 |
 |
| Your Laguna Seca Stories # 4
by soup army Tuesday, July 15, 2008 Last week we asked for readers to send in their stories from past Laguna Seca races. Here is the fourth installment: My most vivid memory of Laguna. This was my second time to Laguna. I was at the track until around 10"oclock Friday night. When I arrived Saturday morning at around 7:oo am it was unbelievable what I saw. Overnight the Yamaha Moto GP and AMA teams had changed their colors from the corporate Yamaha blue to the 50th anniversary Bumble Bee Yellow. The bikes, the leathers, even the tire warmers and the umbrella girls were yellow. They must have stayed up all night doing that. I had a paddock pass and in the paddock, Collin Edwards was handing out posters of his bike and Val's from the previous day practice sessions. These posters now hang proudly in my home office. John Baumgratz Fairview Texas ************* Hello Soup,
One of the highlights of my motorcycling life has got to be the 1988 Laguna USGP; 25 years old, headed to California (and a GP) for the first time ever......Making the trip with me was David "Curly" Curtis, then an ammrr class champion and a solid AMA 250 rider. Eric Kondo, another AMA 250 fast guy from California, was going to try to make the 250 GP on a '88 TZ and he had arranged (how exactly, I still have no idea) to have a borrowed motor home there for us in the GP paddock area. We arrive at Laguna and make the trip up the long drive to the paddock gate.......and just as promised, full access GP paddock passes awaited us. Granted entrance into the "promised land", we find our "home" for the next four days is parked adjacent to Eddie Lawson and Randy Mamola's coaches. All my GP heroes are there, and only mere feet away on occasion.......Curly knows Wayne Rainey from his AMA 250 days, so when Wayne is walking through the paddock, he stops for a quick hello........man, I could get used to this. It couldn't get any better, right? Well, it did...... Mike Baldwin is a friend of mine from here in Darien, CT and he was there as well, albeit it once again as a privateer. He had driven out from Connecticut with his Honda RS500 in a rental van but actually ended up racing Takazuma Katayama's newer vintage RS to a solid 10th place in the GP. Lori Tyson (Richwine), now of Roadracing World magazine, had drawn a beautiful pen and ink lithograph of Mike, Randy and King Kenny Roberts in the Laguna Corkscrew. I had purchased two copies of this beautiful piece which had a limited run of 500 prints and Mike knew that I wanted to have them autographed. So, off we go across the paddock and minutes later I'm sitting in Kenny's Lucky Strike motor home with two of the greatest road racers America had ever produced, chatting away like I belong there........ I later got Randy to sign the prints as well, although he probably does not remember as he had knocked himself silly earlier in the day after high siding the Budweiser Ducati in turn two, reportedly after the countershaft sprocket backed off....... To this day, I believe that these were the only two copies of this artwork signed by all three riders...... an unbelievable memento of a great trip that has hung in my home for these last 20 years!
Don Anderson Darien, CT ***************** I was going to write a short blurb about the 2005 MotoGP race, but as I'm still sitting in traffic waiting to get out of the track, it'll have to wait until I get home. Should be there by 2009 or so.... ********************* Better late than never: 1997 and John "Simple Green" Kocinski passing -- Hey Dean, True story. Hope I'm not too late for some press: 1988 and the GP returns to Laguna Seca. A bunch of us from Daytona Beach area make the flight out. (Even Florida boys need some excitement once in a while). My friend Drew Ciriot, and local character Cliff Ferris are sitting under the big tree on the inside of the top of corkscrew that used to adorn the place. Niall McKenzie takes off and is leading the race, with a host of Americans behind. Well, every time Eddie Lawson comes by us, I scream "WWWEEEEE!!". Pretty soon, my friend Drew joins in. By the end of the race, not only is everybody in the area screaming, but we are all throwing our arms up at the same time. (Kind of a visual and oratory affect, doncha know?) Well, Eddie wins the race and on his cool down lap, stops the bike in front of us, gets off the bike and hands it to AMA marshall Egor Emory. He then comes over to the crowd and THROWS his helmet into the crowd, along with his gloves! I missed both. Later in an interview on TV, Eddie said that he could hear the crowd in the corkscrew...and it helped to motivate him. True story. Richard Barnes ******************** I think it was 2003 WSBK round race 1. Aaron Yates loses the front going in to turn 1 and causes a significant pile up many went down, (Bostrom on the ZX7 was out). Frankie Chile somehow misses the golf cart ride back to the pits. He runs back (not wanting to miss the re start) to the pits, jumps on his spare bike and proceeds to win the re started race.
