The Beginning of Team Poop: How it all began (by Pat Hahn) Sept. 03' Ignition Moto cum Team Poop/Team Hoink/Team Wolf Pack story, Part I For the final race weekend of 2003 and the legendary endurance race, Darwin Holmstrom and I were invited to participate on the Ignition Motorsports team. Darwin and I set up the tent in the pouring rain Thursday night. Hasn't rained for two effing months, and here we are setting up camp. Geez. Thankfully, Kyle and Carrie Ohnstad showed up and set up the camper's awning so we weren't subjected to moping in the tent until we were tired enough to go to bed. Beers were cold, too. Kyle and Carrie were good companionship gave us a dry place to chat. After a poor night's sleep and a hot shower and 40 ounces of coffee, we were ready for Friday practice. By that time we had a bunch of people there, and the teams were to be such: Team Ignition Motorsports: Birch, Luc, Darwin, and Pat (Tony had defected) Team Poop: Tex, Karl, Sheldon, Nikki, and John Team Hoink: Tony, Kent, George, Corey, and Mike Team Wolf Pack: Scott, Sheldon, Dave, Dani, and ??? To get time on track with a limited number of bikes, Darwin and Tony and I worked corner 2A in shifts and took turns riding Birch's SV, Birch's GS, and Tony's SV. The weather was PERFECT. Thanks 1,000,000 to Tony for his generous loan of his SV so Darwin and I could log some track miles. Thanks 2,000,000 to Luc for his patient and relentless pursuit of a properly operating GS. In the second-to-the-last slow practice session, I finally got to ride the Ignition Moto Endurance GS. WOW, what a great bike: fast, handled great, fun, and looked really, really cool. I went out and had a great session (Darwin told me I had a 2:11) and backed off after seeing the end-of-session checkered flag in #9. Third gear. RAAAAATATATATATATTTTTATATATATATCHUNKACHUNKACHCHCHCHCHKKKKKK! Then nothing. The bike was ominously quiet as I coasted in all the way from #9 into the pits. "Uh, I think I broke it." In my defense, I never took it over 9,500 rpm, even though Tony claims that I admitted to seeing 17,000 rpm and that I was a cat-loving vegetarian. I still have the souvenir: the broken head of a valve that decided that it'd been putting up with that piston long enough. The hole in the piston was probably 2.5 inches and edges were all melted. Chunks of metal in the intake port. After working on the bike all day and finally the thing was perfect, Luc was faced with an evening of switching engines. Thanks, Lucky. Wisely knowing we'd be more hinderance than help to Luc, the rest of the team-me, Birch, Darwin, Mike and Andrew (Ignition Moto staff)-decided to see what was going on at Zorba's. Kyle did his best to warn me about going to Zorba's with Birch. Thanks anyway, Kyle. This seemed like a really good idea at the time. With God as my witness, I thought we were going there to eat. I really did. What ensued will go down in the history books as the Ultimate Groove Thang. Unsavory booty references, the heroic intake of beers, random spankings, and general fratboy mayhem has been edited out in an effort to keep this short and spare the worst offenders the burden of written proof. It would be a horrific understatement to say that the ladies at Zorbas now have a soft spot for roadracers. Team Poop Endurance Weekend Part II I'm going to leave a lot out about Saturday because I spent the day working corners. Corner 10, to be exact. I missed most of Saturday's adventures. Hopefully Tex and Karl will fill you in. For those who would like to see some races but don't know exactly where to go and what to do, try volunteering for the CRA to work corners. The corner captains will teach you what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and you'll get to see some racing close up. Besides, they need people. We almost didn't get to ride Friday because we were short about 7 workers. That's why Darwin and I shared corner 2A duty. We wanted to ride, and Uncle Karma is a vindictive prick. Plus, they feed you lunch (tacos one day, burgers the next) and dinner on Friday night. (I've already explained that I didn't get to eat Friday night.) Working corners is participating, in a way-you do your part to help keep your friends and like-minded individuals safe when they're hanging it all out. Good people. Good people. I did get to see Karl, Tex, and Birch working the field on their bikes though. It's cool to see your bud come ripping through the corner and think, "I know that guy!" Also, being stationed on corner 10, I could see when MN-Sportbike members showed up to heckle their friends. I saw Denny Sullivan, Beedawg Jass a.k.a Brenta Claus, Paul Kolbo, Richard