Old guys still go fast!
As I’m sitting here on a five-hour flight out to Ontario, Calif., I keep thinking about more milestones that seem to be popping up lately. Last week I shared some of the epic milestones occurring around the Town of Speedway and a few of the historic events that are launching a three-year Centennial Era celebration out on West 16th Street at the Brickyard.
I also spilled the beans about my good friend Reuben, who experienced his own milestone last week with the celebration of his 40th birthday. As much as he didn’t want it to happen, there was no stopping the inevitable march of time. He did put on a great surprise show, though!
Another longtime friend and former road racing teammate of mine, Jim Knipp, reached a milestone this past week with the celebration of his 50th birthday. Yikes, everybody I know is going over the hill these days.
Jim and I spent almost 10 years together as teammates on a locally sponsored motorcycle road racing team know as The Superbike Factory. Together, we campaigned in the Western Eastern Roadracers Association (WERA) series and the American Motorcyclist Association Pro Superbike series from the late 1970s through the late 1980s.
Our first venture into the AMA Pro Superbike Series was Daytona Bike Week in March 1981. With the help of Marc Wertzberger and his motorcycle dealership, Greenwood Honda, Jim and I put together a pair of Honda CB750F motorcycles and launched our campaign at the Daytona International Speedway. What an eye-opening experience that was. It was an unbelievable feeling to be going as fast as you think a bike could possibly go on the high-banks when Freddie Spencer and the freight train of leaders came whipping around you like you were dragging an anchor only nine laps into the race.
This past weekend marked the launch of a historic new era in AMA Pro Road Racing, continuing a motorcycle racing tradition that dates back to the inaugural running of the Daytona 200 on Jan. 24, 1937. Under the new ownership of Daytona Motorsports, a new age of AMA Pro Road Racing kicked off last week, culminating Friday night with the first-ever running of the Daytona 200 by Honda under the lights.
After 72 years featuring the innovations of Superbike and Grand Prix machines, the Daytona 200 has now been relegated to a middleweight production event. Wow!
Another good friend of mine also celebrated his 40th birthday milestone a little more than a year ago. Gene Burcham is a former motorcycle racer from the mid 1980s, and he also experienced his first and only Daytona 200 in 1988 when the format was full-blown 750cc modified Superbikes.
Like all of us in this era of milestones, Gene is experiencing his first major mid-life crisis. This past fall, he took the big fall and purchased a small fleet of new Ducati sport bikes, including two of the new 848 middle weight performance machines. That was just the beginning!
Months later and with new Ducati 848s, new truck, new trailer, new gear, new pit equipment, new this, new that and at age 41, Gene entered, qualified and successfully completed the 68th running of the Daytona 200 by Honda under the lights this past Friday, March 6 at Daytona International Speedway.
Now this isn’t just any old race to come back to after 20 years away from the sport. The Daytona 200 by Honda is also AMA Pro Road Racing’s new series format featuring middleweight production sport bikes with the likes of Ben Bostrom, Josh Herrin, Jason DiSalvo, Jamie Hacking, Miguel Duhamel and a whole host of ultra-fast factory backed riders competing.
Factory teams included entries from Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Yamaha, Aprilia and Buell. The only factories not represented were Ducati and Triumph. Enter local old fast guy, Gene Burcham! Of the 84 pre-entries for the Daytona 200 by Honda, only a pair of Ducati 848s were entered, and only Gene managed to qualify for the main event to be held Friday night under the lights.
I won’t even get into the severe disadvantage the new format rules imposed on the Ducati 848 verses the 600cc, four-cylinder machines and the other vee twin’s 1000cc and 1125cc allowance, but did Gene manage to put the only Ducati 848 twin in the 75th position of a 75-bike field.
After enduring 52 laps under the lights of Daytona International Speedway, the grueling congestion of a 75-bike field, the absurdness of a “safety car” on a course with motorcycles, Gene managed to pull off a finish in 51st position.
Congratulations, Gene, for putting the only Ducati into the history books of the first Daytona 200 of a historic new era in AMA Pro Road Racing.
Not bad for a fellow “old fast guy”. Speed isn’t just for the young pups.
Now I hope Michael Lock out in Cupertino, Calif., hears about your feat and gets you some more ponies and a bit more top speed for your Ducati 848. Or maybe he could find out how the boys in Milwaukee wriggled out an allowance from Roger E for 1125cc so you could run your Ducati 1098 instead.
Oh, well, I think that’s about all the pot stirring I can come up with this week, and the battery in my laptop is about to go belly-up. So I’ll see you all next week at www.redbullindianapolisgp.com
Greg
A vacation from the office
This week is the start of a month away from the daily grind of the office. A part of my daily grind involves a lot of airline seat time traveling for the company, so the idea of spending any of my time off in airports just doesn’t appeal to me.
