The timing loop start is a few hundred
yards up the course… so no need to get a Dirttrack-type
on-the-milli-second start-line blast-off. Just get her off the line
in my own time… firmly. Start as you wish to proceed! I get her
going without fuss and give her beans through first gear. Up to
second then short-shift as I tip her into the first left-lander –
the timing loop is just on the exit of this first turn –I try and
get her smoothly in and drive hard out while tripping the clock.
It starts – thousandths of seconds
flashing by so quickly they are just a blur. A thousand moments
later, digital ‘1’ appears under the ‘sec.’… let’s try to
get as few of those as possible. Tick-tock-tick-tock… I try get on
the gas hard at the exit as I setup for the first fast right-hander
just moments down the course.
Feck! This is hard. From standstill,
with no warmup, then trying to push the limits around a fast turn
within a few seconds. Imagine this: Arriving at a track you have
never been to before. You go out on a road-bike you have hardly
ridden before and go around in cold, early morning conditions for
just 3 laps. Two days later, you roll up to the start line on the
same bike, but now you’re in a race. No warm-up laps. No sighting
lap. That first turn you’ve only done 3 times before, in different
conditions. You’ve got to do 10 minutes of laps as fast as you can.
Then it’s all over. This is what Pikes Peak is like. It’s hard!
I’m tentative on the throttle…
trying to feel the traction. Seems okay… I get her upright and pour
on the coals down the very short straight for the next right-hander.
It should be nearly flat-out… but I throttle off way before and
then feel my way to the entry. “What a knob! Go, go, go!” I
chastise myself. Next right hander I’m only marginally better.
At the TT you go from zero to flowing,
flat-out 150mph turns, downhill, lined with kerb-stones, poles and
garden walls. It took me a year or two and many practice starts to
get my head into that. Probably at least fifty stand-still starts
before I could do the turning jump through St Ninians and Bray Hill
flat-out. But once you ‘know’… you ‘know’. Your mind
overcomes that feeling that you’re just about to get mashed into
the stonework and it’s going to hurt like almighty-fuck. Your mind
overcomes this in a fleeting moment and with ease… because you
‘know’.
Despite the hours of study and well
over a hundred on-board starts, I still hadn’t got my head into
these Colorado turns… or these turns into my head. I didn’t
‘know’ and my body closed the throttle and hit brakes way too
early – it was involuntary. My mind was screaming at my
self-preserving instinct… “Stop fucking around and GO FAST!”.
You got no second chance here. On
circuits you go round in circles… if you screw it up one lap…
soon you’ll have another go at it to get it right. I had one chance
at those first three turns… and I screwed them up. Fuck.
Into the first of the left-handers. I
set it up out to the right and turn in late… I pull the Big Duck
over and start carving an arc to the apex. I cross the double-yellow
line in the centre of the course. The bike has a little two-wheel
slide. Shit! WTF? I don’t remember that in practice! A bit
un-nerving. Out to the right again for the next left-hander…
carrying bit more speed. Shit! She just slid over those lines again.
This sucks.
I’m trying to get on the gas earlier
and harder… but she feels as if the rear is just about to let go. I
was warned about this all week. Practice is early morning, a lot
cooler and surprisingly grippy. Race day is always a bit later,
warmer but counter-intuitively slicker. Weird. There are theories of
dust and spectator traffic pissing coolant on the course. The best
I’ve heard is that as the tar warms, it sweats. It was sweating like a net-vested short-order burger flipper.
I slow things down in my head to try
speed things up on the course. Keep focussed… ride to the
conditions. “Remember where you are on this squiggly line to the
clouds… what’s next? And what’s after that? Where do I need to
be? Can I go faster? Give it more throttle? Get off those damn
brakes! Don’t turn in too soon!” I just try and relax into it,
make no stupid mistakes and keep it flowing. Despite struggling to
know how fast I can get into turns, it starts to come together.
Right-right-left-right-wide open-brake-down one-in
deep-left-right-right… like a ticker-tape rattling through my head.
By the time I’m stretching the cables
down the short ‘Halfway Picnic Grounds’ straight-away, lined with
spectators, I’m really starting to enjoy it. I’m treating it as a
fast blat on my local roads with no traffic to make room for or to
think for. I can carve wide lines from white-line to white line. This
is fun!
On some turns there are about three
feet of tar on the other side of the white line… inviting…
tempting. Despite the sliding on the middle-lines, I give it a go,
hoping the white lines have a bit more grip than the yellow. Front
end slides as I cross the line, I apex, then slip on the way out
again. Nah – just as slippy, just not worth it.
Up through the fan-zones at Ski Area
and through the beautifully cambered, one-eighty degree uphill
sweeping turns. More crowds lining the course through Glen Cove. I
take it easy through as I feel my tyres rumbling over the loose
gravel on the inside of the turn. I give myself lots of room going
into George’s Corner – “Late, late, late!” I get the best
line through there all week and can get on the gas hard and fast. The
full-race system on the Multi reverbing off the steep rock-face on
the outside of the turn sounds awesome!
More crowds up through Cove Creek and
I’m just loving the fast triple right-hander leading up to Elk
Park. “Right… keep turning… right… keep turning… look
through the turn… right…”. I approach Elk Park a lot faster
than in Wednesday’s practice - this is the first time I’ve done
this section on the Big Red Duck. I brake early – the heavy girl
takes some stopping… “Whoooah, girl. Whoah.”. Remembering
Carlin’s coaching, I run her deep into the outside lane for the
switchback and drive a wide arc in the middle of the course, avoiding
the steep incline at the apex. Nice!
Up the steep hill towards Ragged Edge -
I’m unsure how fast I can get through this turn where the course
just seems to end in an expanse of clear blue sky. I err on the side
of caution and have loads of room through there and even more through
the next fast Armco-lined left. Hard on the gas for the short squirt
before more heavy braking for the first series of Double-yous.
One, two, three Double-yous… fast,
blind, blue-sky right hander… just… keep… turning…
The Armco for the start of the next
series of Double-yous pops into view. Nice! Switchback number one, number two, number three. The
tall, heavy Duke is a bit of a handful through these switch-backs and
I’m giving myself plenty of time and room on this very unfamiliar
stretch. Careful on two… that’s the turn I screwed up a few times
during practice. On the brakes into three I think I feel the brake
lever coming back to the bar a bit more than before. “Huh? Are my
brakes fading?”
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