Follow along with the LSTD Endurance Team!

[tomLSTD]

In this thread, we'll post up Team Captain Mark Niemi's write ups and thoughts for the season. For those of you who don't know Mark, you'll certainly get to know him much better through his creative write ups and insightful observations!

Here is installment #1, enjoy!

Well, here we go! The 2008 CMRA Racing and Lone Star Track Day (LSTD) season is here! This year, the LSTD team riders will be Andy Galindo, Gabe McClendon and myself, Mark Niemi.

The biggest change for this season, and the one that may be the hardest to adjust to, is that Frank Shacklee will not be on our Middleweight team. Frank and I began endurance racing together in 1996, starting in last position on the back row of the CMRA Big Bike Endurance grid. In 2008 we will be starting in the 2nd position on the front row, much of it due to the many hours Frank has devoted to the race team. Frank has been an instrumental part of the team’s progress each and every step of the way and we will truly miss him. For 2008, Frank’s efforts will be focused on winning the CMRA Light Weight Endurance Class championship with LSTD instructors Ronnie Hay and Ulug Bayramoglu (Olay). We wish them all the best of luck!

LSTD won Middleweight Supersport in 2007 and came within 6 points of the CMRA Big Bike Endurance overall title. Ouch! It was very close racing all of 2007 and we raced hard every corner of every lap. Some of the races were decided by seconds on the watch, not laps. It was that close all year long. Our competition kept us motivated and will do the same this season. It’s going to be another tough year but we’ll be on a good bike and have exceptional support.

I’ve volunteered to try and keep everyone informed as we map out and travel this crazy path taking us from one end of Texas to the other. Why? Because we want all of our friends to travel with us, of course. It’s their support that brought us to this point. And if we’ve learned one thing about racing, it’s that you cannot win without the support of sponsors, friends and family.

This season, we have some new sponsors to welcome to LSTD racing. But first, we’d like to welcome back all of our sponsors from the past seasons. Steve, Jeff and Wade at LSTD have been giving their support to the team for eight years. Each of those seasons has brought us a top-ten finish in the CMRA’s big bike endurance series. We are a product of their passions, their desire to win and have fun at the same time. Gabe, Andy and I have “worked” with them since the beginning. I say “work” but it’s really a big family and a lot of fun. And today, eight years later, we still have all of the enthusiasm and passion that we had when Steve, Jeff and Wade started track days in Texas way back in 2000. It’s really a great organization! Everyone who has ever participated in a LSTD Event should be proud.

We also have our friends at EBC Brakes/Motorcycles Unlimited and Leo Vince exhaust systems supporting us again. We feel that these are superior products and the people that represent them are top-notch. Whether we’re at track days or on the grids, we like these guys close-by.

Also, Tom Anderson is back to keep our bodywork nice and shiny. He’s a member of the LSTD family and it’s very assuring to know that he’s there when we need him. Thanks again, Tom!

Very special thanks to Jimmy Cambora at Raceworx for ‘07. Jimmy will be doing our chassis work in 2008 too. In CMRA Big Bike Endurance, it’s pretty much a given that you’ll be needing his setup to win. Plus, Jimmy’s at the track to receive feedback and make improvements. He is always looking for that last tenth. He’s given us two endurance championships on two different brand of tires without missing a beat.

2008 looks to be a very exciting year for the LSTD team! We’re glad to have some of our old friends back.

John Hutchinson at South Central Race Center is our tire vendor. He has provided the best customer service that we’ve seen in any vendor at any race track. And, he’ll have us on the Bridgestones for this season, so we’re very excited to have the chance to put Bridgestone on top of the podium in 2008.

We’ll also have support from Mancuso Powersports in 2008. They are a relative new-comer to the world of endurance racing and we hope they’ll find it as exciting as we do. Mancuso’s is run by some really cool folks and we’re sure they’ll enjoy being part of the team.

Another change for this season is our switch to Motul lubricants. Their reputation is solid within the racing community and I expect their products will perform flawlessly.

In December, at the Red Bull Last Man Standing, we met a group from England called Supersprox. They manufacture a really cool aluminum-inner and steel-outer sprocket for motorcycles. And get this….the pricing is competitive with a hard-anodized aluminum sprocket, yet the Supersprox have a guarantee. It’s true. They seemed tailor-made for, not only endurance racing but track days and street riding too. We told them about our series and Lone Star and they agreed to support the team and track days as well. That means discounts and free sprockets for customers at future Lone Star events! Nice work Supersprox!

It’s a week before the next race at Cresson. I look over at my bike and it appears to be ready. I’ve been on something that has two wheels everyday since the season ended so I feel great. I know my team mates have been training too. Andy got strength from his Daytona finish and his confidence is high. Gabe has been a terror on his dirt bike this winter and he’ll be strong too.

We’ll be racing a 2007 Kawasaki ZX6R (Number 2). It will be maintained by Adam Kahn, our new crew chief. He’ll take our prep to the next level, no doubt.

We’re quite determined to sustain our effort to win the overall title on a 600. The Kawasaki is an easy bike to race and is very dependable. And everyone loves the way that the bike steers. They have a great feel to them.

We’re ready for Cresson, we know anything can happen in racing and the excitement is building. We’d like to thank everyone for their support.

We hope to make you proud of us this season.

Mark Niemi
Team LSTD Racing

[tomLSTD]

Here is Team Captain Mark Niemi's latest installment "from the road". Enjoy!

Ok, where do we start?
Oh yea, we already started last week. That's when I told you about all of the fine people that are supporting LSTD this year.

And I tried not to beat up on the English language to the best of my limited abilities. You know, I tried to utilize our widely-recognized writing system that capitalizes pronouns, places, geographic terms, uses commas properly, puts periods in their places and all of that. So, if you like all of that, see last week. Or, if you want to keep moving along with us and see what really happened at Motorsports Ranch, follow me. But it may not be pretty.

Remember last week when I told you that l looked over at my bike and it appeared to be ready, and that we had been preparing for months to have all of the little pieces of our puzzle in their proper place? Well; forget all of that. We were a mess.

If only our race team were as organized as our track day team.
We were very busy at track days on Friday... not alot of time to communicate with each other about racing stuff. You know; plan, strategize, tweak on the team's bike, aggravate each other, etc.?
So,for one reason or another, we didn't get the team bike onto the track until after lunch.

