2006 ASRA Solo Champion: Robert Lombardi

Rob has won for the second year in a row the ASRA Solo Championship and I have asked him to recap his season for the Pure Motorbike Passion readers.
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The 2006 season quest to win a second Solo National Championship was one of ups and downs and I mean downs. It all started with a decent showing in Daytona despite a number mix up that ended putting me in the back of the grid for the 3 restarts due to red flag incidents. After a very angry 2 ½ hour race I managed to fight my way back to 9th place. Not good but in 2005 march Daytona I got a 7th and I still managed to win the championship. So I went home with high hopes, but feeling a little cheated out of a possible higher finish! Now this is where it gets good. Last February I bought a new 2006 GSXR 1000 to convert it later into a race bike but I crashed it after only one month in the streets of Brooklyn . It was a cold night and I had got about ½ miles into my 3 mile ride home when I made a slow left hand turn. I suddenly found my self in the ground gasping for air. My bike with only 80 miles on it was destroyed. It turns out that our friendly Con Edison “JO” left an 8X10 - 2 inch thick camouflaged built up on one side with asphalt in the middle of the entrance of the turn. I had broken 5 ribs and one of them broken in 2 places: six brakes in all. -“Nice job”- the doctor said; “-do not race until you are completely healed because another fall could puncture a lung or your heart”-! It was early in the season so I canceled my entry for Road America : too bad because in 2005 I had won that round. I did whatever I could to remain in shape during this time but it was tough. Broken ribs hurt like a son of a gun and make impossible to sleep! The next race was Blackhawk Farms on the 7th of May. I was still in a lot of pain, especially under hard braking, but I managed to win the race. I was now in 2nd place in the championship, 5 points behind the leader. I was pumped up, healing nicely and ready for the next race in Topeka, Kansas on June 16th. I had never been at that track, but I was excited and committed to win even thought it was Al Harris’s home circuit, at that point the championship leader. About 1 hour into the competition, with almost a one lap lead, I lost the front end going into the chicane and I busted again my ribs and cracked my sternum. For 4 days I was unable to get out of bed and it was only two weeks away from the next round in Summit Point. Against all advice as soon as I hit the floor I knew I was racing no matter what. I went as far as doing a 6 lap sprint at Vir to get some regional points towards my F40 championship: I did it with some 800 mil Advil’s and Novocain patches all over my chest and my back, but 6 laps were different from the 78 laps required in Summit Point. In West Virginia I rested until the race day: 2 1/2 hours of hell. With enough Advil to kill a horse and enough pain patches to numb Godzilla, to my surprise I won the race! Barber, in Alabama on August 25th was next: I felt tired and weary. All the injuries were taking a toll on my body and mind. But I was on a mission at that point nothing was going to stop me. The battle was between me and Travis Meycnern, a battle that lasted for over two hours under light rain conditions. At the end of the day the younger man got the victory by only a few seconds but I was back leading the championship with 11 points lead on Al. One month to heal and get in shape before the race in VIR, my home track. The race went off with troubles on the warm up lap: it seemed that the check valve on the new quick fill system was failing and gas was quickly filling the over flow tank. At this point I could only hope for the best but luckily the race was red flagged, right after the start, and so the technical issue was quickly resolved by my crew. In Vir I finished with a respectable 3rd place and with 37 point lead and only one race left, in Daytona, I am again the 2006 ASRA Solo Champion!

I would like to add that the Michelin tires are unbelievable and have been critical in winning the championship


Special thanks to: Frank Aluzzo from United Water Mains for his incredible support through the season and never giving up on me; Ron Wood and Michelin Tires; Roy at Absolute cycle; Almos Gyorffy; Johnny Brazil; Alex Matteucci; Steve Lombardi; all the guys at NYSB club and most of all my Wife Lorraine who against her better judgment supported me all season.

Rob


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