On The Road Yet Again

[Wild Will]

Dean Lear and I are en route to Moto ST Daytona. Here are some pics from the San Jose shop taken prior to departure. In Oklahoma tonight. Arrival will be Wednesady late. This race will be epic. I'll post pics and commentary as I'm able.

I think kudos are in order to Chris Hodgson for the stellar job he did with the chain drive set up on our F800S Moto ST bike, to be ridden by Tom Montano and Steve Atlas (and a third rider whom I don't yet know).

Best of luck to our R1200S riders Nate Kern, Brian Parriott and a fast guy from England named Cooper - one of Brian's team mates at the Bol d'Or.

http://www.motorcyclistcafe.com/forums/showthread.php?p=48273#post48273

[Steve Carlton]

Thanks for the links, Will! Can't wait to read your descriptions and see the pictures of the upcoming events! And Dean's antics...

[jab r12s]

Originally Posted by Steve Carlton

Thanks for the links, Will! Can't wait to read your descriptions and see the pictures of the upcoming events! And Dean's antics...

ditto, what Steve said!

[John Lyon]

Thanks, Wild (may I call you Wild?). Congratulations on getting to be there and best of luck to the teams.

[Bob Hancock]

Excellent as usual, Will. Sure wish I could be there to witness it all first hand but trust in your reportage to let us all see. Have a safe trip and please post often....we wanna hear all about it.
(Maybe Dean has some red socks for this trip? )

[Wild Will]

4am (Cal time) and the fog has a bite to it. Tornado watch for today. Dean' s ankles are wrapped in white cloth as usual. Fashion plate. We'll power through the state and the next one and the one after that. I'll post more pics tonight and will keep in touch. Was hoping we'd see you Bob. Keep those Sierra homefires burning, Steve. That chain drive is intriguing, no? I realize it's not a 1200S, but you'll have to forgive me this one time...more later.

[dee jones]

Will, A tornado watch you say? I guess thats because you two willl be passing through.
Is there any chance of keeping Dean in line? Thats Kinda of a tall order.
You gentlemen drive fast and safe. I know you will. Thanks for the update, we will be anticipating more.

[Wild Will]

Daytona was achieved after a ruinously tedious backwater trek through two hundred stoplights, thanks to the faux pilot who used Map Quest, which ignores such features as dead ends, burning school busses and interminable rush hours.
2,900+ miles and 12-14 hours per each day. Sound like fun? OK, you get the point.

Now we're here, the Harleys are everywhere, and helmets are nowhere. Riding gear during Bike Week is as rare as pimples on the Mona Lisa. But we're here to do business. We're here to show Doug Polen and company what meat San Jose brings to the table! If Gary Nixon knew we brought the ominous 800S to the fight, I'm sure he'd not sleep at all tonight. The 1200S's, both, are fairly trembling in the trailer to get it on!

Now for dinner and planning, roles issued by Race Boss Hodgson, and the sipping of many, many pints. Look! The Jaegermeister semi trailer has
arrived, and I'm sure a party will follow it wherever it may roam. It must be 75 feet long. I wonder if it includes a Harley issue Hurl Trough? Oh, the joys of being at Daytona during Bike Week, where you can count the helmets on the fingers of one tablesaw-ruined hand, and where tippling and riding always mean a few will not come home. Happens every year, on the street right in front of our mega-luxe motel. Let's hope I'm wrong on that, but the numbers
are there, year after humid year.

Tomorrow we'll unsheath the weapons on the track, and I'll have pictures.

[dee jones]

Thanks for the vivid discription, " you can count the helmets on the fingers of one tablesaw- ruined hand" Will priceless.
Let the battles begin. I'm sure they will happen both on and off the track.

[Guest24]

You do have a way with the English language Will. Florida traffic during octoberfest make you longfor a friend with a helicopter.

[GotRoad?]

Originally Posted by dee jones

Thanks for the vivid discription, " you can count the helmets on the fingers of one tablesaw- ruined hand" Will priceless.

That really adds some flesh to the epigram 'having hope in misery, but being cautious in your happiness'.

[jalopy]

Congrats to Brad, BMWIvan and the gang at the Motorrad team for today's win in CCS GT LIGHTS EXPERT.

