Greenville Community News
November 16, 1999

Daytona Biketoberfest
By John Light

(Greenville resident John Light is this weeks guest columnist.
John's experiences in China were published in Community
Publications a few weeks ago... the day he left for this Daytona trip.)

John Light (#218) in "West Horseshoe" in the infield section.

We really had no intention of building three race motors only twelve days before the national finals at Daytona, Florida. Actually we were only going to build one. Daytona is different from most other race tracks because of the scale of the facility. The high banks of the NASCAR tri-oval bring the top speeds of the motorcycles up thirty or forty miles per hour, as seen at other tracks, to around 160 or 170 MPH. At other tracks, power is important; at Daytona it is vital.

Our team, LightSmith Racing, has done well this year at the regional level. At Daytona, we would have good starting positions because of our regional results. If we had more power, we would stand a good chance of doing well. Alistair Smith had won a regional championship in the lightweight class with a stock engine. We wanted to rebuild it with high compression overbore pistons and high lift cams for Daytona.

The other bikes that we race are two 600 c.c. (middleweight) Hondas that are a few years old. On these bikes, Alistair was in about 15th place among the experts and I was in about 22nd of the amateurs in our region. As there are around 250 expert riders and 300 amateurs in our region, we are happy with these results. A sponsor of ours in Connecticut (Evans Cooling) had volunteered to build us a stronger motor for Al's 600. It would be a simple engine swap that couldn't take more than an afternoon.

A month before the races, things started to unravel. The engine in my 600 ruined a main bearing. The cams took longer than anticipated to come back from California and the Evans engine showed up in three boxes.

We sent my crank out to get repaired and ordered what parts we knew we would need. Alistair's third (borrowed) bike had a bad shock that we had to send out. As parts arrived we rebuilt my motor, only to have it destroy. itself again because the crank was still not right. With now two weeks to go, none of our four race bikes were near being ready.

Alistair Smith and our mechanic Matt Schneider on front row of the lightweight sportsman grid.

There is a saying among racers that goes "everybody has a plan until they get to the first turn." We no longer had a plan and we hadn't even left the driveway. Our mechanic, Mart Schneider from Crossroads Powersports in Upper Darby, came over each day after work and worked until 3 AM getting us straightened back out. As my wife Karen and I started the drive to Daytona, we had all but one machine race ready. The Kawasaki EX 500 wasn't running yet for an undiagnosed reason. Unfortunately, that was the one we stood the best chance of doing well with.

After 16 hours of driving, we were finally at Daytona's "Biketoberfest". Most people who have heard of the bike week at Daytona think of the one in March. March is the first event of the race season and is the site of the 200 mile pro race. The events in October are the finals of the Championship Cup Series (CCS) and are supposed to be for amateurs only.

On the morning of Thursday the 21st, Al and I went out for practice in the rain. Mart and Andy Consiglio from Iron Hill Auto Body in Newark pulled the cylinder head off the Kawasaki to see if they could get the valves to seat better. By the end of thed ay, they had awakened the recalcitrant EX 500, and things were looking good as we left the track for the night.

The races on Friday were half hour GTU events. While more tiring, we like the longer races as they give us a chance to get into a rhythm and become consistent. We also have the advantage of Karen's invigorating, sports massages, which help us warm up before racing. Of course, she is also happy to work on other riders even if they are in our races. You could say she has a following at the track. My best finish of the weekend was in the GTU, a 17th place out of 72 bikes. Alistair came in 26th out of a similar sized group.

Al's practice on the EX 500 started well, but he had to push the bike back to our pits after it blew a head gasket. We discovered that coolant had flowed into the combustion chamber and caused a piston to seize. It looked like we had run out of options.

Fortunately, Alistair's parents were there and his dad went off and found someone with a spare engine. This engine was stock and was missing some parts, but we could make it work. We loaded it and the seized engine out of our bike into the rental car and went back to the hotel. It was an interesting operation moving, the engines and tools through the lobby to the elevator without official notice. Once in the room, we made ourselves at home rearranging, the parts until we had a complete motor.

John Light on starting grid waiting for warm up lap.

Saturday saw us putting the engine back into the bike in time for the race. After all we had gone through, we were back to a stock motor anyway. Luckily for the team, Al is a good enough rider to make up for a lot. His front row grid position helped his chances, and he was able to hold onto third place after the start. The infield section of the track is tight, so he could catch back up to the people who flew by him on the banking. The distances they would gain on the high speed parts were retaken under braking, making for a really exciting battle. In the end, At managed to finish in 5th, which is better than any of us had reason to hope. Alistair followed this performance with a 10th place finish in his other light weight race on the borrowed Yamaha FZR 400.

Sunday started off with my middleweight Grand Prix race. On the first lap, I overshot the chicane trying to pass another rider and had to wait for a gap in traffic before pulling back out onto the track. It was a shame, because even though 10 riders went by putting me back to thirty something, I still finished in 21st place. At one point entering the International Horseshoe, I had the back wheel a foot off the ground under heavy braking. It's funny how sometimes the best riding that you do comes in a race that you've already screwed up.

Alistair borrowed my 600 F2 for his last race just for kicks. It has the Evans motor and upgraded front brakes. He ran a good race going two seconds per lap faster than on his own bike and four seconds faster than me.

My last opportunity to lower my times was cut short by a stone that pierced the radiator on the first lap. Fortunately for me, the race was stopped to clean up a crash and I got a chance to notice the leak while at a stand still. I appreciate that I left the track by pushing the bike off the grid, rather than having, to blow the engine, crash, or both.

Al Smith on the start of sportman race. #15 Frank Stroman weaves towards Al on his way to the win. Al got 5th with a stock engine.

Biketoberfest is a fairly new event at Daytona as it was started in 1992. It brings a smaller crowd than the March event, but this year was the biggest yet with over 100,000 people showing up. Oddly enough, a great number of the motorcyclists who go to Daytona are actually unaware that there are races being held concurrently. The fans who do go to the races, however, are quite enthusiastic.

Daytona 10/21-24 Photos...