In the afternoon, we started splitting some sessions and debriefing each other on how the bike was performing. Our main concerns were finding a friendly geometry for the bike with the new Bridgestone tires.

We rode a few sessions and agreed that the bike was a little lazy on turn-in. It also wanted to run wide on the exits. What did we do? Same thing as we always do; we marched over to pit wall to find Jim Cambora, the suspension God/tuner that builds our suspension.

Jimmy is familiar with each rider on our team. He's built our suspension for years. So, saying that, the first question he asks us when the bike is doing something a little out-of-the-ordinary is "Has Mark been messing with it?" Only after saying that, does he proceed. Very strange.

Jimmy made one minor adjustment to the bike's geometry and everyone agreed that we'd found a sweet spot that we could race with on the following day. Jimmy at Raceworx rocks! I think we got about two good sessions on our race setup.

Track days has a tendency to make a day fly by. This one went by fairly smooth, that is, if you can say it was pretty smooth of me to take out my friend Chris Waller in the Wagon Wheel. In one of the later A-sessions, Chris checked up for some guys on entry; and i tried to scoot around the outside of all of them. I came across Chris's front wheel, and i don't know if we touched, but the result was that Chris crashed and broke his collarbone. Pretty smooth, me. I'm really sorry, Chris.

Saturday, endurance day, endurance morning, everything seemed fine. Adam Khan, our new crew chief, was busy bleeding brakes, installing the lap timer, changing oil, checking tires pressures, and all of the things that need to be done before the bike hits the track for the final practice session.

Our plan was to practice on the same tires that we had for track days; and put a new set on the bike for the race. Cool. At that specific point in time, I really thought we were organized. But along came reality.

Now, just as we each have fairly specific tasks on track days, each of us has very specific tasks on race day(when we are on the bike). Gabe starts the race on new tires, puts us up front(usually in the top 5); Andy gets on and tries to match his times; I get on and try not to make a mess of what they've done, and Gabe gets back on to polish out the details. It looks completely simple... on paper.

In the pits, we all have specific tasks too. You all know what they are: setting up the canopy, getting spare wheels to John Hutchinson so he can mount new tires, setting up the tables where we place our gear, hauling the generator to the hot pit, topping off the tank with fuel, and communicating with each other on the progress of it all. I think it's the communication thing that got us.

We seemed to sail through practice without a hitch. I guess it's because we forgot to do half of our "specific tasks". And practice is only thirty minutes long. Right after that, it's 3rd call for the race. And 3rd call means 15 minutes. Lots of stuff happens. Bikes start, riders get last minute strategies, the pit wall starts to clear, and the excitement begins to build. You can feel it.

When the five minute board came up; our collective razor-sharp, brain surgeon-like minds realized something truly profound. We realized that we did not have a new, hot tire mounted on the bike: the same bike that Gabe was going to putting on the front row of the CMRA Big Bike Endurance grid. Row 1 middle.

I'm gonna tell you right now. And i've seen alot of crazy people. But last Saturday, if there was a racer in Texas that would have wanted to trade spots with Gabe at that time, he was for sure gonna be locked up somewhere, or at least under some kind of state-sponsored supervision.

And I've seen Gabe(back when Mystie let him eat meat) eat a hot dog two minutes before doing an hour of 50 flats at TWS. He can hit T1 at TWS as fast as anyone in the country. He can skillfully make a pass with barely an inch of track available. He's an awesome dirt rider; he can wheelie a Z50 with the best of them and he can race in the rain. Not a whole lot rattles him. But as Adam put on a fresh, very cold tire on the bike; and Gabe realized what he was going to have to do;I think I saw him rattled for the first time. And i think he was terrified. And he asked me if I wanted to start and said something about his britches. I don't know.I changed the subject.

Just as we got the tire mounted, and were beginning to send him out, he realized the transponder was not on the fork leg as required.
Well, since his tire was cold, he figured he'd do the warm-up lap, skip griding, come back and get the transponder, and start the race a little late.
We were well into the parts of the finely-edited LSTD racing manual that had been, up until that point, unexplored.

We were truly "wingin' it" off the back pages. Mac, Wade, and Jeff would be proud; right after they got done questioning our judgment, reason, and our sanity...as well as their own.
HP, our friend from outer space and wheelie-meister deluxe, raced back to Gabe's trailer and snagged the transponder.

In the mean time, the racing gods frowned on some guy and he high-sided on the warm-up lap. I guess those same gods winked at us because it gave us some time to mount the transponder and get Gabe onto the grid. And I swear on a stack of Bibles; as soon as he flipped his shield down, the flag flew.

I don't know how we do it.

Our team is very complex.

Each of us has a unique personality. And we are somewhat different in our perspectives and views. For the most part, my team mates are crazy and i'm fairly perfect. And we are like family too. Sometimes we fight, sometimes we do not. Sometimes we are organized. Sometimes we are not. There are a million other small differences that can be beneficial...or problematic.Throw us together on a sports team without a coach and you can have chaos.

But...and this is a big one to us; something good happens when the flag flies. It's magical. It's when we gel.It's when we come together. It works. I really don't now why but it does.

So, the flag dropped and Gabe started with a very conservative first few laps. The tires came in great and he worked his way up. But by the time he got going,the leaders were farther away from him than we like. But his first sessions on the Bridgestones were very good.

Andy had a relatively strong session too. He's excellent at getting the most out a bike. I saw Team Penetration come around him but i don't know who else, if any. But he rode great.

When I got on the bike, it still felt good. The only big mistake I made was following a guy for too long during the latter laps of my session. I got in too close to him to pass cleanly. So I took way too long to get around him. I should have backed it down, give him some seconds; and got another run at him. I think I gave away some valuable seconds playing around with him.
Gabe raced the final hour, and rode very well. We ended up winning MSS and getting 4th overall.I think we were about 40 seconds behind third at the end; and on the same lap as 5th ,6th, and seventh overall. None of us had a stellar day. And we left some on the table, as they say.

Moto-Ace won it by two laps,G-Man second, and Double D got third. And there were plenty guys right on our tails.

It's going to be a competitive season!

The new Bridgestones looked great after 4 hours. They may go 6.
And so did our new Supersprox sprockets. We forgot to oil the chain before the race and they still looked great. Whoops.

All in all, we got off to a pretty good start. But we need to work on getting better organized.

Three weeks away is TWS. It's an 8-hour and there's a whole bunch of points to be won.

