Round 4 at Willow was one of two double-points rounds scheduled for the year.  It seems this bonus, if you will, encourages the ants to come out of the woodwork s the grid was, for the fourth straight month, bloody enourmous!  With no less than 32 entries, it was shaping up to be a good race weekend. 

 

The downside, arguably, to all this was the large number of Willow vets; all of whom know their way around the legendary nine turn course quite well.  So, in addition to the regular menace of having to relegate Watts and Adams to the front of the line, as well as Dalu showing for the second month in a row some other notable names on the grid included Roadracing World's John Ulrich, Willow vet Alex White, and a surprise showing from our friend Roger Baker.  Of further concern was the apparent 'coming of age' of one of the new Smoker-converts, Gene Redmon.  Incidentally, the look of Redmon's '03 Yamaha alone is intimidating.

 

In an effort to conserve precious resource to afford making it through the whole season, the team elected - once again - to forego practice in lieu of saving the team's equipment.  This author is beginning to think this idea may not be paying such large dividends.....

 

Sunday morning dawned clear, calm and warm; the thermometer reporting 68° by first practice at 08:00 PDT.  Rolling on the same set of (shagged) tires, having not bought new rubber since the November prior, Vince pulled the bike out for the morning warmup and made four circulations before pulling back in with a generally positive report given the circumstance.  After four more times around the 2.5mi circuit for the final warmup session, the team settled in to prepare the bike for the race.  This consisted of some minor tuning to the carburetors, a once over of the clutch, and a gearing change.  It was on the latter that things started going awry.  While attempting to remove the rear axle, the nut decided to completely gall up forcing the team to break out the Dremel to correct the situation.  Fortunately a spare axle was on hand, and after readjusting the torque wrench and adding some anti-seize to prevent further problems, the team seemed to be back on track.

 

As the calls came and the bikes came to life, the team was able to exploit the benefits of using their newly acquired Accu-Mix starting tool.  Just like the factory boys, Vince was able to sit calmly and prepare for the race while the bike warmed comfortably on the stands; tire warmers simultaneously heating up the Dunlop rubber.

 

Unfortunately, there really is no substitute for fresh tires and the 5 month old Dunlops were well past their prime.  Off the start, Vince got a good launch only to find himself languishing behind a gaggle of bikes that seemed to simply blast by off the start.  Before T3, Vince was already watching Watts, from Adams, from Dalu, from Ulrich make a break.  Not feeling all that comfortable on the cycled out rubber, Vince settled in to his pace.  Fifth after lap one, Vince was very disappointed to succomb to Redmon in T2 on lap two, followed closely by an all-about-business Alex White.  White, known infamously for his fast starts, had charged all the way from the back of the grid, through nearly the entire field by the end of the second lap.  Another lap later and the final pass was made....on Vince by Baker, again in T2.

 

Willow is a notoriously wicked place when things go awry.  Most people don't crash happily in its confines and this author must agree that the team made the wise decision: best to save the fight for another day...one with stickier tires!