Thorson, Mark Cater, Jason, Robert, Teri, and others I can't remember or name. Darwin tried to race the GS with a fresh engine-fresh meaning different than the one the day before. It was unfortunately leaking too badly to race and we pulled it from the lineup for good. Darwin was sad. Birch and I were sad. Luc was really sad, as he'd planned on racing the thing three times that day. Instead, he was stuck with weeks of work and nothing to show for it. He never even got to ride the damn thing. Everybody on Team Ignition Moto owes Luc a beer, by the way. Like rats abandoning a sinking ship, Team Ignition Motorsports disbanded. No more bike, no more race. Us rookies thought we'd wind up working corners Sunday, too. Darwin and I started poking around to see who might need a rider. Karl told us about a guy on a GS who was racing by himself. Hmmm...sounds like a good opportunity to get in a whole SHITLOAD of laps for free. Course, I watched the guy get passed about 1,000,000 times on Saturday and wasn't sure if the bike would hold up, or if I wanted anyone to know it was me riding it.... Then I got the call. Tex asked if I wanted to ride with him and Karl. Whoa. Cool. But I SUCK! These are two of the fastest guys I know. They know what they're doing, and they want to win. Why in the hell would they want a newbie like me, who's never even ran a race, to join them? I was flattered and scared at the same time. What does this mean? Does it mean that I'm such a wuss that they are sure I won't wad the bike up? Or does it mean that they think I'm fast and want me on their team? Or do they like the way my poop smells? Talk about an ego boost. I promised I'd think about it, but secretly, I wanted them to think I was thinking about it. I knew I wanted to ride with my buds. I just never thought they'd want me. I'm slow. I'd been planning on being the slowest person on the track. A GS will do that for a guy. Now all the sudden I don't have to take the conservative lines and I actually have a chance of passing riders on bikes BIGGER than a GS. Intimidating, to say the least. What should I do? I have a rumbling feeling in my belly. My wife is going to KILL me. I promised that it was all in fun, and we didn't care about winning, and I was riding a slow as hell bike and everybody'd watch out for me. I didn't know what to do. So I decided to do what seemed like the most fun-ride with Team Poop. Tex and Karl had made the offer but hadn't really tried to persuade me. They knew who I was, where I was at, and how much I didn't know about racing-as I said, I'm slow as shit. They didn't want to pressure me into it. I recognized that right away. They said, "Hey. You can ride with us." But didn't try to convince me. They let me convince myself. I couldn't shake the fact that no matter what happened, we would have done it together, just like all the other things we've done together. So I said yeah. So did Birch. We now had a team. Me, Birchy, Karl, and Tex, all riding for Team Poop. We were going up against our buds, Team Hoink (Tony, George, Kent, Mike). That's a tough team. We had a pit crew too, John and Sheldon and Nikki. Feeling self-conscious, I decided to loaf and stayed by the fire and had a few beers and went to bed early, rather than risking another night with Birchhill in hottieland. (A good thing too, as the team captain from Ingitiomoto never came home that night. Yikes. You give us all hope, you obstreperous bastard, you. We were scared shitless that he wouldn't show up at all.) So race day comes and we're getting stoked. Tex's bike and Birch's bike are in the pit side by side for Team Poop to run some practice laps. We're running number 95, Tex's number, and Birch's bike is backup. After several laps and untoward comments from Tex about the shape of Birch's handlebars, we get ready to race. Tex and Karl immediately headed off to the porta-potties to gather their thoughts. Holy shit, there are like 70 bikes on the grid. What a clusterf***! The flag goes down and they're off. We were way back in the second wave, eighth row. Birch took the first session and seemed to get a good start, or at least kept his own: I counted 14 bikes behind him in the first lap. Good. The fuzzy bear proceeded to wick it up and get us going with a whole bunch of 2:00 laps, give or take. Damn, he's smooth. There's something to be said for white (expert) plates. Then comes my turn. Man, I gotta take a dump. But instead of parking it on the porcelain with a Dennis Kirk catalog, here I am in leathers and about to jump on the bike I've watched enviously all season. The pit crew was amazing. Birch pulled in, Sheldon grabbed the bike from the