made it this far, thanks for reading along
So let's go into the way back machine, all the way to early March, before the COVID shutdown came. I had spent a lot of time over the winter putting together a two part plan - a two month tour in the spring, followed by another 6 weeks in the fall. The idea was to avoid the heat of summer and get in as much riding as possible in the better weather conditions. I found a 30' RV that looked to be in good condition, relatively low miles, and happened to be owned by a guy I knew who had been the little league coach for one of my sons! So I pull the trigger on March 9th and take possession, then 7 days later the world shuts down!
So we go into a cocoon and by June are ready to emerge. Now that the spring is gone, I've got no choice but to venture out in the dead of summer so its gonna be a 3 month marathon, starting in early July, and returning by early October. The plan is for 14 track days in 90+ days which is gonna be a HUGE increase in dates compared to any prior year I've been doing this - generally I get in 5-8 events per year, so this is gonna be a real marathon.
The first leg of the trip is about a week crossing from NorCal to RoadAmerica, the first stop of the trip. Along the way, we met up with Big John in Spearfish. As is his usual method, John rolled out the red carpet, suggested we stay at the Spearfish City Campground (awesome suggestion), and lent us a car to visit around the Black Hills which was super generous. Next we headed to the Detroit Lakes area of Minnesota where an old friend of mine from the Navy days now lives. He and his wife live on a beautiful lake, on 10 acres including a really nice little peninsula where he's got his fishing boat docked. They've remodeled a summer cabin into their full time house and have a really nice thing going
So we're back on the road and head to RoadAmerica. An absolutely beautiful facility situated in some rolling hills near Elkhart Lake. There's tons of camping spaces, an 18 hole frisbee golf course, and miles of trails and roads you can explore. The track is just over 4 miles, and cuts through wooded hills where you come down from 150mph without seeing the next corner! There are three long, fast straights so this is a big horsepower special!
About this point we started having some RV problems. First thing was a leak in the shower. As most of you know water damage in an RV can be catastrophic, and unfortunately the leak is in a spot that neither I nor any roadside RV repair guys could get to. So the shower is out of action right as we're getting ready to head into the heat and humidity of the east coast summer.
Second problem was a failed slideout. When we stopped on the road to check the shower leak, the guy suggested to keep an eye on this particular slide mechanism. Sure enough, at our next stop I checked on the gear mechanism I saw that 4 of the teeth in the track had been destroyed by the drive! Unlike some hydraulic types, there is no manual backup mechanism so now we're living in a smaller space.
After RA the next stop was Blackhawk Farms Raceway. This is a small, privately owned racetrack not too far from Chicago. In normal times we would have ventured to the HD Museum in Milwaukee, and into Chicago before going to the track, but with all the rioting and virus stuff we steered clear. The track itself is a tight, narrow course that winds through a lot of trees. It seem to be a very family-friendly setup - I think we saw more little kids there than anywhere else on the trip. The track feels small time - there's no bridge or tunnel to reach the infield so cars and trucks cross the track at 90 degrees between sessions! The pavement was probably in the worst condition of any of the venues, but it was still a fun event. We got a break in the weather and dodged the worst of the humidity, but this was the last time that happened!
The next event was the following weekend at Virginia International Raceway. VIR is in the southwest corner of Virginia and out in the boonies! Its a huge facility, I think something like 1200 acres. The normal circuit that they use for racing is called VIR North, but I signed up for the full course which is a little bit over 3.2 miles. The facility is still a little rough compared to the other MotoAmerica tracks, but its really beautiful. The track itself has everything you'd want in a roadracing circuit - a couple of fast straights, high speed esses, tight corners, elevation changes, and a really fun section they call the Roller Coaster. But this was the first (but not last) of the crazy hot and humid events. The process was - ride for 20 minutes, jump in the RV to cool off for 40 minutes - repeat.
After VIR, we headed to Virginia Beach where some more of my old Navy buddies still live and work. One of them has recently remarried - he remarried well if you ask me - he moved into her house with a nice yard and big swimming pool! We ended up playing golf three days in a row which was an unexpected pleasure
I played pretty well so it was a good stop! While there we visited another Navy guy who is actually an active duty admiral. He had an interesting story to tell about handling the COVID business (can't say too much about that - national security and all). From Va Beach we headed up to Easton Maryland where another of the navy crew lives. He grew up there and now lives in a beautiful old home (about 100 years worth) that they've been renovating for the last several years. He and his wife gave us a nice boat tour of the Tred Avon and Choptank Rivers.Around this point, we decided to cut the trip short. The RV issues and the resulting degradation of the living experience (remember we're in this thing nearly 24 hours per day!) eventually lead us to the conclusion that once we got to Texas we'd turn for home, instead of turning north then east again as we had originally planned. I retooled the track event schedule a little bit and we kept on going.
After Maryland, next stop was at New Jersey Motorsports Park in Milville, NJ to ride the Thunderbolt circuit. Its a nice course, in great condition and a lot of fun to ride. The course is built in the corner of an airfield (supposed to be a nice aviation museum there but we didn't have time to see it) so there's not a lot of elevation change. But it was a nice ride - unlike some of the other MotoAmerica courses its not too long - only 2.4 miles so the lap times are relatively quick so there's more cycles to learn the track. I enjoyed that part of it - on some of the bigger courses you only get 7 or 8 full laps per 20 minute session whereas here you could get about 10 or 11. We couldn't dawdle in the area at all as Hurrican Isaisis was due to hit New Jersey the following day. So we loaded up the truck and we moved to Bev-er-lee - Hills that is......... Actually we headed west towards Pittsburgh. Jeri's cousin lives in the town of Greensburg, so we headed there to dodge the storm track and visited with her family for a few days.