This Saturday, we are going to ATS to dyno our little ZX6R. It's a sweet bike.
And we'll see you at World in three weeks.

Thanks so much for everything!

Mark

[tomLSTD]

Well, Mark got his "rpm's" down enough to sit and type another great re-cap of the past race weekend!

Thanks Mark for continuing to entertain us with your witty style!

Without further ado, Team Captain Mark Niemi's TWS 8 hour race recap:

When I try to describe the CMRA 8-hour endurance race at Texas World Speedway, I'm only speaking from my perspective. Any similarities between the words that I'm typing and the facts may be purely coincidental. Sometimes, in endurance racing, things can become blurry. But it does not matter to me, because experts say that the average blog is only read by one person.
For us, the Lone Star Track Days Endurance Team, it was a fairly eventful race. Maybe it was too eventful.

After the last race at MSR, we stepped up our pre-race preparation. So, when we arrived at the track on Thursday night for the weekend, we were very, very prepared. Or at least, the bike was prepared. And Ronnie Hay, our lead instructor at Lone Star had organized our team's day so that we could get in some quality track time throughout the course of Friday's track day event.
Or, if we wanted to, Andy, Gabe, and myself could use the time for more important things, such as discussing who bought an oil filter in 2003, why I made Andy mad in '99, how many brownies can we steal from that Tupperware thingy without having their rightful owner notice, etc. You know, important stuff that drops our lap times. I think we missed two A- sessions having these types of discussions.
But anyways, we got in some good laps on track days and tried to complete our search for an optimum geometry for the 2007 Kawasaki ZX6R.

Saturday morning came early. I didn't sleep very well on Friday night. I hardly ever do after I ride my bike on the track. My mind will usually have a hard time getting back to an RPM that allows a deep, restful sleep following track days. I guess it's just too much fun.
There was an hour of practice on Saturday. Each of us hopped on the bike to be sure that everything felt good for the race. And by the time practice was done, all we wanted was for the flag to drop. We knew it was going to be a long day of racing.
The start of the race is always exciting. Gabe gridded the bike from Row 2 and got the most beautiful launch i've ever seen. He dropped the clutch and got a sweet one-foot wheelie through the first two gears. There were a couple of guys that got around him in Turn 1, but by the time the pack got out of Turn 2, the LSTD team was off to a good start. Unfortunately, someone tried to win the 8-hour on the first lap. I'm not sure what happened but I know the result was Team Penetration rider J. McCamish being transported to the hospital. The red flag came out immediately and a restart was required.

Gabe's second start wasn't so precise. But the pack was off safely and the race started to develop.
There's really only way to describe Gabe's first session but to say "the guy is an endurance machine." He rode great and i think we were third overall and leading our class by the time the first hour was completed.

Our first pit stop went well. Andy got on the bike and the second hour got underway. He was on the bike for about 40 minutes and came in on an unscheduled pit stop. The bike's exhaust had developed a hole in the undertail canister and over-heated the ECU. As a result, the bike would not rev past 10k rpms. So, there was a mass scramble to remove the canister from our B-bike and install it on the A-bike. We changed cans relatively fast, but we lost over 3 laps in the process. I think we dropped back to about 13th place overall. At that moment, we were glad that we had alot of time left in the race. But we knew it was going to be tough to come back.

We had re-fueled Andy, so our plan was to leave him out for the entire load of fuel. And just like all endurance racing plans, they changed as soon as another red flag flew when someone crashed coming onto the front straight, leaving a bike in the middle of the track.

The red flag worked to our advantage, I think, and we used the restart to send Gabe our again to regain some of our lost ground. We kept him out his full session and then I got on the bike.

My first session was fair, although the I struggled to get into comfortable rhythm. I experimented with different lines, learn some new things, and made some mistakes. All in all, I had a good time on the bike, although my lap times lacked the consistency that I train for.
We swapped the bike back and forth for the rest of the day. Andy rode again, then Gabe, then me. Andy rode well, and so did Gabe. With an hour remaining in the race, we worked our way back up to second in class and 5th overall; not where we wanted to be but much better than where we were 5 hours earlier.

My last session was loosely defined this way: get on the bike and ride it back to pits a hour later. Our position seemed dictated and we, most likely, were not going to move up or move back. And honestly, that's not a very fun way to race. It's kinda stressful and i'd much rather race like my life depended on it.

My last session can only be described in this way: Have you ever been to the swimming pool and some big kid is doing cannonballs all around you? You know, you're minding your own business talking to friends - he does a cannonball next to you. You're chit-chatting with girls - he does a cannonball next to you. You're peacefully sitting by the side of the pool- he does another cannonball next to you. After awhile, you really want to tell the guy to .....well. i don't know. That's what I felt like, except the guy doing cannonballs was my LSTD brother/ex-team mate Frank Shacklee. We were in 5th, his team was in 15th, yet he got obvious joy from making himself the biggest pain-in-the-neck that he possibly could the entire session. But it was all in fun, we had a great time, I limped home "tired and hungry". And Frank beat up on me a little bit. I can't wait to repay him.

At the end of the day, after the flag flew, we had finished 5th overall and 2nd in our class. Village Idiots won it. We were exactly 3 laps out of the lead lap.

It was a very tough day.

The LSTD team retained the MSS points lead and we advanced to 4th in the overall standings. Our Bridgestone tires were awesome! They worked great all day. And John Hutchinson's service is the best too.
All in all, it was fun. Afterwards, Patrick Hart dropped by to say hello, as well as some of our other special friends. We're very lucky to have the support of alot of nice people. Here are some of our good friends:

Lone Star Track Days
South Central Race Center
Raceworx
Supersprox
Team Mancuso Powersports
Lockhart Phillips
Bridgestone Tires
South Central Race Center
Motorcycles Unlimited
Regina
EBC
Cycle Skins
Motul
Hyper Pro
TPS Paint & Body
Shogun
Leo Vince
A&S Racing.net

The next race is at Hallett in three weeks. Hope to see ya'll there.

mark niemi

[tomLSTD]

Well, there's one thing that you can bank on when you go to the Hallett, Oklahoma racetrack. And that would be, that when you drive home, no matter where your home may be, you will drive home with some good memories.

