NorCal Supermoto comes to
Infineon
September, 2005
Photos - Sunday August 14
Out at Infineon Raceway on the weekend of August 13 and 14, AFM racing was in full sway. The parking areas and pits were jammed and you could hear the race bikes droning around the main track as an endurance race wore on and on. But way out at the far end of the track, just past turn seven, was a totally different scene. Here, the big RVs were parked high on the hill overlooking what seemed like a makeshift track consisting only of turns, and more turns. Some of those loops went up and down the side of an adjacent hill, on dirt. As at the neighboring AFM race, there were lots of riders and spectators, with bikes being torn apart and rebuilt under makeshift tents. The riders here, however, wore motocross helmets and rode machines that seemed a cross between a flat-tracker and a dirt bike. More often than not, the rider was also the mechanic. Welcome to Supermoto USA and the Nor-cal series.
This was a family
affair, not just for racers
and spectators, but for the staff as well. Brok McAllister
organizes this
series and leads the team of people, many who make it happen, many of
them
volunteers. His wife works in the race office, hammering on a
laptop,
while his kids run errands all day. In fact, there were kids all over,
running
and riding around. They were on little 50 cc bikes called Fast
50's (and
so were some of their dads) and piloting ATVs to bring track equipment
here and
there. They were having a good time. I'd like to be
around to
watch them riding Supermoto ten years from now. There were some
moms on
the track, too - racing. One lady I talked with explained that
her
teenage son, for whom she'd bought the XR, had decided he was more
interested
in cars and girls. So she decided to start riding and has been
racing
Supermoto for the last year. Not placing yet, but not coming in
last,
either. And five years ago, just to give this tale some
perspective, she
was in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down. She says
racing is
her therapy. Another racer, at most in her early teens, had a 125
that
she wheeled around the track, falling down only when being lapped by
the fast
guys (and it wasn't her fault). And then there was Michelle
DiSalvo.
A little asking around and I
could find out fairly quickly who are
the racers in competition at the top of their classes. I watched
them
dicing, staying close for lap after lap and then something would happen
- a
momentary lapse, a mistake, a missed turn, a crash (lots of these) and
the lead
would change. It's exciting for spectators, too, because while
the competition is
keen, you can imagine yourself
doing this. It's that down to earth.
Saturday
was practice, and on Sunday two full sets of races took place between 11:30
and 5 pm,
each typically 6-8 laps. The heat races in the first set
determined the
riders' starting positions in the second set. There are 13
different
classes, from Beginner/Novice to Open Pro, something for everybody, and
you can
race without having to spend the kind of money needed for the racing
going on
next door on the big track. Cheap for spectators, too. Ten
bucks
and you could watch all the racing at Infineon that weekend.
That afternoon in the heat
races I learned a few of the names and
numbers to watch - Casey Yarrow, Andrew Dickson, Vincent Guisande, Leo
Bagnis,
Don Biava, and Michelle DiSalvo. (There are more, of
course.) The
Open Pro heat was as tight a race as I've ever seen. DiSalvo
(197) got the lead and kept it,
with Guisande (76), Dickson (88), and Biava (51) close behind and
finishing in
that order. Casey Yarrow, the rider sporting the number one
plate, came
in 6th. "197" was one of the numbers I was told to watch.
Everybody said Michelle was FAST. That certainly was true for
this heat
race. Later I learned that she'd started racing at 11 and has
been at it
for 21 years, focusing on the dirt track circuit. Michelle
is the
first woman rider to make it onto the podium in a Grand National meet,
and
she's since been there five times.
One of the
trickiest places on the course,
where the most pile-ups occurred, was the transition from dirt to
asphalt, at a
180 degree corner at the bottom of the dirt hill, which sent the riders
right
back up the hill again. What made the turn so hairy was the thin
dirt
layer that built up on the pavement and never went away. No
traction,
nothing for a tire to bite into, and you're in a corner without much
control. On the asphalt sections the bikes would drift into a
corner,
front wheel pointing away from the turn, back wheel hanging out, ready
to
high-side the rider if the tire were to stop sliding and grab.
It's flat
tracking, with the rider's inside foot flat, skimming the
asphalt.
On some of these same corners, the riders came in with a motocross
approach -
inside leg high, knee hardly bent, nearly horizontal and stuck out
straight
ahead. What's great about Supermoto (compared to road
racing) is
it's easier for spectators to get closer to the track and watch these
fine
points of racing style. The sights are different over here at the
Supermoto
course, and so are the sounds. I suspect there's a db limit for
these
bikes as there is over on the big track. But the sound of a
thumper (or
twenty thumpers) on the gas coming out of the start and heading into
the first
corner has its own unique appeal.
That starting order for the
Open Pro main event that afternoon was
the heat finish order, and DiSalvo came out fast, but soon lost the
lead to
Casey Yarrow, who never looked back. Vincent Guisande and Andrew
Dickson
finished second and third, just like in the heat race earlier in the
day.
Michelle DiSalvo came in fourth. Perhaps the fall she took in the
450
class, run a few events earlier where she finished 11th, may have
contributed
to her slower-but-steadier pace in the Open Pro. Don Biava moved
to fifth
place.
The Open Pro is clearly the Big
Event, so it's natural to follow
it with a race at the other end of the spectrum - the Fast 50's.
I'd kept
seeing this little bike with this big guy on it all day Saturday
running around
the track and then again in Sunday's races. There was a big noise
and
then this thing went roaring off. It reminded me of the opening
scene in
"On Any Sunday." Getting your foot into a flat track or
motocross position in a corner isn't easy on a Fast 50 because your
buns are
only a foot above the asphalt. Some of the orthopedic contortions
the
Fast 50 boys came up with in the corners made me smile. Yes, I
could
imagine myself doing that.
There are more
Supermoto races to come before
the end of this season's series, and these will determine the winner of
the
open pro title, and top finishers for all the other races as well. If
you get a
chance to take in one or more of these events, don't miss out. You'll see why this form of racing is
taking off in popularity.