Inspection

To say that we had no idea what we were doing when we got here is a gross understatement. There has been a STEEP learning curve. This whole event is run by an organization called the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA) and they have been coming out to the salt for 62 years to run vehicles as fast as they will go. Many things have changed over the years, and the most significant is the amount of safety equipment you must have. They publish a rule book every year and have very specific guidelines for what you need. Since the majority of the vehicles here are cars, the book is geared toward them. The rules on motorcycles are not as detailed. We skipped some stuff, glossed over other things, and just plain missed some rules.
In order to register your vehicle you have to attend a drivers meeting, and if you are a rookie, you have to go through rookie orientation. We ran around Saturday morning, trying to get everything ready, standing in the wrong lines, getting directed left and right. The only thing we knew that we had to do was attend the drivers meeting at 9am, and the Rookie orientation just after. Again, we didn’t prepare. It was hot, and we had no water, no food, and stood out in the sun for over 2 hours. We drove the back “roads” to the course and watched people take off from the line. We had to go through each phase before they would give Derrick is Large “R” sticker on his helmet. This sticker let the starters know that it was his first run, and that he was under strict observation his first time down the track.

After you get this sticker you have to get your bike, (or car) suit, helmet, and support vehicle through tech inspection. New bikes, like ours, need two inspectors to sign off on them. If you pass inspection, you can register your bike and get arm bands for your crew. And being a rookie driver Derrick needs to complete a rookie run, but he can’t do that till he passes inspection. Our first trip to the inspectors was on Saturday, around 12:00.

The first thing that was wrong was that we didn’t have a CB radio in our “support vehicle”. Before we left Derrick read that each “Push car” must have a CB. Well my dad replied, “We don’t have a push car, we have motorcycle, you can’t push a motorcycle. We don’t need a CB”. A push car is a vehicle that pushes the racecar down the first part of the track to get it going. Cars built for speed have such low gear ratios that they cannot slip the clutch and keep it running at a slow speed, so the car or truck actually gets behind them and pushes them till they get to a speed where they can engage the clutch and take off on their own power. Now, I admit the wording of the book should be changed, but next time we’ll remember to take it just in case. This little mess up cost us over a hundred dollars, when we were forced to buy a new one from the Pilot Truck stop. With a little ingenuity, Lou and Andy fit it to the hummer and checked that off the list.

The bike did well, we only had one problem, the battery needed to be secured to the frame. Besides that it was good to go. A word about the tech inspectors…First, everyone at this event is a volunteer. And there must be several hundred people making this thing work. These inspectors must check over minutia for every class of vehicle out there (and there are dozens) and must make sure that everyone is safe. In most racing circles, the nature of this job makes them a jerks. They are the enforcers. They read you the rules, and you have to follow. The experience here has been just the opposite. All of the inspectors are supportive and encouraging. They do not scold you, or dismiss you. They work with you so you can get on the salt. When our inspector saw the battery issue, he ran to his trailer and got us some plumber’s tape and a bolt to fix it right there. For those of you who don’t know what plumper’s tape is, look it up. It’s great stuff. (Thanks to my boss at LACMA, Elvin Whitesides, who taught me all about how to safety up equipment with this handy tool.) We had to pull the bike back to the pits and secure the battery, which took almost an hour, then bring it back in line at tech to get it approved. It passed.

Second, most of the inspectors are racers. One of our inspectors, Randall Parker, had just set a 205 mph record on his motorcycle, and had come back to the tech area to inspect bikes. He gave us all kinds of pointers, on tire pressure, brakes, and what to take off the bike and still stay in our class. Based on our horsepower numbers, he thought we would be very close to the record. We were just worried about finally getting this thing on the track.

Derrick’s suit was another issue. His helmet was approved, and his jacket, but his pants weren’t. For motorcycle riders you have to have all leather suit-every inch of it. The area behind his knees and hips were made of a mesh for breathing. The inspector only noticed the back of the legs, though, and told us we had to cover them.

The closest town to the salt flats is Wendover, NV. I use the word “town” loosely. There is a small grocery store, a small hardware store, some pawnshops, and casinos (it’s a border town) and that’s about it. Where is a Wal-Mart when you need one? (Yes, I am driving a hummer and longing for a Wal-Mart. Who am I?) Andy and Jessie found some heavy-duty needles, spray adhesive and leather gloves at the grocery store. I started cutting them up and realized they weren’t going to be nearly enough leather to cover the back of his legs. We searched everywhere for more leather, anything we could find. Derrick reaches down and grabs his Dell laptop bag. “Chop it up,” Derrick said. “Really” I said? Derrick handed it to my dad and had him start skinning it. We had just enough, taking the bottom panel on one side and the front flap on the other.