The folks that run the track are the most hospitable people in the racing world. The facility is beautiful. And it's a great place to bring your bike, your friends and your families. The Hallett track has the infamous "chicken song" to wake you up, the Finish Line Cafe to get you going and those great cornerworkers to take care of each and every racer. It's really an awesome place!

Saying that, I'm hesitant to tell you my memories because you may think i'm getting too old to race. After all, I will be 54 in a few months. But then, at this age, I really don't care what anyone thinks. So I will tell you. The best thing to happen at Hallett was seeing Gabe's girlfriend Mystie Weeks do the spectator lap on her Z50. You see, Mystie broke her pelvis just a few short months ago at the Oak Hill round. She crashed and was hit by another rider. She spent a few days in the hospital in Tyler, had some really cool carbon fiber fixator devices installed, tightened, unscrewed, removed, spent time in a wheelchair, used a walker, and now is back on her mini. So, it was really great to see her back to her normal self, that is, if normal could ever be a term that one could use to describe her . She's quite extraordinary and we are all very happy to see her better. Welcome back Mystie.

Now, on to the stuff that we love more than girls.......bikes and racing.
Hallett is a tough track whether it's run clockwise or counter-clockwise. It's got changes in elevation, seams, patches, blind hills, heavy braking zones, hot pits with two sides, wind, and a whole bunch of "Hallett Specialists". It's kinda tough. But I love each and every difficult lap. The challenge never goes away. And that's what keeps me going. And i'm going to assume that's what keeps many of you going to the racetracks of America and beyond.

Saturday's CMRA 5-hour endurance race was a tuffy for the LSTD endurance team. The usual suspects were there and brought their race-faces with them. The leaders of the series are beginning to emerge as we approach summer.

We began the weekend with some practice on Friday which seemed to go by very quickly. Andy and I got some good track time but Gabe became very busy with the rider's school and didn't get much track time until the afternoon. And I don't mind saying that when he did go out, he wasn't the clean, precise and smooth Gabe that I've come to know on the track. I don't know why. Maybe he ate too many oreos, maybe he did not get enough sleep, or maybe this or that. Who knows? But he was not himself. As team captain/manager/rider/jerk/coordinator/psychiatrist, this can be worrisome. But not enough to lose sleep over. I still went to bed by 10pm.

The 5-hour started at 2pm on Saturday. And the first hour was wild and crazy. Gabe got off the line with a crummy start. I think he was off in the initial laps in about 10th place. But any doubt that we had in his performance flew out the window. He began clicking off some good laps immediately and settled into a good pace. And just as things go well for some teams, it goes like hell for others. There were a few crashes, a few mechanicals, and a few collisions to make the first hour relatively eventful. We hate that. We like smooth and easy and uneventful.....for everyone. But that was not to be at Hallett. Never is. But anyways, Gabe rode great for almost 40 laps before we put Andy on the bike for the second hour.

Andy's first session was crisis-free, although his times were not his best. The bike seemed to be moving around a little all weekend and we're not quite sure why but andy's first session was a reflection of this. But he did his job well, just like always, and ran till the fuel light came on.

The third hour of the race was mine and the times were not my best either, although I had a ton of fun and rode hard every corner. But I actually went faster on Friday in practice. Isn't that nuts? I got into the .24s on Friday but did not do it on Saturday. Nothing to cry about but we have all come to expect alot from ourselves. We fully expect to be faster each and every time we go to the track. And I believe( and so does Andy and Gabriel) that we owe this to ourselves and our sponsors....results. So, it's tough. And on top of that, Ricky Parker from Tucker-Rocky got around me. He's a great rider and will go far, I'm sure. He is the son of Trampas Parker, former 125 World Champion.

Right after Parker passed me, a guy crashed in the Bus Stop corner and the red flag came out for over 15 minutes; just enough time to allow us to change riders, refuel, and both tires.

For the restart, Gabe took over again and put in a pretty good session, and then, another red flag came out. I think it took them about 15-20 minutes to clean up the mess of a crash and Gabe gave it another try, this time with some adjustments to the bike's settings. The rest of his session seemed to show improvement, as he dropped his times a little and got into the 20s. By then we were up to third overall.

Andy's last session was ripe with pressure. K&N was right on our tails and the infamous Shannon Ball was on the bike( an R1) busting out some 18s and backing the bike in every corner. Not much you can do about Shannon except move over because once he sets his mind to it, he's coming through, one way or the other. It wasn't long till K&N knocked us back. But Andy rode a little better and finished up the race for us, eventually dropping his times into the 22s with the series champs G-Man right behind him the whole way.

We finished the race 2nd in class and 4th overall. We now have a good lead in MSS and have closed the gap on G-Man and the Village Idiots in the overall standings, as we finished ahead of them both at the 5-hour. I think we beat G-Man, the number one team by about 8 seconds!

And although that would make alot of teams happy, we weren't. After all, we won the overall at Hallett last season and we expected better than 4th this year. But it was not to be. And to do anything but smile and move on is counter-productive.

And besides that, when we began the season, Mac told us to have fun. Of course, he had that little evil squinch in his eye that really says "you guys better kick some ass." Wade Pruetz is the same although he doesn't actually say it. He expects us to perform well too.

Jeff Grant, the other owner of LSTD....well, I think as long as his hair is perfect and he has a stack of tires and a new bike(along with the usual beautiful girl to keep him company), he is happy. But we owe them (and all of our sponsors )100% and nothing less.

So we will put one foot in front of the other and keep marching.

While i''m thinking about it, we'd like to give a big Texas welcome to our new sponsor Racepak. Racepak builds a sweet data acquisition system and we will be testing this system on our LSTD bike for the remainder of the season. Tim Anderson is the go-to guy at www.racepak.com if you need any info on this awesome product. And we have to give another shout-out to John Hutchinson and Bridgestone tires. John continually proves he is the best vendor in the paddock and the tires he has provided us with have been exceptional. So, a big thanks again to John and Bridgestone.

Our next race is Oak Hill. And our next endurance race will be in Houston in July 5-6 weekend.

And our next LSTD day will be at Gran Sport Speedway in Houston at the end of May.