front and started unscrewing the gas cap. Birch hopped off, I think Karl had the fire extinguisher, and John steps up with the fuel tower. Sploosh! In goes the gas, they wipe it off, and somehow without me even realizing it, I'm on the bike with my toe on the lever. Sheldon and Karl simultaneously slap me on the pooper and I'm gone, wringing the thing through the one, two, and three, through the hot pit lane, grab four, and trying to get back on the track before the Hoinkers catch up. The whole process, rider in, rider off, gas cap, fuel, wipe, gascap, rider on, first gear and schwoop! It's over. Maybe thirty seconds. What a team. I want to see you guys perform with some bocce balls in your hands. So now I'm out on the track, and my job is to be as fast as I can. Brainerd is scaryfast. I know it pretty well, but still make tons of mistakes. I take it easy the first lap to get acquainted (turn one is tossing me like a paint shaker, four sets me a-bouncin' from entry to apex, and nine is just...nine.) Everything the first lap goes well, so I wick it up a bit. More cornering speed, later braking, later entries. Still feels good. I'm slow as dogshit, but I'm a lot faster than I would be on the godforsaken VFR. What's this? There's a lap timer on the bike. Neat! As I hit the straight for the third time I notice the timer reads 2:05. Cool. That's about as good as I did in practice. Hotdog. But I'm just warming up. Now I'm passing some people. I'm wondering where the hell Darwin is. I promised him I'd pinch his butt when I passed him, and I've been around this damn track three times without seeing him. I'll catch up sooner or later. There's an ambulance off turn one, but I don't think much of it. My first "moment" came in number 10. I'd thrown the bike in from WAY outside, aimed at the mark I'd noticed and liked at the apex, and pointed myself through the turn. At about 50 mph. I've already forgotten about the apex, and I'm looking toward the exit, and then there's suddenly a fucking BIKE right in my APEX pointed an ENTIRELY different direction than I am. Namely, left of where I wanted to go. Houston, we have a problem. I nearly crapped in my leathers. I luckily hadn't reached the point of no return and quickly adjusted my line to go wide (when you ride at 80% you can do that) and let him have the corner. I think he was scared shitless, too, because he slowed down, looked back, gave me a wave and then gave himself the old heel-to-the-helmet Homeresque "Doh!" to assure me that he had a brainfart and wouldn't do it again. No harm done, dude, I gotcha covered. DAMN! This is fun. After riding my powerful and awesome VFR for a few years, I thought I'd be disappointed with the puny SV. <snicker> Not so. Not only does the thing handle better and corner better than the Viffer could on it's best day...on Jupiter...it also pulls like hell and takes me up to about 140 by the time I start thinking about turn one. I gotta get me one of these babies, instead of using that turd of a Honda for everything. So I start turning laps. Yeah, for awhile I was JTL: just turning laps. I was getting tired. I was wishing Nikki would hold the board up so I know when to come in. But every time I rode past, she'd just grin at me. Damn. My legs feel like Jell-O. My arms are taking over. I don't know just what I'm doing out here, I only know I'm doing it really, really fast. Am I in control? I can't tell. I watched the laptimer and was amazed every lap as the times kept getting lower and lower. 2:04. 2:02. 2:01! Holy shit! I would have been happy with 2:06's and here I am pulling damn near two minutes without even pushing it! Just as I'm thinking this (and not thinking about riding the damn bike), I'm driving into the entrance to turn nine hard in fourth. Nine is a very slow, maybe 30 or 40 mph, 90-degree right hander with a huge curb on the inside and a huge concrete candystriped berm on the outside. Karl takes a dump and goes off on this corner, like, one in every twenty times he rides it. It's like tradition. And here I am, late braking in Karl’s Korner in my first race, surprised it came up so fast. I kick it down to third, release, snap my head over to look at the bridge, throw the bike into the turn, and head for the apex at full lean. JESUS CHRIST there's a numbskull 600 just about to hit the same apex, again like the guy in number ten, pointed at least thirty degrees to the left of my line. There is no WAY the two of us will be able to share this corner. DUMBSHIT! I had to make the split-second decision (it is truly amazing how time slows down): do I try to share it and run the risk of hitting the outside berm while at full