One good thing about living in Linköping is that we have quite close to racetracks: Sviestad is a 15 minutes drive from here, Mantorp maybe 30 minutes and Gelleråsen around 2 hours.
Gelleråsen is located near the town Karlskoga some 170 km NW of Linköping.
The "RD team" from Linköping (Rickard and me) had serious plans of
attending a race there in late July. Before that race we wanted to practice
the track a few times and lucky for us Gelleråsen don't close down during the
summer as other tracks do...
During the summer Gelleråsen had practice days every Wednesday between 10-17. The participants were divided into the following groups: Formula cars, sports cars and motorcycles. Only licensed drivers were allowed and each group practised for 20 minutes.
Since we are as fantastic in planning as we are rotten in actually following the plans we decided that we must go there the day before, otherwise we will simply not get there! The plan was to start loading the bikes at 15.00 and arriving at the Gelleråsen at 18.00. Then we should eat pizzas, drink beer and polish our well-prepped bikes.
Of course that never happened. Normally we arrived around midnight, starving and with lots of things to fix on our bikes!
The first time we went there we had great weather apart from the night when the strong wind got hold of the pit tent and dragged it maybe 20 metres from us. But we found some really heavy "things" to attach it to and then it didnt move anymore, not that it didn't try! Before we went to sleep we took a look at the track on inlines, works really well!
During the day my clutch was slipping a lot but that was about all the problems I had. Rickard spent most of his time in the pits fiddling with his broken throttle grip but he managed to get a few laps too. We were really slow that first time, it got very evident when a Kawasaki superbike passed me in what felt like ten times my speed! But I don't give up that easily! No incidents made this first time at Gelleråsen a good one!
The next time we arrived too late Tuesday evening as normal. For some strange reason we were always the first to arrive (almost all the others came Wednesday morning) and always the last to leave! This time we increased the speed quite a bit. I got torpedoed in the side by a late breaking 125 racer but - no crash! Rickard tried to go too fast through the last lefthander maybe four times, he saw a lot of grass those times, but - no crash! When we drove home after that day we were really feeling good, boy we are going to show those little RGV's and Aprilias!
The week after we decided
to go there again. Why did we? For starters the weather forecast said "sunny
and warm". We all know that translates to just about anything except "sunny
and warm". So as we arrived at Gelleråsen, late as usual, the clouds were
getting bigger and darker all the time. The rain poured down all night and when
we woke up it was cold, windy and raining. Rickard had some strange stomachache
too, he could only lie down but even then it hurt like hell. We waited maybe
30 minutes then I drove him to the hospital. They gave him some pills and like
a miracle the ache disappeared and we were on our way back to the track!
Rickard had to change to rain tires (which means Dunlop D207GP's:-)), and to do that he must shift the brake discs. This takes a while, especially when a screw breaks... I on the other hand didn't bring any rain tires so I went out there on my trusty old Metzeler CompK's from 1990. I took it really slow the first lap but when I reached the long straight I couldn't help getting it up to full speed on fifth gear. I started to brake early but too hard! The front wheel locked and the bike started skidding on its right side... The speed was quite high when I fell, maybe 150 km/h, and I was sliding along what seemed like forever. The bike stopped in the grass next to the track and I was picking up pieces from the fairing behind it. Damn! My left leg hurt too, it turned out that I got caught by the aluminium seat and got some internal bleeding in my calf that lasted almost a month. But my biggest concern was the bike, a lot of things had to be fixed to make it pass control at the race two weeks after.
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Just after the crash, feeling not the least victorious! |
I really felt like an idiot going back to the pits on the trailer after having completed a little more than one lap! Rickard took over my pass for the rest of the day and kept the bike upright all day. It was still raining and when we had packed all our stuff we were on our way home but first, of course, a pizza! Little did we know what was going to happen...
I decided to drive even though my leg hurt a lot. On the way to the car I saw to my surprise that we were not the last car to leave that day! I told them how much we appreciated that somebody else were last to leave for a change! I sat down in the car and tried the clutch and the leg felt ok. I put in reverse gear and really looked forward to that pizza... I started to reverse, quite fast when I suddenly hit something, something big! I had forgot that we had a trailer with two bikes behind so the trailer turned into the side of my car and made a very large dent on the left side.
Rickard had made this extra
wooden box for tools and gas that was placed in front of the trailer. It was
this box that made very close contact to my car, so close in fact that it was
loose. Imagine this: it was dark, it was raining, we hadn't eaten more than
a sandwich the whole day, my bike was crashed and my leg hurt quite badly! And
now this!
