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Team Dead Chest
"Team Dead Chest" participated in the first endurance race that has
been held in over 10 years at New  Hampshire International Speedway. The
three hour race was held on September 2nd, 2001 and had approximately 35 team
entries. Since this was the first endurance race that any of us had ever
participated in, we decided to enter just for the sheer fun of participating in
an endurance event. We also received a good education in the process.
The team was put together in less than 10 days of the actual event. We had
no practice time on the Ducati Monster that Steve DelGrosso donated, other than
a couple of laps each during the designated endurance race practice. Our
team captain, Matt Guilbault, had been involved in a crash on the previous day,
and was unable to compete. Matt did an outstanding job of coordinating
things and seeing that everything went smoothly. There were many loose
ends to tie up and we all pulled together at the last minute to make it all come
together.
The basic rules of the
endurance race stated that any team member going out on the track must ride for
a minimum of 30 minutes
and a maximum of 60 minutes per riding session. This means that a team
could
compete with a minimum of 2 riders and a maximum of 6. Also, the
motorcycle entered in the race had to finish the race. We were not allowed
to change bikes in the event of a crash or mechanical failure. Since we
wanted to gain experience and have some fun, we decided to have 6 riders.
This meant
that we would all ride for a single 30 minute session. This also meant
that we would have the maximum number of rider changes. Our goal was
to have a lot of fun and learn as much as we could  from the event -- and that we
did! There is an extraordinary amount of coordination and teamwork
involved in making an event such as this work. From timing the current
rider on the track, to calculating fuel stops, rider changes and just being able
to figure out where your assigned track-side pit location was, there was an
outstanding effort and incredible coordination from everyone. There were a
couple of tense moments
during practice, but the race went off without a single glitch and the rider
changes and fuel stops went incredibly smoothly. During the race, there
was only one red flag (incredibly!), which cut our riding time short by about 20
minutes, but we all got a good change to go out and show our stuff. In the
end, we finished 14th out of 19 GTL entries. Not a great finish, but we
did get a great education in the process.
Congratulations to the
riders (in riding order): Steve DelGrosso, Chris Cramer, John Buanno, Dave
Kaskoun, Brian Murphy and Edgar Muller.
Edgar took the checkered
flag and was the official hero for finishing the race.
Special thanks to:
Bruce Meyers from BCM Ducati. Bruce
was there to support us for the entire event and was instrumental in our
successful finish. Bruce is a long time supporter of motorcycle racing and
he helps to sponsor many of the racers and events at NHIS. It was really
great to have Bruce around to help. Thanks!
Extra special
thanks to: Dave Kaskoun for having some excellent team shirts made up and
Curt Lavoie for stepping in at the last minute to supervise the bike refueling.
Lap Times Page 1
Lap Times Page 2
Lap Times Page 3
Final Results
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