Last weekend saw a lot of upsets during the motorcycle races at BRC. Things started off on the wrong foot when someone at the NAMSSA office (that´s the motorcycle race sanctioning group that started out running motocross and now does the bike racing as well) called up a lot of the racers and told them that Saturday practice was canceled. This turned out to be false but thankfully they failed to call everyone which included yours truly so some people did get to practice. Practice is more than just a little bit important - it´s everything.
Sunday morning everyone who showed up was furious and rushed out onto the track for qualifying. Qualifying means that everyone tries to do their best laps because the fastest person gets the best place on the starting grid, or pole position, second fastest person gets the second best place, etc. But poor Johnson Caballeros went wide on the back sweeping turn. He got control over his bike on the dirt but when he tried to get back on the track the bike flipped viciously and was just short of destroyed. Johnson hurt his leg but it could have been a lot worse. Upset number two
The first heat was stopped in the fourth lap when Rey Relativo´s new GSXR´s rear tire stepped out from underneath him in turn three, which by the way has proven to be the most popular place to crash at BRC, and he was knocked out cold. The race by the way is aired on channel 13 on Tuesday nights featuring engaging commentary by my humble self and Chito Mutoc. One of the new cameramen from AV Comm. caught the crash in a nice closeup and it´s enough to make you realize that bike racing is very, very different from car racing. Upset number three. Rey did very well last month on an older bike.
On the restart defending champion Jolet Jao, now sponsored by REMCOR and Castrol stalled his bike at the start and suddenly it was the JD Andrews show. JD is a favorite of Norkis Yamaha and apparently they are sending him to compete in the Indonesian Leg of The Marlboro Asia Pacific motorcycle championship. Norkis is a major sponsor of BRC, but Castrol is not and they apparently had to pay the track P10,000 for the right to sponsor Jolet.
JD got a nice lead right away, but Raffy Bichara, who placed third last month started catching up slowly and steadily. JD probably wasn´t even aware that he was so close when Raffy suddenly passed him on the brakes at the end of the long front straight. Outbraking means that you hit your brakes later than the other guy, which menas you have to fight to keep your machine under control much harder and then try not to evershoot the corner. Motocrosser that he is, JD stayed right beside him through the corner, but had to run wide and suddenly JD had the shock of a new partner to battle with. Jolet behind them both was running a lonely third, but there was a nice battle for fourth place between former champion Toti Alberto on a new GSXR in his first race on a four stroke bike and Rod Chua on a similarly stock Honda CBR600F3, the best selling sportbike in the world. Both battles for first and fourth were spectacular, trading positions over and over. (Martin Tancinco ran a lonely fifth in both heats on the same bike he rides to work every day, proof that if you ride a sportbike you owe it to yourself to take it to Batangas at least for practice, which by the way is always the Saturday before race day.) The race for first, though had both riders breaking the lap records for a four stroke bike on every other lap. JD turned in the fastest lap at 1:29.241, but Raffy took the win, sweet revenge after having been one of the riders who didn't get to practice. WIth Jolet runing a new bike that had not been dialed in for the track, JD had been confident of an easy win. Upset number four.
The second race was totally different. JD got a massive lead right away, and never looked back. If he had, he would have seen Jolet come to a halt close at his heels with what soon turned out to be a closed fuel petcock. Jao caught up with Raffy who then refused to let Jolet build up a lead, and suddenly in second to last lap, JD ran out of gas! This actually was foreshadowed in the first race, when JD´s mechanics put a little bit of gas in his bike at the restart, a sure tip-off that he had determined exactly how much gas he needed to finish the race and not much more.
I used to do the same thing myself, with a wooden stick I kept in my toolbox with a mark that showed exactly how much gas would be in my tank when it was empty. You see, when a bike is on a race track, it runs dry before it´s actually empty, because when you´re taking a hard turn, the bike is leaned enough to put the fuel petcock inlet into the air in the tank. You figure out your gas mileage at race pace, and then figure out how much gas you need for the number of laps on the race. I know a lot about this because in one race I ran out of gas myself on the second to last lap, and let me tell you, JD will never make that mistake again.
Jolet flat out beat Raffy on the second half of the last lap by riding like a maniac in the bumpy back sections of the track and maintained that lead, barely, to the finish line. Jolet was riding a 250 two stroke which is a totally different animal from the 900cc four stroke Raffy was on. The 2 stroke bike is significantly lighter and much more maneuverable in the tight twisty stuff, but on the straights, it simply can´t compete with the massive power. Upset number five.
1st heat
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2nd heat
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Overall
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