[Wild Will]

I packed my gear today and said goodbye to the Indian Summer pleasures of the left coast, meandering across the ancient volcanic ridges to the Sonoma valleys, thence south to San Jose. The race rig has been packed to the gills. Spare R1200S engine freshly assembled by white gloved surgeons, spare transmission and all the race accoutrements
needed to win and perform the pit stop ballet with panache and speed. Dean Lear, owner in the 70’s when racing was just becoming a passion for the fastest BMW dealership in the USA, arrived from his high desert Arizona ranch today and it’s on the road again.

Yet again, 36,000 miles and a quarter of a year hauling the superstar machinery east and west for the race team. There is little romance in long cross country road trips. Not something you’d do? Well then, if standing before the as yet silent San Jose “Bomb Bike” you don’t get an attack of mechanical priapism race addicts such as we suffer, temporarily assuaged only by a podium finish, what can I say. And the podium is our intention again, after winning the race last October.

Racing is addictive, especially when your team is highly competitive, as ours is, with a long race history and very skilled riders, all of whom riding the R1200S have raced in Europe for BMW AG. The team matrix incites the edgy feeling we’re energized by. Watch us jumping up and down like playground kids when we’re leading the race and when we win. Palpable excitement. The race is the reward. A podium is an audience with the immortals. The road trip is the price we pay.

Many worship their metallic steeds while at rest, Heineken in hand, while the crank-cracked lip of winter stills the landscape temporarily. The machinery gives pleasure even at rest. These are the voyages of the band of the contact patch. Are you with me?

Daytona was achieved after a ruinously tedious backwater trek through two hundred stoplights, thanks to the faux pilot who used Map Quest, which ignores such features as dead ends, burning school busses and interminable rush hours. 2,900+ miles and 12-14 hours per each day. Sound like fun? OK, you get the point.

Now we're here, the Harleys are everywhere, and helmets are nowhere. Riding gear during Bike Week is as rare as pimples on the Mona Lisa. But we're here to do business. We're here to show Doug Polen and company what meat San Jose brings to the table! If Gary Nixon knew we brought the ominous 800S to the fight, I'm sure he'd not sleep at all tonight.

Now for dinner and planning, roles issued by Race Boss Hodgson, and the sipping of many, many pints. Look! The Jaegermeister semi trailer has arrived, and I'm sure a party will follow it wherever it may roam. It must be 75 feet long. I wonder if it includes a Harley issue Hurl Trough? Oh, the joys of being at Daytona during Biketoberfest, where you can count the helmets on the fingers of one tablesaw-ruined hand, and where tippling and riding always mean a few will not come home. Happens every year, on the street right in front of our mega-luxe motel. Let's hope I'm wrong on that, but the numbers are there, year after humid year, alas.
If one word could measure the scene in Daytona, it would be excess. Excess people, blinged-out Harleys, conchos, black solar collecting HD tee shirts, fender to tail section traffic on the Main Street spectacle where pole dancers lure buzzed cruiser fans into bars where sweat is more prevalent than oxygen. Unending excess.
The lure of the scene to riders of chromed, secretly lit customs remains a mystery to we who come to race.

Thursday we'll unsheath the weapons on the track, and we shall begin the testing in earnest. The 800S is going well, the pilots are stoked and the chain drive garners the interest of a steady stream of oglers. Race Boss Chris plays with the injection mapping on the X bike, the 1200S that has been built to 131 ponies at the rear wheel. Development continues as the boys put in practice laps on the 3.56 mile Daytona track, drafting and jousting on the high speed banking, pulling G’s that distort reality just a bit.

Friday am, the team is in the pit garage before the sun lights up the sky, already changing shock springs and making ready the bikes for today’s sprint races. Tires are selected from the available Pirelli compounds. Clouds are inspected by the team astrologer to divine whether rain is likely to add slick danger to the days challenges.
The day promises record temperatures, coupled with humidity that swells local insects to Chihuahua size.

The racing has been quite a spectacle, with wet conditions on and off and lots of overcast. The Pirelli guys have made lots of money, our tire bill was $5,000. Gas bill was $800. Think the promoters make any money? Florida was overcast, humid and hot. Frank and Bonnie Ganger brought their motorhome and kept the air conditioned for the riders all weekend, on their own nickel.