After a couple of days in western PA, we head over to Lancaster to hang with the Amhish folks. Not that we were thinking of converting or anything, but we were looking for some food and craft-type stuff. The fresh fruits and vegetables were great, lots of fruit preserves, and the never ending clop-clop-clop of horse drawn carriages. And we almost got flooded out of our campsite which was pretty interesting. We got about 8 hours of steady rain, and the fields and creeks around the campground were overflowing. The buildings at the campsite were flooded, and the ground around the RV was underwater in many places but we were able to stay dry.
From there the next stop was Summit Point, West Virginia. A nice private facility - they seem to have the process pretty well sorted out, and the track itself was in perfect condition, probably the best asphalt of the entire trip. Again it was hot and humid, but it was a well run event and I had a good time.
From West Virginia we headed towards Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham Alabama. What a treasure! The track is the most fun I've ever had on a road racing circuit. There's all kinds of corners, lots of elevation change, and blind corners (Turn 4 is exhilarating - blind, fast, right hander over the top of a pretty steep hill!). And of course you have the Barber Museum which is fantastic! I know many of you have been there but if you haven't it is definitely a destination worth seeing.
Another bad news event happens - on the way out of Barber, a car cut in front of me when I was making a left turn and we collided. Very little damage to the nose of the RV but pretty much tore up the Honda. The girl who got out of it looked a little jumpy to me, and later Jeri told me that she could see her fiddling around under the right hand passenger seat. I called the police and they showed up pretty quickly. The officer asked us our stories, then in only a few minutes told me I could leave, while he stayed with the girl. When we got the police report later we figured out why - in the narrative it was mentioned that not only was she NOT the owner of the car, but she had been arrested for possession of a controlled substance. Even thought the police report stated that it was her fault, and that she had been arrested, State Farm (their insurer) has told me they won't accept liability!
After Barber we headed towards Texas and the crown jewel of the trip, riding in Austin at Circuit of the Americas. For those following MotoGP you know its the only stop in the US now so its kind of by default the epicenter of motorcycle roadracing here.
We did get unlucky and at the same time lucky along the way to my cousin's house in Galveston - leaving an RV park, we found that the only door on the coach would not open! Jeri was outside with the dog, and I was inside, but we could not open the door. Through some phone calls and investigation, we figured out that the lock mechanism had broken, and luckily one of us was inside the coach when it happened so we could disassemble the lock and get the door open. If it had happened as we closed the door from the outside we probably would have had to drill the entire lock out!
We did get down to my cousin's house in Galveston Bay and spent a really nice two days there. He's got a great place right on the water, with a nice new home built in 2012 (original destroyed in 2008 by Hurricane Ike). He's even got a 1990's vintage pinball machine (KISS theme!) Again, it was hot and humid, probably the toughest conditions of the entire trip, but having a nice swimming pool to cool off in took the edge off
. Once we got to COTA, things got off to a rough start. There were thunderstorms overnight, and we had heavy rain in the morning. So far we'd been lucky and missed any rainouts, but this looked like we might have a washout at the last event. But the rain stopped by about 10:00 and the track dried very quickly, so we got started by about 11:30. The track itself is great - it was super fun to be on the same course that we watch every year (except this year dammit) as the fastest riders in the world tear around the very same course. But with the rain delay, and the 4 group format (usually there are 3 run groups) I only got 5 sessions and the last two were shortened, so there wasn't as much time on the track that I would have liked.
But there we were, about 1500 miles from home and it was time to high tail it across the southwest and get home. We took about 3 days to get to Mesa Arizona where Jeri's cousin lives. He and his wife put us up for a night, but a near disaster struck that night
Our dog Lily is nearly 12 years old, and last year we had a cancerous tumor removed from her right flank. At the time, we decided we weren't going to go down the chem/surgery route if more tumors were found. We had noticed over the previous 2-3 weeks that she had a lump on her chest under her right forearm that was growing rapidly - it was very hard and was nearly the size of a golf ball. We had decided to wait until we got home to find out what was going on, but we didn't get that far. That night in Arizona, the growth seemed to have burst and she would not/could not walk. Early that morning we went to a 24 hour vet clinic where their first assessment was that it was another mass cell tumor. They did send the sample out for complete pathology, but we decided that morning to cannonball run for home and get her to our normal vet.We got home last Wednesday night just before midnight, then went to the vet in the morning. They took a look at her, and based on the Arizona vet's feedback they suggested that we were looking at only pain management and potentially euthanasia. I wasn't ready yet for calling the end, so we took her home. About 3 hours later, the Arizona vet called and said that the final pathology report did NOT confirm the tumor but found only a very bad infection. It was about the best news we could have gotten, so they opened her up to drain the infection (the vet said she smelled like a dead animal
) and put her on antibiotics and almost immediately she started to rebound. We're a week into it and she's acting like her old self and eating well. I think back at how close we were to putting her down and it freaks me out. Anyways, we know she doesn't have a whole lot of time left but at least she seems to have a good quality of life for now!So we're home - in the end I was able to ride on 7 new racetracks and visited a lot of friends and family along the way so I would call it a success! The big debate here at home is whether to keep the RV or to sell it. I'm not convinced it makes sense to keep it but Jeri wants to keep it around for shorter trips. I know for sure that lengthy trips far from home are risky. Poor reliability of these things seems to be well accepted and its hard for me to deal with that given how much money it takes to run, store, insure and repair them.
That is all!
If you made it this far, thanks for reading along