lean (probably 6-8 inches high and 24 inches across) or do I just straighten it up and hit it square and ride it out? I decided that my odds were better with the unmoving object and me at no lean angle. Bawoinnnnggggg! Over the berm, into the grass, slow, slow, slow, coast, coast, slow, slow, then turn it around and point it back at number 10. The corner workers gave me a congratulatory wave, then pointed at my entrance and gave me the okay. VArooooooom I was gone, tooting off a little fart of relief in the process. Another catastrophe averted, and I got the #9 blues out of the way for Karl for the day. Nikki confessed that when I was ten seconds late for my next lap, they started worrying. Twenty seconds, oh shit, where's Pat? Then at about 25 seconds here I come, my big shot at crashing the bike averted and now ready to pour on some steam. I'd arranged with Nikki beforehand that at the halfway mark, she'd give me the PIT NOW sign, upside down. I looked and looked for the upside down sign and never saw it. HOLY shite, am I not even halfway yet? Damn I'm getting tired. My legs feel like rubber and I'm not concentrating so good. Geez, I've got to be halfway by NOW. I'd give anything to be able to sit on the can for awhile right now. I'll tell you what, riding and racing and flogging a bike is fun, but it's a lot of work. I was beat. My lower half was beat. My back side was sore. And I still hadn't seen Darwin yet. Team Poop Endurance Race Part III-Karl and Tony, Ironmen Both Finally, after what seemed like at least an hour on the bike, Nikki gave me the PIT NOW sign. Hmph. I must have missed the upside-down sign I was having so much fun. I gave her back the thumbs up to indicate that I'd come in after this lap. I actually meant by my thumbs up, "It's about TIME my damn LEGS are KILLING me!" I turned one more good lap, pulling from what reserves I had one last burst of energy and making a couple more passes before hanging my left arm out in 10 and racing for the pits. Everybody was there, ready to go. I jumped off, they gassed the bike up, and off goes Karl. I could actually hear him grinning as he wrung that little 650 out of the pits. Rats, the Biffy is occupied.... Then my legs buckled. I almost couldn't make it over the 24-inch-or-so pit wall I was so exhausted. I felt like throwing up. My legs felt as if they had no bones in them and they were just rubbery muscle. It felt as if someone else's arms were between me and my hands. My helmet was soaking wet and steamed up inside from the effort. I was gasping for breath and my mouth was dry. Some people have suggested that if I exercised once in awhile, I might not feel like that after riding a motorcycle for 40 minutes! I suggest you get yourself bent. Besides, I highly suspect the soreness and fatigue in my legs was actually from the Friday night adventure with the Ignition Motorsports crew. Doin' the butt is a lot more work than it appears. So there. But everyone was smiling and laughing and telling me I was pulling 2:01s and looking great. Woohoo! Kent and Tony both made sure to remind me that I SUCKED!, which, considering the sources, was about the best compliment I could have earned right then. I headed straight for the Gatorade I had stashed in the cooler. It was then that I learned that Darwin was the rider who was carried away from turn 1 in the ambulance. Ouch. Talk about a buzzkill. No one knew anything more than that, either. As the day progressed, we pieced together what happened to Darwin, how he was doing, and where he was, but it certainly took the cocky edge off the day. When a friend craps out in the worst possible place, it's difficult to be optimistic. Besides, I was physically exhausted and couldn't focus too well on the implications anyway. I found out later that it was a team decision to NOT flash the board upside down at me when I was halfway. That's probably the only thing I think my team was wrong about. I was expecting it, hoping for it, planning on it, and distracted by the fact that I never saw it. No harm, no foul, but I really would have liked a halfway signal. Fortunately, I trust them both and trust their judgment on that, so I decided that I didn't care. I didn't ask for the upside-down board again. Karl got out there and whooped it up for forty minutes like a true pooper trooper, then switched with Tex. Tex started crunching laps better than I'd seen him pull the day before, but came in early-after about a half hour, his broken paw hurt him so bad he was losing concentration out there. Birch grabbed the bike and was gone. We're now into round two, nearly halfway through the race. Meanwhile on our left, Team