Shenandoah April 1st.

April first has Mike and me heading to Summit point raceway to ride the Shenandoah circuit. I plan to arrive the night before with Mike and the girls heading down in the morning. I leave the house about 7pm and hit the store for some supplies. Drinks and snacks are on my list for this trip as Mike is bringing along the burgers, dogs and rolls. I have the trusty Forman grill and an extension cord because you never know where power might be. By about 7:15pm I'm on the road heading south west. Traffic is not too bad for a Saturday night. I blast past the never-ending construction on Rt 78. Anyone who travels this road knows there is always construction somewhere. I guess it keeps people working which in today’s times, is a very good thing. Along the trip I text Omar to get an update on his progress and chat with him for a while. Omar is running with his friend Stiffy who on Thursday just have pins removed from this right wrist. Omar has his girlfriend Michele drafting behind him. Michele is doing one of the rare car dates on the TPM Schedule. Omar and crew are about 1 hour behind me. I call Glen too and find he's about 30 minutes behind me. I arrive at the gate of Summit Point raceway the clock says about 10:30pm. As I approach the gate I see no attendant, very unusual. I wait a brief second, ok I drive slowly through the gate and head over to the Shenandoah circuit. Unbeknown to me, as I find out in the morning, Kirk a fellow TPM coach is a few seconds behind me and he gets stopped at the gate as the attendant arrives to close to gate so he'll have to wait for morning to get in. Great timing on my part. I work my over to the paddock and find a spot. The air temps are not that high so I park close to the bathroom to minimize the trip if needed. With some rearrangement of my items, in order to recline the passenger side seat, which will act as my bed for the night, I settle in for the night. In the paddock sits a motor home, which likely is Andy and Bruce, a truck and trailer in front of them and another car and tent setup under a covered area attached to the main building along pit road. Since it is late I decide it too late to bother anyone so I call home and I get some sleep.

Dawn comes as the alarm fires off. It's about 6am and with the sun just starting to rize I head over to the other covered area to grab a pit post. Andy is up and unloading his trailer. We chat for a few minutes as the TPM staff comes rolling in. Glen rolls with his Land Rover. Gallo rolls in the new TPM truck and small TPM trailer. Lastly Linda rolls in with her STI. As luck would have it the spot I was in is where the trailer and tech will be setup. So I move the truck to find a new location. As I do Mike and girls arrive and I let them find a spot and move in right next to them. Dennis arrives and takes to spot on one side of us. We are invading on the campers’ area under covered part of the building that I had spotted last night. This happened to be Gregg Sharpe and his girlfriend. You may remember Gregg of our 2006 adventures. Gregg is a good guy and used to run pit out at some events but now has focused his time on riding. We all settle in, unload the bikes. Mike has loaned me one of his F4's as my R6 awaits a motor transplant, but that's another story. With out pit area straighten out we head over to sign in. The sheet doesn't have our name on it so Mike adds them manually, his name above everyone and mine at the bottom. We address this and get it resolved with Linda. We suit up for the riders meeting, as we do most times. We spot Kevin Sullivan for Classic Harley and catch up on things as Glen addresses the riders and drivers for the rules of the day. We disperse for the day events. I head over to Glen to see if they need car coaches but with only 3 cars entered Michelle will handle the coaching duties for the day. We top off the bikes with gas and start them up to get ready to go out. First call comes over the PA system. Note as the announcements were made for the riders meeting the speaker attached to the building was directed straight at the ground making it annoyingly load to us. Gregg adjusts the speaker and directs it outward so others could hear and lessen the impact on our ears. Mike's girls are helping out today. One is helping Dennis with pictures with the other on a corner station. Each will earn a few bucks for the day. As the second call comes for the red/blue group we head to the gird. Mike has done an event here and this is my first time here. I did get a ride with Bill Sink in Michelle's Mustang along with Michelle with Omar and me in the back seat. Needless to say I got an idea of the track but I was more scared and didn't really pay attention in detail. We roll up to the grid and Terry lets Mike out first and me second. This works out great because now I get to learn the lines from Mike and in a few laps I have the track embedded in my head and slow up for other riders to help.

