Steady T: June 2008

Strawberry Shortbus and my ever-rad self fired up the Deathstar and set sail for Wisconsin's Mecca of beer, bratwurst, egg sandwiches, $4/gallon gas, and radar traps...Road America. First stop; Meet up with Pops and Colleen @ The Hilltop in Cross Plains for the traditional Friday night fish fry. The roads leading to this this place are top-notch. Anyway...enough about that. That night we crashed at a quite nice hotel in M'town. Saturday morning, Billingston the valet pulled the carriage to the front of the cottage in preparation for our departure. I afforded him 3 pounds for his effort. Alright...after 90 hungover miles (I forgot to mention that after Red crashed the night before, I went across the road to a pretty cool patio bar and stared at the girls who are only interested in other girls...no harm, no foul) we arrived at the track. We entered, docked the Deathstar, scooped up our golf cart, loaded it with rations, and set off with our camera like Saki-fueled Japanese tourists. Since things were still in the practice/qualifying stages, it was a good chance to check out different vantage points around the track. The end of the front straight, the bridge over the back straight, Billy Mitchell bend, and turn 3 were aces! Since we had the golf cart, we were carte blance in putting around the paddock. Most of the pictures were taken during this time. Finally, after the hour-long government-sanctioned bratwurst break, it was time to go racing! First up; Superbikes. We hung out a the end of the front straight for the first few laps. Witnessing 20+ pissed off 1000cc racebikes at full-stick (190+mph) pretty much makes you feel insignificant. Spies and Mladin basically had a 16 lap fist fight with Spies taking the flag by over 3 seconds (a lifetime). Next up; Formula Extreme (super-modified 600cc bikes). Attack Kawasaki's Steve Rapp took the win only to have it revoked due to disqualification for an 'illegal' tire. Lame. Finally, it was the thundering, pounding, booming, thumping, oil-leaking, pulsating sounds of the MotoST endurance race. By this time, we had parked the golfmobile at turn 6, poured some drinks, and just watched a shit-ton of Milwaukee muscle derived iron trundle by. Some guy won, the rest didn't, and we vacated the track for our room in Sheboygan. We drove through a ridiculous rainstorm, passed an arc, checked in, and crashed. Day 1...game over. Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! Red's Swiss-timed snore clock had me up at 6:45 in the aye em, so I Caught the MotoGP race live from Spain on my laptop...snoozefest. Pedrosa by a country kilometer, and I should have (but couldn't) stayed in bed. Anyway...Sunday morning back at the track. Snatched the golf cart and ate a breakfast brat (a bratwurst pattie and an egg nestled in a burger bun)...Hitler's answer to the Sausage McMuffin? Either way, A breakfast Blitzkrieg, to boot. Oh yeah..this whole time, it's pissing down rain. We saw Michael Jordan's Alfa Romeo (see pic...MJ6) parked by the main tower. He owns one of Suzuki satellite teams. Superbike warm up was happening and all of the rider's body language asked the question 'what the fuck am doing here?' So yeah...too much rain, so it was early lunch break to let the weather pass. Red and I had an hour to kill to we docked the golfcart under a concession stand awning, dipped into our well-stocked cooler, and passed the time by translating the menus and ordering in Engrish. 'I would rike an order of flied mushlooms wif lanch jessing and a Colona wif rime to dlink. Do you sell cigalettes? Do you serra righters? Mine-a arret flom the lain'. We then went over to the vendors area and picked up a pair of killer Kawasaki camping chairs (see pic) Finarry, the lain stopped, and the races were underway. First on the menu was Superstock. Yates was the man until local boy Blake Young did his Physics homework and used the draft to beat Yates to the line by 3/100th of a cheese curd. Neat. Supersport was next, and the usual suspects were playing it cool (track was still damp) and settling with whatever points they could salvage...Aaron (Anthony's non-felonious little brother) Gobert bagged the win. Finally, it was time for the main course...the final Superbike race of the weekend. As usual, Spies and Mladin were gapping the field before the first turn. But, Jamie Hackasaki managed to keep the pair in sight for quite awhile. I thought Jamie might have something for the Suzuki duo, as he kept the same pace, but the lead two upshifted from 6th gear to 'hyperspace' at about 2/3 race distance. Although they are 'teammmates', Spies and Mladin push each other so hard and lap so much faster than everyone else from the get-go, that whoever finishes 3rd (Hacking) is pretty much the best of the rest. Anyway, after more lead changes in one race than NASCAR or Bormula One will ever see in an entire season, Mladin took the flag in race two over Spies. After that, we caught most of the RedBull Rookies cup race...Fearless 12-16 year olds on identically prepared KTM 125 2-stroke bikes. I don't remember who won, but it was the tightest racing of the weekend. So that was it...we turned over the keys to the golfthing, loaded up the Deathstar, drove through and hour-long sheet of rain and landed at the Concourse Hotel in Madison for the night. After a shower, some din-din with D-n-C and a sub-par jazz band (oh wait, that was Friday)...lights out. Now we're back in Des Moines and none of our fish went belly-up. Success! T..out.