Road to daytona, day two

Road to Daytona, day 2

Sunday, March 2 2008

6:30AM: We awake somewhere in the Firebird Raceway complex. We had parked the RV next to a large body of water, so the sunrise off the water was a nice way to start the day.

Through the Firebird East gates and down the end of pit lane, the RV gets parked. Today we would be filming interviews with trackday goers, onboard riding footage and whatever other interesting track footage occurs.

The first half of the day we are interviewing riders, instructors, and vendors. Around noon I get to go out for my first session.

I have been here once before for a USGPRU race weekend, so the track is familiar to me. It’s a 1.3(?) mile course but I quite like it for being such a short, tight track. The pavement is pretty terrible but there are some fun corners and transitions. Steve stands on the roof of the RV and gets footage of my first session out.

Steve sets up the camera on the bike for onboard footage for my second session, and of course, I tuck the front on lap two. The tires were a little cold, but swear I wasn’t even spazzing out. I was just warming up. In fact, the first thing I thought when the front went was “are you kidding me?” It really was a surprise. Fortunately the camera was fine and the bike wasn’t too bad. Fairing damage, broken brake lever and footpeg. But I broke all the camera mounts.

Steve and Mike spend an hour and a half making a usable camara mount, then rig the second bike with an onboard camera and mic. I ride several sessions with different camera angles.

Here is a little preview of the track footage:

We pack up and head to the home of a man who we film in his garage with his bikes. This takes around two hours. At this point, it’s 7:30pm and none of us has eaten anything all day. The Vietnamese restaurant we planned on having dinner at closes two minutes before we get there. Steve is worried about getting the RV stuck in the parking lot, that he wont be able to turn it around, so he takes a while to park while Mike and I go insane with hunger and exhaustion.

After dinner we drive all night to an RV service place in El Paso to fix the generator and power. We have no power outlets and the phones, camera equipment and computers are all out of juice. This RV is a Cruise America RV, and it’s a pile.