Saturday night the rest of our crew came in. Gordon Rudolph, and his dad Rudy flew in from Virginia and Florida respectively. Gordon is going to be running his bike at the East Coast Timing Association race in September and he has lots of experience with Hemis. He has had one of our kits for nearly 10 years, and has put in countless hours of research. He has placed in the Dyno shootout in Daytona for the last 5 years, and has an engineer’s brain like the rest of us techies. The Rudolphs were a welcome addition to our team. (They also picked up a new generator in Salt Lake City because the brand new one that we bought when the other one got stolen stopped working after about 2 hours.)

Sunday morning Lou and I started gluing the pieces to his suit. Derrick’s brand new, beautiful suit was now covered in spray adhesive. We got the strips of leather on it, but it was far from permanent. I tried sewing them but I couldn’t get the needles through the thick leather. During inspection, the day before, they hadn’t noticed the areas by his waist, so we were hoping that by showing them just the back they again wouldn’t notice the front. We brought the H3 with the cb and the suit to the inspectors. He looked at the pants, and was about to sign off, but then he grabbed them to look closer and turned them to the front and noticed the other section. “Not all leather” he said. We all sighed. He signed off on the support vehicle, so now it was just the rest of the suit. We went back to the pits and told the crew the bad news.

It was now Sunday afternoon. We grabbed the dell bag and started chopping again. We had just enough to cover it. We glued again, stuck Derrick in the car and ran back to the inspectors before the pieces fell off. The inspector looked at them and said, “Okay, I’ll put down that it’s a temporary fix, just make sure you get it sewed when you get back. “ He was about to send us to get our sticker when he noticed that we needed TWO people to sign off. I told him that Randall was our other inspector so he tried to find him. He was off racing. They were about to make us bring the bike over again and start from scratch when one of the other inspectors said, “You know what? Randall checked this thing, I’ll just sign as his proxy. Go get your sticker.” Hooray! We finally passed inspection!

We got our packet and our sticker and we were finally ready to make a run. The next issue was that we had no idea how far away the tracks were from the pit. There are three tracks here, a long track for vehicles that go over 175 mph, a short course for anyone under that, and a combo track for either. The long track is 8 miles of timed space and 3 miles of slow down space. The short is 3 miles timed, with 3 miles of slow down room. What we didn’t know was that you are not allowed to drive your race vehicle to the start line, it must be pulled or pushed. Well hooking the trailer up to the motor home each time wasn’t really an option. Luckily the Hummer had a huge tow ring on the back of it. An actual hitch would haven been nice, but we made due. We hooked a tow rope to it and around Derrick’s front fork. We started pulling him at around 25 mph. This is not an ideal way to get the bike from point A to B, but it was all we had. It’s dangerous and difficult, and requires a lot of communication between Derrick, who is on the bike and the driver of the Hummer, which was my dad. We start pulling Derrick to the short track at 5:15 pm Sunday evening. It took us nearly two days to get to this point.

The short track is 4 miles from the pit. When you get to the start line, you get in one of two staging lines. There are two starters that communicate with the tower, and they are the only people who can send you down the track. They alternate sending one from each line. When you are three from the front you must be suited up with your helmet, and ready to run. We were about 25 people back from the front of the line. Again, we had no idea what to expect. Derrick wanted to put his leathers on back at the pits and I said, “Why don’t we wait? “

Well, we waited, that’s for sure. The tracks close at 7pm sharp. Based on how the line was moving, it was looking like it was going to be close. At 10 minutes to 7 we were 2nd in line. They ran one from the other line and then called it a day. They had run 170 vehicles in 12 hours. We were so close! Your options are to return to the pits and get back in line the next day, or leave bike or car in line for the next morning. The people in front of us packed it up and left us in first position.
When you break a record here, your vehicle is immediately brought to “impound”. Your crew has 4 hours to work on the car or bike, to get it ready to run again. It then sits till 7am the next morning where you have to re-run on the same track, and repeat the time. They take the average of the two and if you are over the record, it is added to the books. Since they run first everyday, we would be up right after that.

Next up…our first run on the salt.