I’ve taken the month of July off for the past 10 years or so. It started off combining a two-week summer company shutdown with a weeklong excursion to Guelph, Ontario, for an adult ice hockey camp followed by a week recovering from the camp. Have you ever gone to a hockey fight and actually seen a game break out! Well, the days of the hockey fantasy camp are behind me. The idea of a month at home piddling with this and that is extremely satisfying these days.
This year’s vacation got off to a very different start than years past. The week of June 30 just happened to also be the first official tire tests for the MotoGP teams to get their first experience on the new Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) road course. Since I don’t have a family ranch in Wyoming to hang out at, what better place to start my month off than out at the Brickyard helping with some track preparations for the Red Bull Indianapolis GP?
Towards the end of the day Monday, I ran into a longtime friend from the motorcycle racing days walking through the pit area. I helped introduce Larry Lawrence to the world of motorcycle road racing way to many years ago at the old Indianapolis Raceway Park road course in Clermont, Ind. While I eventually moved on to the corporate world and away from racing, Larry became fully involved with the sport in the media world. Larry has done a marvelous job of chronicling the history of this sport over the past 20 years and is always enthusiastic about sharing his vast experiences. I think getting Larry and Dave Hillberry at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame Museum together would be an incredible experience.
Larry has taken on a new career opportunity this year as Ben Spies’ publicist. Ben burst onto the U.S. national road-racing scene, turning pro in 2000. He won his first American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) Superbike championship in 2006 defending that championship by a single point for a second crown in 2007. Currently leading the 2008 AMA Superbike championship, Ben was afforded the opportunity to fill in for an injured Loris Capirossi at the British GP June 22 for the Rizla Suzuki team, finishing 14th and gaining his first-ever MotoGP points. Ben is here in Indianapolis this week for the MotoGP tests and will be riding for the Rizla Suzuki team at Laguna Seca, Calif., and the Red Bull Indianapolis GP in September.
Larry took me over to the Rizla Suzuki suite and introduced me to both Ben and his mother, Mary Spies. What a wonderful lady! We sat and talked about this and that. Well, folks, all I can say is Mary has a wonderful, white1958 Corvette she’s very proud of that far out-styles Ben’s green 1967 Corvette that sits and gathers dust. However, her pride in her son Ben shines the brightest!
Well, there’s going to be a full week of MotoGP test action at the Brickyard, and if you’re anywhere near West 16th Street this week, you’ll be able to see the action from the south end of the road course by the Hall of Fame Museum parking lot.
Check out the details at www.redbullindianapolisgp.com and see you all next week.
Greg
Introduction
Hello all, and welcome to my first installment for the redbullindianapolisgp.com blog. Actually this is my first-ever blog, so this should be a lot of fun in the months to come, sharing my activities leading up to the inaugural Red Bull Indianapolis GP.
My name is Greg Sickmeier, and I am a lifelong resident of the Indianapolis area. In fact, I spent my first six weeks in this world across Georgetown Road from the front straight of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway a long, long time ago. Maybe this explains my love of racing and my need for speed!
A bit about me: I am a graduate engineer from General Motors Institute in Flint, Mich., now known as Kettering University. I’ve worked for Allison Transmission, another Speedway company, for 33 years in the service, sales, marketing and training organizations. James Allison, our company’s founder, is also one of the founders of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1908. I just can’t seem to get to far from my roots on Georgetown Road!
During the early 1980s, I raced a Honda CB750F in AMA Pro Superbike and ran a lot of WERA and CCS events during a 12-year time period. At a few of the later events I attended, the Hayden’s were showing up, with Tommy, Nicky and Roger Lee in tow. They were on 125’s, and the youngest ones couldn’t even reach the ground. Someone had to hold the bikes up to get them started and catch them in the pits when they came back in. Earl’s Race Team was a very shoestring operation, with Earl’s old Ford box van packed to the ceiling. Wow, who would have known that all three of the boys would have turned into such great riders and sportsmen!
Another midlife crisis
I drifted away from motorcycles for a few years and have played a lot of ice hockey over the past 14 years or so. A couple years ago, I bought another street bike, and now this impulse purchase has turned into another serious midlife crisis! Four Honda’s, three Yamaha’s and two Ducati’s later in the past three years, I am thoroughly enjoying this second go-around with the motorcycles and the local sport bike scene.
Do you wanna be in the movies?
My involvement with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Red Bull Indianapolis GP started last summer with a phone call from a senior IMS staff member about borrowing my ’07 Honda CBR1000RR Repsol replica motorcycle for a promotional event. Boy, was I excited when I found out what was in the works! That photo shoot turned into a full-blown video session on the “Yard of Bricks” at the track. Yup, that’s me in the Red Bull Indianapolis GP Event Introduction video on the Repsol with Stephan Gregoire on the 1910 Thor. Check it out!
In future installments, I’ll share some more on that experience, along with many other experiences since then and many more experiences to come as we all count down to the inaugural Red Bull Indianapolis GP on Sept. 14, 2008.
I hope you all stay tuned each week here on redbullindianapolisgp.com for “The Experience.”
Greg