Details of the race can be found elsewhere. My comments are as follows. San Jose skated through adversity on the thin ice of fortune. First place Suzuki team Emgo/M4 won by 22 seconds. We were knocked off the track in a spectacular high side tumble when one of the amateur teams entered the track and hit Richard Cooper in a major bad move. He was dazed, got to his feet and staggered for several seconds before he picked the bike up in an heroic and impressive feat of strength (he is 5’3” and 110#, but is a man of iron). This 30 second-plus incident may have cost us the race win. We were well placed for the top of the box prior to this crash which could have put Mini Cooper in the ambulance. He was one sore guy. Before that Nate went off the track at turn 1 and mowed some Florida grass, making an amazing save and putting his head down to turn some of the most amazing lap times of the day, making up the lost time in 4 laps. Nate makes some mighty impressive and miraculous saves that I’ve witnessed a handful of times. The guy is a born racer.

When Cooper pitted after the crash we found that the subframe was mangled and the front brake was badly damaged. The right header pipe, titanium, was broken away at the exhaust flange, and the bike sounded like a Buell. Brian and the crew checked the bike over and deemed it rideable, and took off with a red mist in his eyes, meaning to save the day. Moto ST officials pulled us in to examine the bike soon after, costing us yet more time, and finding nothing amiss let us go again. The bike sounded like a helicopter with fire and compression blowing out the broken header, so they pulled us in yet again. Finally they told us it was safe to ride and if we wanted to destroy our engine it was our choice. Willy Hodgson wasted half a nanosecond before telling Brian to get it on the track again. Brian blazed through the laps like a comet, recovering lost time in an amazing show of speed, his front brake all but non operational, requiring pumping to make the bike stop.

With all this bad luck and trouble, we crossed the finish line only 24 seconds behind first place M4 Emgo Suzuki on the SV1000S. Add up all the time wasted with Cooper’s being blown off the track (he was fully committed in the hairpin when the #24 bike blasted him blindsided), and the Moto ST officials prodding the bike twice before allowing us to continue, and you can see that if things hadn’t gone badly with that costly crash, Brian would have crossed the line for the checkered flag. The racers Parriott, Kern and Cooper all turned in excellent, consistent times and are all heroes, especially the Herculean effort made by Cooper which saved the race for the team. There’s nothing mini about this excellent young gentleman
From Manchester, England. He is a giant with reserves of mettle that amazed us all, and will go down in the annals of SJBMW racing history.

So, we took the second place; that’s racing. The results are a mirror image of the race last October when we beat Suzuki to the checkered flag by a mere 14 seconds after they suffered their own bout of adversity in a mechanical faux pas they repaired in six minutes of surgery on very hot metal. Congratulations to their team, and the SV1000S bike that took third place. Our team has shown all during this 2007 season, covering some 33,000 miles campaigning the Moto St series from far away California, that the R1200S and the San Jose BMW hyper dedicated race crew are a world class outfit. Chris Hodgson was happy with the second place, all things considered, but he knows that we could have taken this eight hour event again with time to spare had we not been knocked off the track in a poorly executed move by a nameless unknown racer, whom we hope is OK after his heinous crash.

Next season, if all goes well, we’ll be back with a vengeance and a new race bike. It should be noted that Team M4 Emgo Suzuki with their first class semi trailer with world class graphics, and a money is no object professional race team, beat us by only 24 seconds
after a heated race of 28,800 seconds. Our team, threadbare and composed of an 8 year old dented pickup and a too-small single axle trailer, and a small crew of seriously dedicated professional and volunteer team members, almost took the gold again. That’s quite an accomplishment for San Jose BMW and BMW North America. The R1200S is a proven racing champion that will stand up to and defeat all comers from Europe, Japan and America.
Tune in next season and watch us go!

[Steve Carlton]

Will- thanks so much for the pics and prose. Honestly, I don't think I've read writing as interesting as that since Hunter S. Thompson.

[dee jones]

Thanks for all the time and effort you guys put into this great sport. You and Dean have a smooth trip back to the left coast. Thanks for the great writes.