O s..., I did it again

Last weekend we were in Summit Point, VA, for a two-day event in the main course with NESBA. It was our last event for the year, before storing our bikes in the garage for the traditional long and cold winter in NYC. Friday was raining but the forecast for the weekend was calling for clear sky and temperatures in the 50s. We were all excited because for the occasion we were able to put together a nice group of people. We had from Queens Jack and Sam; Pete and Kathleen from NYC; from NJ Alex and Mario; from Brooklyn: Steven, Antonio, Naim, Mike, Almos, Frank and the rest of our friends that we normally meet at the NESBA events. Personally, this trip was particularly special for the first time presence of my wife and my two daughters at a track event.













We left on Friday heading down in separate cars to Summit where we had booked several rooms at the Shoney’s Motel. We arrived at 11: 00 PM and after saying good night, every body went to sleep. After a couple of hours a huge bang on my room door made me jump on my feet and run to the window: two young men were running away but one of them was Jay, Mario’s friend, so I calmed down and went back to sleep. At 6:00 AM I left my family sleeping in the room to go for breakfast when my phone rings: it was Steve, or better Uncle Steve: “ Alex can you unlock my room door? The lady from the hotel must have locked it with some … some kind of tape. Am I the only one locked in? Please check it out. Raise your head: I am using my cellular as flashlight so you can see me!”. I looked at him and I noticed a web of duct tape crossing my friend’ doors and locking the handles with the handrails in front the rooms. At the beginning I did not understand but when I spotted Alex and Mario in a dark corner laughing their guts every thing became clear. Steven and Naim ended up forcing their way out to walk outside their rooms in underwear and duct tape crossing their bodies …
Saturday the day was gorgeous: blue sky with a nice refreshing breeze with the characteristic scent of the fields surrounding the track. My first session was frantic, at least to say. New helmet (tight), new boots (loose), new bike set up (I had raised the tail) and a new set of tires on asphalt that seemed sprayed with Pledge. The second session, with my old boots, and the Intermediate group to witch I was assigned as Control Rider, was much better and the beginning of a wonderful day. We playful raced in the track and entertain each other in the pit area. We had a lot of red flags due to crashes but nothing too serious. Saturday night, we went to a local restaurant were we had a long dinner entertained by Peter; we had tears on our eyes.
Sunday morning, I did not go out on the first session to let the temperature to warm up a bit. The sky was overcast, and only now I am recall that a few raindrops were falling but without making the ground wet. As matter of the fact, when I did went out I was surprised with the grip: no even the lightest sign of a slide, zero, zip, absolutely nothing. Twenty minutes after I went out again and on my second lap while still warming up the tires, my front tire lost suddenly grip right at the entrance of T3. O.S.:I am crashing again! I yelled in my helmet.
Initially I slid over the asphalt but then I went into gravel trap where I tumbled several times before stopping before the tire wall. I immediately stood up on my legs but with my right collarbone broken. I was pissed off: on top of the injury, I had ruined my new beloved 600 and most important I had crashed the first time that my wife Angela was at the track (even though she was still sleeping with the girls at the hotel). I went back to the pit area in a pick up transporting my bike on the back. The ambulance verified my conditions while my friend quickly took care of my stuff. An hour after, with 3 Advil pills in my body I went to pick up my wife and together we hang out the rest of the day at the track. My crash somehow had affected a bit the atmosphere among my friends but overall we still had good time. Curiously, after lunch another friend of mine instructing for NESBA had a similar crash but on T4 (even faster) and brought to 4 the number of NESBA Control Riders crashing in 2 days (a fifth one had crashed in T1 but with a broken-locked chain). All of us have unexpectedly washed the front end of our bikes so I this point I must blame our Dunlop 208 along with the famous slippery conditions of this track. This was my fourth time in Summit Main and mistakenly I never gave too much importance to the web of asphalt cracks that run trough the racetrack. At night they must funnel the steam from underneath the soil to condense afterward with the cooler temperatures of the air: the result is very slippery patches that eventually dry out later on in the morning with the sun and the motorbike tires forming a clean line.
Too bad I had to crash to learn it!


Photo album provided by Jack and Sam
For professional pictures covering the event visit Race Day Photo