This circuit is very tight with some turns that you just idle through. The circuit is mostly turns and very technical. With the circuit as tight as it is and in a very small foot print walls were erected to prevent riders from running into or crossing the other sections of the track. Walls are not kind to cars, as Glen would find out, but for bikes and our bodies, they are especially not good. Needless to say the walls keep any sane person from going fast here. It is pavement and we are riding so it’s a great day. Next on the list is the car group. Mike heads to the paddock and I head to the grid to see if they need coaching help. With the 3 cars lined up that take the track I opt to hang out at the grid. With a few laps under their belts Glen joins the group with Linda's STI. I continue to talk with Terry and his helper on grid. A call comes over the cornerworkers radio. "A car is off the track into the wall!" Terry asked "Where" to which the reply comes. "The car is between the chicane and the banked bowl. I can't tell what car there too much dust and smoke!" The red flag comes out and the call come is as "The drive and passenger are out of the car and walking away. It's the black TPM car!" That would be Glen. I ask Terry if I can go see if they need help. I arrive on the scene with the passenger side of the car against the wall and flames stating on the passenger side of the car. I shoot to the corner station to get a fire bottle but none there. The grid helper arrives and I ask him to call to any station with a fire bottle. No station has a fire bottle. I head back over to the car to see what I can do. Dennis arrives as the ambulance does with a fire bottle and hits the fire. At this point one bottle may have cooled the flames but they are not going out. A call goes out for a fire truck and a few minutes later a pickup comes along with more chemicals to finally put out the flames. By now a small crowd has gathered out the fence line. One of them is Gregg. Gregg happens to be a well versed Subaru guy having written a few articles and technical information for some publications. I ask him if there is anything we need to look for to blow up next, since we had already heard on small explosion already, which was likely the battery exploding. Gregg and I talk and determine that the fire is likely due the fuel rail being busted and dripping on the headers on the passenger side. With the fire is out and Summit Point crew on hand to handle the clean up. Glen arrives back at the scene and I head back in to the paddock.

After the clean up is done we resume activity with one more rotation before the 11:00 to noon “quite time” that is mandatory for Sundays in this area. We take the break in the action to cook up some burger and refuel ourselves. Omar and Michelle stop over and ask Michelle for a ride along, to which she agrees to. As they call the car group I grab my helmet to which I'm accompanied by Gregg and Stiffy. Picture this, 3 men in full riding gear stuff into a Mustang. As we roll up to the group Terry looks in on us and realized that there are 4 people in the car he laughs and send us out. Michelle is very competent driver and confirms this on the first lap. She gets faster and faster each lap. It was a fun ride and brings back many memories of my car days. As the day progress Mike and one of the girls get a ride along to experience Michelle's driving skills. The day progresses with periods of light rain off and on. Since I'm on Mike original F4, Mike offers a swap of the bikes to compare the difference. Mike takes one lap and comes in as I finish the session. Its amazing how 2 bikes can be the same but handle differently. The one I have for the day is a more comfortable ride, a little on the soft side, holds a corner well but the other one is planted in the turns and inspires confidence. The day progresses with only a few incidents and as the last rotation is called Mike and I sit out the Red/blue group session roll up for the White group session. With us being the only ones at the grid, we wait for others to join. A few minutes expire and a lone rider rolls up. Mike takes the rider out as I head back in to load up. With the session ending the day is done and it was a good day at that. Some head over to the main track where they will ride tomorrow as the rest of us pack up and head for home. Burgers are cooked up and we finish packing up. I grab a phone number from Andy for a motor deal to get my bike back on the track that Mike arranged. Mike has an uncanny way with people that he can make deals like this. To which I'm very very grateful for. We say out goodbyes and finish loading up. We are the last to leave the track and Mike and girls take a few laps to show the girls the track. I hit the bathroom and join them for the second lap. We pit in and with the notion that the next car date we'll see if we can get out for session just for fun. We leave the track heading our separate ways and home for some rest.

With another batch of stories in our record books to tell sitting on the porch in our rocking chairs in our older years to everyone who'll listen.

George Benes.

Team Xcedrin #929.