We'd love to see everyone out there!

mark

[tomLSTD]

Here's team Captain Mark Neimi's next installment for the CMRA Endurance Series for LSTD Endurance Racing! Enjoy!


well,

it's friday morning after the race weekend. And i have to be honest here; i really don't want to write a race report and send it to tom. what i really want to do mow the lawn, tile my upstairs bathroom, play with my dog zoomy, pick up old cable ties from the yard,...heck, anything but re-live the past weekend's races.

but i said what i said and i need to give tom( i say tom cuz nobody else reads this kinda stuff) an idea on how the LSTD team got through the race weekend. and who knows, writing about it may make things better. i doubt it.
now that i think about it, some pretty cool stuff happened at the msrh race weekend.

and also, some pretty uncool stuff happened. the week prior to the LSTD track days and the CMRA races, we spent some time watching the weather forecasts. so, we knew that there was a pretty good chance for rain on friday or saturday. not alot changes in our preparation for the rain. i guess the most important thing to us is to check in with john hutchinson at south central race center to solicit his opinion on which bridgestone tire we should use. the 003s have been working awesome and he assured us that they would be fine unless the track was completely wet, in which case we'd use the bridgestone rains. either way, he had us covered.

friday morning track days came and we were kinda excited to be at a new facility. it was our first LSTD date at msrhouston and it was our first endurance race there also. everything seemed new to us, from our hot pits to our cold pits to our parking spots to the place we tech to the place we register. but it was not a "bad" new, just something a little different. and i guess the folks that run msrhouston are friendly, i don't know. it's my personal opinion that, compared to that old geezer that used to run texas world speedway, anyone 's gonna be sunshine, kitty-cats, and rainbows.
the first thing we did friday morning at LSTD was have an instructor meeting with mac.

a few weeks ago, mac read a guy's comment on the webbernet that LSTD was just like the other track days organizations.
and some folks may not mind being aligned with their colleagues, contemporaries, competition, or whatever, but not mac. i think it kinda torques his jaws a little bit. he expect us to set ourselves apart from others, to work harder, treat the customers better, rely on each other more, help each other more...you know what i'm talking about...just a little harder push.if he thinks that we are being just like the other track days organizations, he( and wade and jeff) expects us to work harder.
and friday morning he reinforced this to us again. and he also reinforced to us how one customer's opinion matters, and how one customer's opinion can be used for a catalyst for positive change.

so at LSTD, we've re-energized, re-committed, re-grouped, and moved to the next level by using just one customer's feedback. that's the way it should be, i think.

track days went off without a hitch except for the rain. but it didn't rain for long and it ended up being a very good day except for Paul Wilkinson's crash in the morning practice session. i think he broke some bones in his foot when he tossed his r1 in the dirt, right by the jump-thingy after the front straight. anyways, we wish paul some speedy recovering, for sure.

another tweak on the track day was gabe. he was sick all day on friday and did not get to ride at all. i rode with the minis and new rider's school guys and he stayed very, very close to the classroom...and the bathroom. and he was too sick to even get on the bike.

saturday rolled around, the weather looked promising, and everything seemed a little more routine-feeling again. andy and i had done some sessions on friday, and gabe was feeling somewhat better, so he took the bike out for a practice shakedown. and i'm sure he wanted to guage the amount of strength he was likely to have, given his previous day's experiences. i don't think he felt a whole lot better but he got some good time on the bike before the race.
the race started with a light mist falling on the track. it was not enough to get the track wet, but just enough to make everyone nervous. everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief when all of our racers came through T1 without incident. dane westby from the mancuso powersports team threw down 36-38s from the get-go and served notice to everyone that if they were going to win the race, that they were going to have to go through him. but it was dane, cory burleson from moto-ace, ricky parker from tucker-rocky, and gabe from the lstd team. gabe must have felt pretty good because he threw down at least a dozen 40-flats in his first hour.

andy's first session was clean and he seemed to take to the track pretty well, considering he'd only done a limited amount of practice the preceding day. his times came down to the low 40s and we could tell there was more to come.

the next hour was mine and i was very excited. i really liked the track and i was planning on having some fun, for sure. i started a little too conservative but started riding harder and harder. and my times started dropping to mid-40s until i reached the 22 lap mark. and then, for whatever reason, i felt like i was in one of those deep-sea diving suits and someone cut my air off. and suddenly, i felt sick to my stomach.

now, i've been racing longer than some of ya'll have been alive, and i've never, ever been sick while i was racing.
but i was. and i felt like i was going to throw up in my helmet. and i actually tried to so i could feel better. i did two laps like that and i tossed up my hand to come in. i think i over-heated. i know this, it was really humid. i was d-o-n-e.

gabe got the next session and andy followed him. gabe wasn't quite as fast his next session but if you graphed his times, they would look like a straight line, something any good endurance team can appreciate.

now, on the other hand, if you graphed my second session it would looked like the bavarian alps. my second session was slower than my first(something that just really hacks me off) and i never really got my brain working. but for whatever reason, i was sucking. and i don't know about anyone else's team, but on my team, when you suck, they say "hey, you suck, get off the bike". or" hey, you suck at this .....quit it" .

but for some reason i stayed on for the whole hour sucking. and it hurt the team and i think i lost two places, one to moto-ace and one to the village idiots. not good.

the last session of the day was supposed to be gabe's but given his physical state, andy was volunteered to take the last session of the day.
we're excellent at volunteering each other for stuff. we do it all the time.
by the last hour, mancuso had established a good lead, and after that, there were about 4 teams on the same lap. It became apparent that it was going to be a sprint race between those teams. and andy's next session was inspirational.

andy battled for each and every foot of racetrack for the whole session with ama rider flyin' bryan west from team ridesmart. they stayed nose-to-tail for about 35 minutes when bryan made a pass on andy for position. andy came back around him on the last few laps and with two laps to go, was behind chris headley from the village idiots by seven seconds.he ran chris down, passed him on the last lap but the clock ran out before they got to the finish line.

well, they take the last full lap's results, so officials had the village idiots beating us for fourth overall by seven seconds. and there were four teams on the same lap.
but andy rode awesome and the race went down to the wire. and if you see any better wheel-to-wheel racing on tv, please let me know.

so we finished second in our class and fifth overall for the msr houston round. we are currently in 4th overall and are leading middleweight superstock. and we're at the half-way point. is it good? nothing's good yet.

i suppose i should get to the part that's uncool.
gabe was sprinting on sunday, tucked the front and broke his collarbone. that's the part that REALLY uncool.
so he will be out for a month or so, i'm sure.

let's all give gabe some positive vibes, some healing thoughts, some really strong mind-forces to get better quickly.
and stay tuned. hallett will be next.
gabe's out of commisssion, andy will be starting, and it's gonna be hot.
we'll be giving it everything we've got.

mark

[tomLSTD]

Here is Mark's latest installment for this season.