Hoink is falling apart at the seams. We've got a few laps on them by now. Kent's knee is hurting him too badly to race, so he's done. George has bad arm pump (I don't know what that is, but it sounds like it sucks) and he was done riding for the day. Mike had an injury that was affecting him too, so the race was really up to Tony. How many hours did you ride in that race, Tony? I couldn't believe he kept going out there and turning his 2:01s. Damn, he must be like Superman or something. Nice ridin', Tony. I'll save you a seat after the race. Tex decided he didn't want to ride again, so Team Poop split up the remaining time to finish the race with the planned number of pit stops. Everyone was pretty much required to turn a few more laps than the 19 or so that made up a forty-minute session. I don't know how long Birch was out there. A long time. Tex and Karl and Nikki assured me that I didn't have to turn extra laps if I if I was too pooped to continue, so the deal was that they'd give me the sign and if I could stay out three extra laps, I'd keep my thumbs up to myself. Simple enough. I was really tired when I hopped back on the bike for the last time, and my legs and butt were really, really sore. I was to the point where my legs were tired enough I started holding onto the bike with my hands. Every time I noticed that, I'd stop it and use my legs again, but it was painful and I was tired. Fortunately, my lap times were right back in the same range again, starting in the 2:05 range and slowly clicking down to 2:02 and 2:01. All right! Before I even knew it, Nikki was holding the sign up for me to pit. How did that happen? I hardly feel tired even. As I passed, I ignored the sign and gave her three fingers pointing up in the air. I'd take three more laps and then pit. By this time, I was really in a groove, time had slowed down and I had time to analyze what I was doing, remember where my mistakes were (note I didn't say correct any mistakes!) and finally I'd learned to relax and try to rest in the straights between 9 and 10 and between 10 and 1. You're not doing anything except shifting in those areas, why not relax and catch a little shuteye? I wish I'd known that three hours ago. Three more laps and I am ready this time. I pit, hop off, slap Karl on the ass, and he's gone. What a ride. I feel like I contributed something. Now off goes Ironman Karl. His plan is to ride the rest of the race. I think I hopped off at about 4 p.m. The race was going until 5. Nikki was to give him the board at 40 minutes and he would give us the thumbs up at that point if he needed to quit. I don't know who would have ridden if he had. Birch probably. Toward the end of the race, Karl is about 20 seconds behind Tony, the other Ironman. Nikki gives him the PIT NOW board, and Karl gives the big, exaggerated, Birch-style thumbs DOWN. Man, that kid is tougher than...well, you know. He was going to finish the race, and he had a target. For the next six or seven laps, Karl gained three or four seconds on Tony. Slowly but surely he kept reeling him in. When they waved the white flag (one lap to go) Karl was about four seconds behind him. We watched breathlessly as the checkered flag dropped and bikes came roaring by with their riders' arms in the air. And as we all watched, Karl and Tony came by, Karl a second or two in front of Tony. He had taken him in turn 8. Poor Tony must have been pissed. But he was a great sport and damn, he must have been tired-he rode right behind me for most of my second session and throughout all of Karl's second, 53-minute session. Tony told me how pissed he was, chasing me for about 20 laps, always with me in sight, always picking up time on the brakes, but never getting in the right position to pass me, and then WHOOM! I'd pass some rider and Tony'd get held up and I was out front again. Man, I wish I would've known he was there. I would have farted in his general direction. Good racin' with ya, Tony. The result? Team Poop took 2nd place in our class. Had we entered in Supersport, we would have won, but what the hell? We pulled 146 laps in five hours. I don't know how long BIR is, but I think that equates to about 400 miles? Would I do it again? Hell yes. Do Tex and Karl and Birch and John and Sheldon and Nikki and Richard rock? Shit, yeah. Are my legs still sore almost two weeks later? Hell yes. Am I dreaming about the turns at BIR? Shit, yeah. Am I dreaming about trying MAM next year? Hell yes. Am I jealous that my friends Raf and John just bought racebikes? Shit, yeah. Do I realize that I am a wordy-as-hell bore and should shut up now? Hell Yes!! Pat CRA #178 Copyright TeamPoop 2003