2005 Bostrom on the AMA Ducati Saturday final gets the win. Curt Alexander My best experience was the AMA Superbike race in about 84. I was wrenching for Dave Busby on his factory Honda vf750r Interceptor. The race started and Dave was well back in the pack in the first few laps. Than there was a red flag, some one had crashed and oiled the track on the up hill to the corkscrew. Several bikes went down including Dave. All the bikes returned to the hot pit lane and waited for a long clean up. Dave's bike was a mess, covered in dirt and stones everywhere. Water hoses were broken, exhaust was crushed and after I got the tank off, the carbs were full of dirt and stones. We had a spare set of carbs that someone ran for, while I pulled the damaged ones off. This usually takes a lot of time. I noticed a lot of people around me, they were other team mechanics replacing hoses and pipes and levers while I finished what I was doing. The AMA guys kept saying they couldn't wait for me, just to add to the pressure. The bike is together, I jump on it and about ten people start pushing me up pit lane. It coughs and sputters, than fires up and showers them with dirt and pebbles. The bikes line up single file for the restart and Dave is sent to the end of the line by mistake. He didn't cause the oil down. Dave got a rocket start and was lapping faster than before. I think we ended up in fifth place. Someone told me later that we had rebuilt the bike in about fifteen minuets.
**************** In 1992 we were racing at Laguna in the AMA 600 Supersport and EBC endurance series. I was greeted at the airport with the news that our engine had spun a rod bearing. Ray Plumb found us a crankshaft at his headquarters in southern California and had it shipped FedX to the motel they were staying at in Carmel. As I waited by the pool for the crank to arrive, Bobby Carradine strolled out on his way to the track and we had a short chat. I was amazed that the lemon trees around the pool's border had flowers, buds and fruit. I asked the clerk/owner about that and she said they bore fruit year round, being a Florida boy I had never seen that of fruit trees before. ****************** From the wife: I'm still not sure how my then fiancée talked me into going to the WSBK/AMA races at Laguna for our honeymoon in '96. I guess I was so caught up in all the wedding plans I didn't really give the honeymoon much thought. But I figured if he was crazy enough to take me on, I could put up with a couple of days at a racetrack. We'd been married for 3 whole days when we set off for California, and the closer we got to Monterey, the more nervous I got. I could barely get his attention at home when a race was on TV, was I going to be ignored all weekend? Would he end up bench racing with his friends while I hung back in the shadows? I had an overwhelming sense of impending doom, not exactly the romantic vibe I'd hoped for. Friday morning came way too early, my hubby was up with the sun and anxious to get to the track. We parked what seemed several miles away, and made our way down to the track just as the WSBK bikes started practice. We hurried over to the nearest section and got to the fence just as a Ducati rider came screaming out of a corner. The ground shook a little and waves of racing fuel fumes washed over me. My heart skipped a beat and I got a shiver up my spine - what a rush! We watched (and felt!) a few more bikes go by, and I couldn't believe how exciting it all was. Throughout the course of the weekend, I got excited about lap times, agonized over crashes, and watched the riders combine graceful athleticism with raw horsepower as they flew around the track. I learned names like Anthony "Go-Show" Gobert, John Kocinski, Carl Fogarty, Miguel Duhamel, and Doug Chandler. When Sunday evening rolled around, I was dehydrated and sunburned, my legs ached from hiking between our grandstand seats and the top of the Corkscrew, and my throat was raw from cheering on my newly favorite riders...but I was exhilarated! Almost 12 years and 3 kids later, that weekend still brings a smile to our faces.