Mark, as always, thanks for your contributions to the site, I personally really enjoy your articles!

Well, the lstd team followed the cmra endurance series to hallett, oklahoma for the second time this season.

about the only thing that was different from the previous round was the direction of travel.

for the second hallett round, the cmra runs the course in the opposite direction.

and i suppose there was one more difference for the second round. we were missing gabe mclendon. gabe broke his collarbone at the last msr houston round.

i'm going to guess that he'll miss two rounds of the endurance series. i'm sure it's going to be a few months longer than that until we see him riding dirtbikes with us on the weekends. damnit!

but luckily for us, our good friend and lstd brother brad kelly volunteered to sit in for gabe. brad kelly is fast as hell.
and not only that, he is very fit, does the lstd days with us, has got a laid back attitiude and is able to get the most out of a bike on any given day. that last part is kinda important in endurance racing because if there's one thing you can bet on, it's that nothing will be perfect when you get on the bike. and if you cannot deal with that, you should probably try another form of self-expression.

some folks said to us, "well, why didn't you get this guy or that guy to sit in for gabe?" there's alot of fast guys that we knew were good endurance racers, guys that we thought would be able to step right in and race.and alot of those guys we could find right there at our own track day events.

some of the names that came to mind were obvious. jody hudson and jeff grant were our favorites. they are our lstd brothers. and there's guys like keith hertell, who is not racing the big bike series in '08.keith knows the game well and he's got tons of on-track experience. and there were others too.....brandon spradling was someone else we thought would do good.
but brad and gabe live close-by and they had been traveling together, so in the end, that fact may have tipped the scales in brad's "favor". and heck, we didn't even know if anyone would say yes.

andy, gabe and i were glad to have the decision behind us. it was a decision that we took seriously and discussed in some length.

so how can i describe hallett, hmmmm?
uuuuhhhhmm, well...
basically, i could describe the weekend in one word..."hot". of course that's better than my two-word description of the last round in houston of "hot,humid".

we got to the track on thursday so we could get in some practice sessions friday. the sessions were sanctioned by the track;no lstd days on that friday. but they run a tight, well-scheduled series of rounds that go all day. and the track staff and cornerworkers do a fantastic job.

on friday, each of us tried to get on the bike in the morning, before the weather turned too hot. we were sure that dehydration was going to be one of our biggest enemies for the weekend. so we tried to think about saving ourselves for the race. of course that's a plan that never works out. i have no idea why we entertain such thoughts. we did sessions right up till the closing bell at 5pm, trying to get the bike to track over those hallett bumps. we got close but never quite got to the sweet spot in the handling.

for race day, the cmra started the big bikes bright and early. the race was scheduled to start at 10am, which meant we had to be set up and ready a little bit earlier than we normally do. it was a little hectic getting everything in order but andy's wife(sandy connors) and my wife(beth) always dive in and get us organized. both of the girls have been around racing for awhile and know just exactly how it's done.

sandy's been thru ten endurance seasons with us. beth's been through that, as well as many seasons of dirt track, motocross, cross-country and more. she's pretty much seen it all.

having them at the track is a big plus for us. they do lap times, pit stops, refuels, set up,tear down, fix us sammiches, buy us gear, bail us out of trouble, you name it. everything we do is easier because they are there. so bright and early, they really got us going on race day.

our plan for the race's rider rotation was: andy starts, then i go, then brad, then andy, and let brad finsh the race. we wanted to break-in brad well ,so we thought it would be good to give him the last session of the day(in the heat). the race was only five-hours long. and we were pretty sure he would be at least one second faster than me, so we wanted to use that to our advantage. mainly, we wanted him to suffer the most. sorry, brad.

i guess the only thing we forgot to do on friday was practice some launches on the bike. as soon as the flag dropped to start the race, we got a grim reminder. andy got smoked off the line, through turn one and up the hill.
and i'm not sure of our position coming out of the bus-stop corner but i think it was about 129th place. not really, i think we were 8th of something.
and within five laps, dane westby from the mancuso powersports team started lapping the field!

andy spent the better part of his session working to overcome a pretty terrible start. he did a bunch of 22s, times that have put us in the top three in the past. but not last weekend. his entire hour was fast and very consistent. the first hour ended with us in about seventh overall.

my session was pretty good too. and by the time it was over, i had done my fastest laps at hallett, getting quite a few laps in the 24s. but it was not enough, and at the end of the second hour we were still in seventh overall.
and brad did the same. he rode well but it was not enough to move us up.
so this is the way the race unfolded for us. we all rode very well and we all dealt with the heat well. but the other teams rode better and faster. simple.
we never got the bike to track across the bumps and we all had some moments that we thought we were going to put the bike on the ground. the whole race was fun...but a bunch of hard work too.

in the end, we were third in class and seventh overall. it was the first time we've finished out of the top-five overall in two years, if you don't count our one mechanical dnf from last year. we were disappointed and i didn't even call mac when i got home. what's to tell? we got seventh. i don't even want to tell ya'll cuz we want you guys to be proud of us and we want to do well for ya'll too.

so, ding-dang it. there ya go. we're hangin in there. we're hurt, hot and tired but we're still having fun.

going into the last three rounds, we are currently leading our class and we're sitting in fourth overall.

moto-ace has a giant lead of about 300 points, probably enough to capture the overall title if they don't screw up.

did we miss gabe?yep.
it seems to be very important to get up front in the first hour of the race.
it can really set the tone for the remainder of the day and it's alot easier to maintain position that it is to move up. so for sure, we missed him. he usually puts us in a good spot by the end of the first hour.

it seems to be very important.
cresson is the next round.
it will be andy, brad, and i again.
we're all strong there.
the rest of the teams are strong there also.
we'll try to be ready for battle.

mark

ps. by the way, our next lstd date is the 11th at texas world. ya'll come out and say hey and have a good time.

[tomLSTD]

The latest installment from Team Captain Mark Niemi!