We were lucky though, a STCC team (Swedish Touring Car Championship) were working in a garage nearby so we could borrow drills and screws from them. After 2 hours of work in the rain we decided that the box was fastened all right. We eventually got the pizzas and couldn't help laughing hysterically now and then, we got home at 02.00 that night and boy were we tired!
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Rickard showing the pills he got at the hospital |
Prior to enter the race there were a lot of things to take care of, some due to the crash:
Everything went ok, my worst problem was my leg that was hurting like hell! I thought that it must be good to move around a lot to get the blood circulating so I did. Inlines on pebbles is NOT good for bleeding muscles (left calf)! It was worst in the mornings, I could not walk, it was as simple as that. But after 10 minutes or so it wasn't so bad.
We arrived the day before
the qualification began and this time actually on time! The normally huge pit
area was now barely visible due to all vans and trailers. We ended up on the
grass far far away. Beginners!
It was sunny, warm and all our stuff was in order. At least I thought so... My bike hadn't been started for two weeks and since the fuel cock leaks quite a bit it had soaked both carburators, then entered the cylinders, filled them and finally filled the expansion chambers with gasoline... I had to remove both chambers and empty them put them on only to fill them again since the engine still was filled with gas! When it finally started Rickard stood behind it. Definitely a bad place to be at that time! Did I hear smoke? :-)
I took it through the race control, they were laughing! I guess they have never seen such a massive collection of ugly parts on a bike before. Well, it's better to be either best or worst, I'm not much for being average! When they had calmed down they managed to give me a certificate saying it was ok to start the race! Yihaaa! (I wasn't really that surpised but it felt good!)
Sometimes I'm far from bright (uuuh...) so I let the bike stand the whole night with the leaking fuel cock so I had some troubles starting it the day after too.
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We were racing our RD's (class B400) together with
the B250 class which consists almost almost entirely of Aprilia RS's from 98-99
and a few RGV's too. Both A and B drivers race together so the starting field
was a whopping 64 bikes! And some were very fast too. During the first practice
all went well, no incidents so I guess I wasn't pushing hard enough! 10-year-old
tires do that to you! I don't remember my position but I wasn't last, there
were about 5 guys after me in my group of 32 riders.
This time I had it a little rougher! I got hit twice at the same corner! Ouch! The first time I continued straight ahead in the deep grass for about 100 metres before getting back on the track again. The second time I managed to brake enough to stay on the track. I guess it gets like this when you mix fast and slow riders and the adrenaline gets up. But at the time you just get mad! I did improve my best time a little bit and kept my place in the back of the field, but - not last! :-)
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Wow, this is pure adrenaline I can tell you that! Me and Rickard had a plan: Since our bikes have a lower 1st gear than the others we should be able to be among the first to the first corner and then just try to keep the rest behind us! In theory that might have worked too! In top speed we have no problems with them but we corner a lot worse than those guys do...
We didn't make it to the A-final so we were racing in the B-final. Seemed fair enough...
Anyway as we were lining
up to enter the track what happens? Of course it starts to rain. I hate rain,
especially when I think of my last rain riding experience. But there is not
much to do but line up. First we ran a warmup lap and then we got another lap
with a faked start just to get the hang of it.
Ok, now I am standing on the line, revving up the trusty old 350 and thinking of nothing but getting away really fast. And it's green! I'm away and catch the guys in front of me, kicking down to shift to second gear but... Nothing happens! I forgot that this bike has NOT the race shift pattern as my street RD. So when I finally found the second gear I was way back there! Yes, I did feel extremely stupid!
But I thought what the hell, now I will do my best anyway. The first corner I overtook 3 bikes and at least one bike every corner until I got to the last lefthander before the long straight. My rear tyre spun loose and I was once again riding in the grass next to the track. It's a miracle that I didn't hit anyone when I crossed the track a little further and continued out into the sandtrap, but - I didn't crash! I got back on the track only to see that I was last with the next last bike the whole long straight ahead of me. No need to push now so I took it calmly around the remaining laps. I managed to overtake at least one bike so I avoided the last position once again! I think that 7 riders crashed during this race. The rain was steady the whole race and how Rickard managed to get a total 6th place (1st in the B400) using slicks is still a mystery to me!
Conclusion of this first racing weekend is that I will try to compete in every race next year. It's so much fun that I will not even try to explain how much. Just do it!
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