From the husband: Laguna memories. Ah yes they are some good ones. Summer of 94 my neighbor yells across the yard and asks if I want to go to the GP's that year. I figure why not. I have nothing to tie me down and some money that I can toss away. October and the time for the races comes. I get off work at 7:00 Thursday morning and head from Boise to Reno. I'm young and can still stay awake for a day or so like that. Around 11:00 that night Reno is long behind me and I find myself wired on coffee beans and gallons of Mt. Dew in a city I've never been to, following my friends as they ride their bikes across the Bay Bridge in San Francisco doing 75 mph in traffic that makes Boise rush hour look stupid. We make it to our stop for the night, a motorcycle shop that one of the group has arranged for us to crash on the floor for the night. The next day it's off to Monterey to see a race and a party that is hard to compare. Admittedly the race wasn't much to yell about. Being so late in the season Doohan had already taken the championship from Schwantz who wrecked and broke his hip in practice. But the eye candy, swag, and the party/cruise on Cannery Row more then made up for it. Not to mention hearing and feeling the two strokes flying down the track in what would be the last time they would ever see the dry lagoon. It was what memories are made of. Leap ahead two years, and I'm now a newlywed taking my bride to California for the first time, and to a the World Superbike races as part of our honeymoon. I'm the envy of all my friends for pulling it of, but in reality I'm lucky enough to have a wife that knows what motorcycles are to me. She is nervous about what she has gotten herself into, and her new husband is on cloud nine that he gets to go to the races. Monterey turns out to be everything it is supposed to be. We travel the roads around the area taking in the sites in the days before the race starts and all is well. At the race track we hang out with each other enjoying our time together watching a great show in a great place. My wife asked me questions about the bikes and the riders and I would try to answer them in easy terms. It was fun to be able to share such things with her and made the whole trip a time in my life that is hard to beat for good memories. Fast forward another ten years and it is 2006. We have been married ten years, have two kids that have just been deposited at grandma and grandpa's for a week and we are now in the Salt Lake City airport waiting for out flight to Monterey. We had thankfully decided to make most of the trip by plane instead of doing eighteen hours in a car from Boise. It's a trip that we have spent the last year planning and waiting for so the expectations are high. After we land we rent a car and make a planed side trip of a day at San Simion to take in Hearst Castle, then Thursday we head for our room in Carmel. Friday it's to the track, and this time to see the MotoGP bikes race on one of the greatest tracks around. To start off we decide to take in the track sites before the show starts, but that plan stops when the 990's start up for the first practice. The sound is unbelievable and everyone stops to wait for the bikes to come into view. It was hard to peel away from the site long enough to see all the other great things going on like the weekend of Champions and being able to say a few words to people like Rainey and Mamola, some of the guys who I blame for my addiction to two wheel racing. There was just far more to enjoy then I can mention. After the intense heat of the weekend Sunday finally came around. We were hoping for Nicky to give us a good show in exchange for the sacrifice of dealing with a two hundred year heat wave that sent temp well over one hundred degrees. He did not disappoint. Everything went his way and we left the track with more great memories to file away and talk about for the years to come. When will be the next time? I really don't know. But I do know that when life is beating on me can take a snapshot of any of those trips, smell the salt air, hear the bikes, and be with people I want to be with and instantly feel better about the world.
Ami and Andy Rumble Boise, Idaho ********************** Memories: so many... watched way back when Harley's road race team was there... and saw the Army help a high centered chopper get unstuck trying to arrive at a better vantage point on the outside of the bottom of the Corkscrew... noise itself was not gitn'r done. But one unforgettable thing: way back in the seventies, before the campground at the track existed, we had to camp in a nearby field for $1 a night. There was one water spigot for thousands, and a few (but not enough) port-a-johns. As the sun went down, the festivities went up. There was an uphill wheelie contest with the mandatory j-turn at the top of one's attempt, lighting provided by fwd blazers strategically posted on the hill at all angles. Good stuff until the MP's showed up and dampened the festivities to the accompaniment of attendant booing. So, attention was turned to a young couple standing en amour in their internally lit tent. The rhythmic cheers and clapping continued until... an OMEEGAWD moment occurred in said tent, and then its light also was extinguished to further disappointment. The next year or two we camped at the college (MPC) with hot showers, by damn! for $2 a night and that was cool. But the chopper contingent with the stuck throttle at 5:00am Sunday p/o'd the neighbors and the camping venue disappeared. But friends from that time remain. And who can forget the Triumph Bonneville that won the Sat. PM burnout contest in the short straight? It was done with "aged 20 years in a hot Seaside garage attic" Carlisle tires by a wonderful gentleman whose Triumph was a gift to him at Laguna Seca from "Sewer Sid" a year or so before... but that's another story... John Freitag ********************* Well, my first ever Laguna experience was at the 2005 USGP. Wow, is all I can say... I still get chills thinking about the sound of those 990's screamin' through the Corkscrew (which looks awfully flat on a picture but Holy Cr-p is that thing steep!). My husband has been a bike racing fan from way back and remembers attending Laguna in 93 and missing out on seeing his favorite rider (Rainey) but getting KRSR to sign his Rainey replica helmet. 