Thanks Mark for taking the time to impart what "life" is like with the CMRA endurance series!

we just finished the cmra 4-hour big bike endurance at motorsports ranch/cresson, which actually turned into a 3.375-hour.
this race was way, way too eventful for the lone star track days endurance team, especially given the smooth track days we'd done the previous day.
on friday, lstd ran two race tracks.

both the 1.7 and the 1.3 mile tracks were available to the lone star track days customers.
and since the cmra mini races were to be held on the "little" track, there were lots of guys and gals from the texas mini gp in town for some track time.
for everyone at lstd, this meant that there would be some folks that were new to the way we do things, so we tried to take extra measures to see that everything went smoothly on friday.
it was a real balancing act for the lstd staff, but everyone handled their jobs extremely well.
good job, everyone!

on saturday,the 4-hour big bike endurance started at 2pm.
we were quite happy it started then, because we wanted to be racing in the hottest part of the day so we could get our noggins cooked...nothin' like being in full leathers,helmets, and gloves in the august sunshine of texas......ahhhh the breeze.

but we are endurance racing, right?
and we do love it, right?
it's not the heat and it's just the humidity, right?
so the race began at 2.

we decided to start andy again for two reasons: one, cuz he's fast and two doesn't even matter cuz number one pretty much kicks ass.
gabe was to try his session second because he didn't know how his shoulder would hold up , brad kelly was going to ride third, and i was going to ride fourth.

each of us is strong at msr and we all love it, especially on the Bridgestones.
it was supposed to be a nice. clean, tight race. at least that was our plan.
andy had a good start, looked like his clutch release was a little better than last race, and rode fast and consistent just like he always does.

i really need to mention that andy's been the most consistent one on the team this year.
he can be very reserved and quiet in the pits, and i usually afford him that privacy when i write these reports, but i should brag on him more in public.
after all, he's been my team mate for a very long time....i guess for about 8 or 9 years....i don't know.

but he's badass racer and has multiple expert sprint and endurance championships to his credit, as well as a very respectable 2008 daytona finish.
last season he won heavyweight twins expert and he won three sprint championships in one season a few years ago. i think it was in '03.
and in an endurance format, when the time winds down and we need someone to duke it out with the competition handlebar-to-handlebar, he's the one we go to.

i don't think we'll see a change in this strategy any time soon.
so andy rode tight and light, and then, gabe got on the bike.
and tweaked collarbone and all, you guys would have been proud of gabe too. and i actually think his fastest lap was just a tad faster than andy's.
towards the end of gabe's session, he started pointing at the rear wheel.
we translated that to mean that we were to be getting a new tire ready.....after just an hour-and-a-half. what!

it seems that the spring on our rear shock had unwound and the tire was spinning most of the way around the track. dangit.
so gabe came in and we attempted a rear wheel change.
i say attempted cuz somehow we installed a front wheel spacer the right-side of the wheel, and when we tightened up the axle, we broke the rear brake caliper bracket.
i think we learned this in genius school.
by the time the fiasco was over, we'd lost 8 laps.
man, it costs us.

so, we dropped from the top five to about 20th in a blink.
we got the bike back on the track, brad rode his session, and i suited up to go out.
by this time, there 45 minutes left in the race.
i'd been waiting all day and i felt good.
i left the pits excited to be on the track, got thru wagon wheel, got a great drive thru ricochet corner, down the straight, into little bend and pow; out comes the red flag, they stop the race, and do not restart it.

someone crashed, no restart.

yea, that's what i said, did not restart. ppphhhhhtttttttttttt$%%&*)))*&&^^%$ doodoo three corners and i'm done.....what! we're in freekin' 14th!
yea, i said that too. 14th for the day!

oh well, at least we got the boneheads-of-the-day award and i got to put my leathers on.

so, there we go. we felt embarrased and we knew we screwed up bad.
so,two races left.
we lost 100 points on tucker-rocky in our class. we have the points lead but they are getting closer. we can't even hiccup.

i think we dropped in the overall a few spots too.

eagle's canyon is next. i heard it's a bumpasphere and i'm sure it's going to keep jimmy at raceworx awful busy.

we'll try to be better ready. maybe we can ride some cross-country to practice.

thanks everyone.
mark


ps. Motorcycles Unlimited has stepped up their support of track day riders, street riders, and racers.
Their customer service is excellent, all the guys and gals that work there are very informed, and they are right here in our beloved state of texas.
please support those that support all of us.

[tomLSTD]

Thanks Mark, another literary masterpiece, I sure enjoy reading these!

son-of-a gun again.
here it is exactly 24 hours before we all need to be on the road to the final cmra big bike endurance race for 2008.
and i have not even told ya'll what happened at ecr.
in one way, it doesn't seem right to be writing down notes from ecr.
but in another it does cuz we're supposed to be communicating how we feel between events.
ecr could summed up by me in one word, and i can't even think of it at the moment......maybe it would be "next!"
so i asked our established team member and track ass-ripper andy galindo to sum up our performance for you in a more informative way.

So here's our conversation; and try to visualize it being like professional interview.
mark: yo, andy.....tell the nice people at motohouston about our race and how we did.
andy: shut up, i'm still mad at you for breaking my brake pads and bending my screwdriver. you're a lunatic.
mark: yea, well i remember in '98 you used to show up after we already set up everything....more than the one time that i think i remember.
andy: sandy, have you seen my neck brace, oh wait i don't have one.
sandy: you're fixing to need a back brace if you interrupt me one more time. can't you see i'm cleaning my sunglasses, you moron?
andy: yes, maam.


oh wait, that was another conversation.
try this.
mark: yo, andy, what happened with ya'll at ecr?
andy: although our race wasn't a head-turnin', show-stopping, history making performance, we maintained, were fairly consistent, and finshed ahead of our competition, which may have helped us practically wrap up our class championship.
mark: cool, what about the track?
andy: the track was bumpy as #$%@ in spots, has no places where running off would be short of a mess and awful painful if not costly in terms of bike repairs, is too fast then slow, but overall is fun(especially the middle sections in the "bowl") and with some attention and fixing minor issues, could easily become one of the top tracks on our schedule. but it needs work.
mark: how about the tires, ma man?
andy: we took a chance changin tires cuz we thought we needed it, and we had a sufficient lead so as to afford the downtime, but still thanks to the awesome bridgstone tires, the hard would have made the distance.
and we also tried the new kit pads from ebc. they are really great too! we couldn't ask for better.
mark: what else?
andy: shut up, i'm not talking to you anymore.
mark: why not?
andy: i gotta run over here and guard the team bike. i heard gabe had some tools in his hand...

so there.
we won our class, got fourth overall.
we have some exceptional teams this year, namely mancuso and moto-ace, tucker-rocky, the village idiots, and more.
they're all very fast.
and although the grids have been small this year, the competition has been huge.


we're on to tws tomorrow to finish our season.
we have a 200 point lead in our class.
we are in 4th in the overall standings.
we'd like 3rd. it's possible and we want it.
it's going to be fun.
see ya at the track.

ps. i gotta give a special shout-out to my little jack russell zoomy, who has not been feeling her best this week.
she's been sick to her stomach.
so get well, zoomy.

