Coop's Corner

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

2016 Road America AHRMA

We had great company all weekend even without a sign, this one left over Sunday late afternoon from the night before at our nearby neighbors. I sometimes do have trouble making friends and will have to try this next time. Our cooler did have some beer.....but we had more water and even better than that, enough shade.

First things first though, Friday morning. I was in line at the gate just a few minutes after 6AM, anxious to be at or very near the front for the Opening Of Gates at 7:00. Jim's 2 rigs were there before me and he should have been first in but then they routed us through the center gate; Jim too close to get over there without the rest of us making room.

Eric was right on time, always is. He said 7 and he was there early.

There was fog along with the recent rain.

Steve was only a few minutes later and then it was discovered that Eric had left his armband in his packet of registration info so it was off to Registration to get a replacement.

As the sun began to burn the fog off, we headed up to the pits for our first of many walk-thru's.

My favorite NY racer......and a pretty cool chair.

Canada Corner, corner 12 and something new. A path providing access to the entire inside of Corner 11 through Corner 12 and most of the way up to Corner 13.

Last weekend at the Hiawatha BMW Rally I mentioned to our GS ride leader Curt that I'd see him at the track this weekend and a request was made to save his group a trackside campsite. It was done.

Curt, Bill, Joel and George arrived mid-afternoon. Bill on his Guzzi, the other guys on BMW's. Jeff and Mike arrived not that much later, Mike on his Enfield/Cozy rig and Jeff on his new CR250. It was a big day for those two, all the way from the Twin Cities.

We rode to Dundee for dinner Friday evening and it was busy.

There was wood for a Friday evening fire but the weather didn't cooperate and it wasn't just the weather. Even before the radar showed the huge globs of red and yellow, the camp hostess was warning everyone that there had been a fire at a local transformer...."no power over the entire complex, take a flashlight to the restroom." Seeing the radar (and the nasty black clouds coming at us from the west, I started picking things up and lowered the canopy to the extent that I could (should have done more than that....).

It wasn't all that long before we saw the few security lights flicker back on around the Carousel area and over at the restrooms. I would have gone over there but decided that with the approaching weather, the PortaJohns would have to do. Only just comfortably seated, I heard and felt the first blast of wind. My small little building actually rocked and then rocked again, the message becoming clear that I was in a bad place. A nearby security nightlight left a shadow of PortaJohn 2 of 4 on my opaque wall and that's when I saw the next door 'John tip forward 15 degrees or so and then flop back to vertical.

Things were getting serious and I wasn't being nearly quick enough. As I walked out the door, John 3 and 4 went boom as they hit the pavement. Before I was 10 feet away, John 2 not only went down but started to chase me.

This is what it looked like early Saturday morning skyward......

This is what it looked like Saturday morning looking over......

Banks of 'Johns all over the grounds, mine the ONLY freestanding one still vertical.

When I got back to our campsite, the guys were all frantically trying to save my canopy shelter. Had I been through this before (or been paying attention), I'd have removed the fabric from the frame. Many others did.... too many others suffered a lot more damage than mine did. There were spider webs of hinging aluminum tubing in many garbage cans. Saturday morning I was able to patch my tubing together with some duct tape supplied courtesy of Doug.

Friday afternoon, I somehow managed to hear my phone receive a text message. I'd just sent Eric off for a test ride on the Morphous and even without expanding the photo, I knew exactly what and why he'd sent me the text. Too soon done with his test ride, he came back and my question was, "where is it?"

I've been paying a great deal of attention to the CSC RX-3 thread on ADV and though I'd not seen any of the 250 machines in person, I was familiar enough to easily recognize the image that Eric had sent. We've spoken at length about the bikes and he knew I'd be excited. He described the guy, pointed to the general area and learned a few facts about both bike and rider. It didn't take long when I realized where it was (Rob's usual camping spot) that I knew who the rider was that Eric had been describing. This trip not on his Guzzi, Rob is the very proud owner of an orange RX-3. It wasn't until late Saturday evening that I finally had a chance to really see the bike and get a chance to talk.

Through Corner 13 and on to 14

Dave Roper's Guzzi 500 single Bologna Slicer. Engine missing here at the end of the race but it had been running race-ready.

The rule is "street legal only" on the grounds.....

These 2 Honda's were exceptional

Part of the Carousel village.....

The Memorial seems to get more extravagant every year....

Big screens at various locations around the track are a very nice addition.

At the Bike Show/Rockerbox area.

A Burgman with an extra wheel....

Not everyone visiting our shade was old.....Joe, Valerie, Adam, glad you guys stopped by!

Doug was there on his Norton.....

Richard was there on his Triumph......

We rode to Kiel for dinner Saturday evening...

"Best breasts and butts in Kiel....." (That's what their T-shirts said, I just report)

Doug was on some sort of mission.....

I visited the Gift Shop, Lauren needed a T-shirt.

More Pit walking.....

Almost time to pack up....

Even with the crazy weather Friday night, conditions were good and better than had been predicted. Warm and sticky gave way to almost too cool and hazy.

Our GPS Tracks around the track....

Upon teardown, I realized that one of our group (we now know who) left their undapants on my trailer......guys, I've just been kidding about only having two pair, I'm fine, really.

I stayed through Race 11 and was home a bit after 9PM. Can't wait for next year!!

Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)