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Road Atlanta on March 14 & 15, 1998 --written by Mark Polansky
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Wow! First race weekend! I took the required WERA Riders School course. It was
my first time on the revised Road Atlanta course. Due to unforseen technical difficulties,
my Hawk was not race ready. However, after wasting my entire spring break and lots of
dead presidents trying to get it running, I was hell bent on riding SOMETHING on the
track. The task fell to my CBR600 F2 street bike. It was actually race-prepped and barely
street legal anyway. My teammate Andrew and I got up early Saturday and drove out to the
track. We signed in, and I geared up for the class track time. All was well until I started
getting cocky and started braking later and later going into turn 9 (first left of the
repaired section). Next thing I know, I'm a little too hot. Rather than look through
the turn and lean more, I thought "Kee, no biggie. I'll just ride off the track and get
back on." Turns out, the Georgia red clay had other plans. I
ended up doing a nice easy 10MPH low slide. Total damage was one front cowling and a few
minor scratches on the tank and fairings. I was surprised at how little damage there was.
Well, I jumped up and finished the school that day with my number duct taped to the front
of my instrument cluster.
My first race was Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately, Andrew wasn't around to help out, but
luckily things worked out okay. As with all the newbies, I was gridded in the back of the
back. Being a little gun-shy after the events Saturday and realizing I needed to not DNF
for two weekends in a row to get my Novice license, I decided discretion was the better
part of valor and decided I would try to kick ass on the start and then slack off, let
everyone pass me and practice turns and safely finish rubberside down. I nailed the start,
passed a few bikes going into turn 1 and then promptly got re-passed coming out of turn 2
as I unnecessarily chopped throttle. Oh well, I was safely last and was in no danger of
posing a threat to anyone. True to the plan, I finished last, but I did finish! Yay! Not
everyone can say that, as I saw one unfortunate soul with his bike on the outside of turn 7.
I've since decided that an F2 is just too damn much to learn on, and I'm eagerly looking
forward to getting my Hawk ready to race. The wise words, "In order to finish first, you must
first finish," seemed appropriate for the weekend.