[tomLSTD]

We have the final '08 installment from Team Captain Mark Niemi! I'd personally like to thank Mark, Gabe, Andy, and the whole LSTD Racing crew for putting such a fantastic season together!

aaaahhhhhh.
ok, i'm rested now. what is it? 2009?
i feel better though.
i'm really sorry it's taken me so long to finish this last set of notes.
but after the season ended, all i wanted to do was rest and rest some more.
i was pretty much spent after nine months of intense racing ,track days, mountain biking and dirt biking.
but i suppose if you give 100%, that's how you should feel......spent.
so i took some time away from training, socializing, eating, writing, drawing, building and just about everything else.
but now i suppose i'm back for more. hell yea, bring it on!

results for the lone star track days....for 2009 we won the middleweight superstock class and got fourth overall.
we enjoyed our class win and it was an important win for us but we really, really wanted to win the overall.
i'll say it again.
so in one way we're happy and proud and in another way, we're not. ok, i guess we are.
we had fun for sure. and that's all that truly matters........'cept winning, of course.
2009 was our third consecutive middleweight title on three different brands of tires.
we're very proud of that accomplishment. and i think the key has been the experience that we've all received from track days.
in addtion, we retained jimmy cambora at raceworx for each of our seasons.
he's been able to make everything work quite well with the kawasakis and having him there gives us alot of confidence in our bike.

there are alot of exciting things happening for the 09 season.
and if ya'll want me to, i'll try to keep you posted.
but i can tell you about those later if you want.
for now, i just wanted to let ya'll know about the folks that did so much for us this past season.
i can't actually call them our sponsors because they are so much more.
they are our friends, or families, our race families, our track days brothers.

like Tom Anderson at tsp paint & body.
he is our brother and confidante and mentor and ....oh yea..he also paints our bikes in sweet colors.
tom has been a big part of our team and his attitude is something any team could use.
he's also a big part of the lstd organization.

like the folks at motorcycles unlimited.. their solid support, each and every tough race, gave us a firm, steady foundation on which we've built our team around.
we were lucky enough to be able to use the new ebc brake pads and they worked awesome!
they had a great feel to them and they held up to the abuse of endurance racing extremely well.
motorcycles unlimited also introduced the team to motul oil for the 2008 season.
we did the entire season on one clutch set and the bike never missed a shift in thousands of endurance racing miles.
motorcycles unlimited has also become a valuable part of the LSTD family and the motorcycle community in texas should be very proud of them.
i know we are very thankful for patrick's support and confidence.
and special thanks to brandon spradling.
at any time, we were able to call him for technical support, questions about racing, question about riding, or anything else and he was there for us.
in a pinch, brandon spradling is golden.

tim anderson at racepak joined our team this season and we'll be using the racepak data aquisition system for the 09 season too.
we used the racepak system in 2008 and it became quickly apparent that we would never be without this system again
the g2x was easy to install and easy to use. each of us learned quite alot about our riding styles and areas in which we need to work.
but give their system a try if you plan on spending any time at all on a racetrack.

john hutchinson? well, we go on and on about his service and products.
he supplied the lone star track days race team with bridgestone tires for the 2008 season.
his customer service is stellar, he loves winning, and he's part of the LSTD family too.
we really don't want to race without john on our team. he's become very important to us.

jimmy cambora is another gentleman that has been a big part of our program.
we've brought him a different kawasaki for three seasons in a row.
each of those bikes had a different brand of tires....dunlops, pirellis, and finally bridgestones.
and he tuned the suspension on each of them.
his business is raceworx and he's one of the best suspension tuners in the country.
and don't leave home without him.

for 2008, supersprox also joined our team.
and we are happy!
get this.....one 43-tooth sprocket.
one sprocket for each and every track day, each and every practice session, and every race.
that, to me, is unbelievable!
one sprocket all season!
i challenge any sprocket manufacturer anywhere to beat that.
we have come to have a ton of confidence in supersprox.
i can see why they have some paris-dakar wins to their credit.

leo vince exhausts have been part of the lone star track days race team for a number of seasons.
their exhaust systems are top-notch, and as a fabricator, i'm very impressed with the quality of their products.
leo vince is an awesome company and we feel very fortunate to be associated with them.
i think they will be part of our team for 09.

there are many, many good things to say about all of the folks that are part of our team.
and i could go on and on.
but it would take me another month or two, cuz i think my ADD is kickin in and i gotta go ride my dirt bike with some of my lstd brothers.
there is one more thing, and that's the most important thing to us as a team.
we have to thank steve mcnamara and the entire lstd crew, including wade pruetz and jeff grant.
and it really doesn't seem like this is the place to truly give thanks for what they has done for us.
but in an effort to keep things simple, i will tell ya'll that they have done everything for us.
they have given us the chance to grow as racers, grow as a race team, grow as a part of track days, grow as human beings.....you know......it's really immeasurable.
but it's been an honor to be associated with the lstd organization and we intend to be loyal soldiers for them as long as they will keep us.
but hey, i gotta git.
i've got a ktm out in the garage that needs riding.
i'll be training.................

before i go, i gotta list the folks that we love so much, the folks that inspire us to race our butts off, train our butts off, to be better people.
i hope to see ya'll in 09.
and than you so much to:

Lone Star Track Days
Team Mancuso Powersports
Shogun Motorsports
Bridgestone Tires
South Central Race Center
Motorcycles Unlimited
Motul
EBC Brakes
Leo Vince
Raceworx
Supersprox
TSP Paint & Body
Lockhart Phillips
Hyperpro
Regina
ATSRacing.net
Racepak Data Systems
Pipercross Air Filters
Jones Powersports
The entire CMRA staff
The McNamara Family
Sandy Connors and Beth Niemi
Mystie Weeks
and everyone else.........................................

mark niemi