Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Bonneville Vintage GP


I had three races in a row later in the day.  Race #8 was my 'bump-up' race of 500 Premiere; race #9 was the Class C foot shift race for the Velo, and race #10 the 350GP.  The six entries in the 500 Premiere Class were gridded in front of the 500GP class in the first wave, with Sportsman 750, Heavyweight novice Production and Sound of Singles 3 in the second wave.  In addition to Walt and myself, were two Minovation Seeley G-50s fetteled by NYC Norton with class point leader Helmi Niederer on one and his friend and mentor Lee Acree on the other.  Lee was a top AMA pro in the late '90s and '00s and is an instructor at the Kevin Schwantz School, which is where he and Helmi met.  This was Lee's first race on a vintage bike.  Ron Melton was on a 500 Manx Norton and Jeff Elings was on a light weight G-50 Matchless.  Ron got the holeshot from the front row with Lee getting to Turn #1 from the second row in front of me.  Lee made a pass on Ron before the end of the first lap and I started dogging Ron.  Ron's bike seemed to be all over the place and, on the third lap, we made contact as I went around him on the outside.  Once I got by him, I'm told that Ron dropped back quickly, clearly dealing with a problem.  Lee pulled steadily ahead and I finished a distant 2nd.  Walt had stopped on the side of the track with a broken shift linkage.  At the end of the cool off lap, I had trouble down shifting, and I mentioned this to Mike as I asked him to check the tire pressures and we moved the transponder to the Velo. 

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