As Bud mentioned in an earlier e-mail, we did a trackday at Texas World Speedway yesterday, and it was an absolute blast. The LoneStar Trackdays organization does a fine job, with plenty of volunteer instructors (seasoned racers) on hand to observe and, in the case of riders who signed up for the optional rider's school, to offer one-on-one instruction.
My '73 350F ran flawlessly, making some good noise through its 4-into-4 megaphones and exhibiting a nice surge in the powerband from 8000 to redline. My front tire balled up a little rubber during the day.....pretty cool, and something you just don't see during street riding! We were no match for any of the modern sportbikes in overall lap times since they would absolutely walk away from us in any of the straight sections, but from time to time I found myself almost matching the cornering speeds of some "green" riders on big bikes. Probably the most intimidating aspect was straining along at about 90 mph halfway down the front straight, eeking out that last 5 or 10 mph of top end, and having an R1, GSXR1000 or RC51 blow by at about 150. Even though Bud and I were relatively slow, we rode smooth, clean lines and had a blast. More than once I got a hearty "thumbs-up" from a racer as he blew past me on the short straights. Since Bud and I had signed up for the CMRA racing license school, the last track session of the day was a 3 lap "mock race" for the school participants. Earlier in the day we had attended a couple of classroom sessions, studied a workbook and taken a written test. When the "5 minutes to grid" call came over the PA, we motored down to the track entrance, wearing our yellow Provisional Novice tee shirts over our leathers, and took our hot lap of the 2.9 mile, 14-turn facility. We gridded in the back row to minimize the risk of being taken out by somebody screwing up the start. When the starter threw the green, the guy on the row ahead of me hesitated and I wasn't able to get a real clean start, but seconds later I was screaming down the starter road in hot pursuit. (At Texas World, since the front "straight" has significant banking, you start on pit road, then bend it into turn one.) I whipped the little 350 through up through the gears, shifting more by feel than looking at the tach.....however, on the 2-3 shift I do remember glancing down and seeing 11,000 rpm! Since the fast guys all got away cleanly it was basically a race between my 350 and Bud's 400. The fastest guys lapped us on their third lap (no great surprise there!) but it was a blast anyway. Steve McNamara (President of CMRA) put a real tight inside pass on me as we were exiting the chicane on our way to the checkers....he was close enough to have reached out and touched my elbow, but probably had 35 or 40 mph on me at that point. I was mildly rattled, but not nearly as bad as I thought I might be by racing in close quarters with significantly faster bikes. Bud had a clean race too, finishing a reasonable distance behind me. Kevin Hunter