13yrs later my husband finally got to meet Wayne and get his second Wayne Rainey Replica signed by Wayne himself(the first one was retired after Kenny signed it lol). I don't think much can top that for him *********************** I remember one year, Steve McLaughlin was riding a BMW Superbike for Butler and Smith. He was crusing down from the corkscrew, out of turn 8, seriously overcooking the turn into 9 (old course 9), and managed to flip the whole bike up side down into the turn nine outer line of dirt. All we saw was a BMW, completely and perfectly up side down, flying about 5 feet off the ground, with a giant dust cloud below it. Later, after the touch down landing, we found that inside the dust cloud was one Little Stevie Wonder. I made my way back to the Butler and Smith pits, and found Steve sitting on a chair out front of the pit, well shaken, very dirty, but not seriously hurt. He asked me if I would help get the zipper on his left arm sleeve of his leathers open, and I started to help with that. He then looked right at me and said "I KNOW EXACTLY WHY THE BIKE DID THAT". I smiled at him, continuing to work on the zipper, smiled ear to ear, and replied back, "SO DO I". This event in flying a BMW was way past medium spectacular. There is a picture of all this in one of the magazines from the era, but I don't remember which one had it. I've been friends with Steve for over 30 years. Dave Ray **************** Ah, Laguna. So many memories; which one's my fave? Perhaps watching Andrew Stroud on the Britten making FBF Ducati's look (and sound) slow. He wheelied out of EVERY CORNER! Easily the coolest bike ever, even with the pink fenders and blue headers. Or was it discussing the merits of pneumatic valves with Kevin Cameron while waiting in line for calamari? Or after drinking all night with the Canadians in the adjoining campground, being jolted awake at daybreak by a Laverda Jota? And not minding it. Or maybe it was watching Schwantz and Rainey scream down the hill thru turn 9 using completely different lines and shift points and still never being more than ten feet apart. Was it the time we sat in amazement as the entire Rothmans Honda crew strolled into Denny's, taking over the back half of the place? Wayne Gardner sat in the center of the group, seemingly recreating the Last Supper. No, it has to be Nicky's first MotoGP win. Specifically, as he stood on the podium reveling in his victory, the national anthem suddenly stopped, less than halfway through. His shoulders slumped in surprised disappointment. Instantly the crowd picked up the song and we finished it with incredible gusto. Not a dry eye in the house. Geoff King ****************** I went to Laguna in the early '70s to see Sports cars when I was stationed at Fort Ord. Started riding street bikes on San Mateo County's Highway 35 (Skyline, you know Alice's) in the late '60s. In '78 a group of riding buddies used ride down to Laguna on Saturday to watch qualifying, stay in a $35 a night motel in Seaside. I think the race day ticket was eight or ten bucks and you got a program. Every year the Nationals became a bigger deal to us. We started coming on Friday and camped. From '78 on I went to every motorcycle race, all the GPs, all the WSBK races and the Moto GPs. I went to every CART, IMSA and ALMS weekend, I can tell Laguna stories for days. About '83 or so we started to go to California Superbike School and ride Sears Point and Laguna on KZ550s. In '90 they had brand new 600 Ninjas, that is when this happened. Keith Code has go to be one of the very best teachers I have ever had in any dicipline. Thanks Keith, I'm sure you saved my life many times over. Keith had us do a series of exercises. First session, put the bike in top gear, no shifting and you can't use the brakes. It teaches you throttle control, the slow in, fast out. The next session you can use 4th and 5th gear, still no brakes, next session, gears 3 4 & 5, no brakes, the last session all gears and brakes. When he told the class what the first drill was, you could hear guys moaning. Everybody came out to blast around the track and have fun. This was like work. He said, "Hey, these are my bikes and I want you guys to go fast on them. Who here wants to go fast?" Everybody raises their hand. "OK, lets see how fast you can go. Remember, if you are on the brakes, then you aren't on the gas a nd that is how you go fast. Hold the throttle wide open as long as you can... but don't crash my bikes" Keith asks, "Show of hands, who used the brake?" Duh, everybody! "How many of you looked at the hill outside of turn 2?" Everybody. "What did you see?" Most of the class said, a lady. "What color was her Jacket?" About half the class, "Uh, it was a red white and blue Honda Racing Corp jacket. He laughs, "What was she doing?" Only a few guys said, "She was eating a sandwich". Keith, "Amazing... What kind of sandwich was it?" With out missing a beat, some squid says, "I think it was a PBJ, Keith!" He says, "What the *#%!? What are all you guys doing spending you precious ten bucks worth of attention looking at the hill for, let alone the girl, the color of her jacket20and her sandwich? That's why you are all slow." Clary Philipp ENDS Post this story to: digg PRIVACY POLICY | HOME | RETURN TO TOP © 1997 - 2008 Hardscrabble Media LLC |
