A CCS twin-sprint weekend at the LVMS Classic Course was the host to round one of the USGPRU Western Region Championship.  For those unfamiliar with the format, a normal race weekend typically consists of practice on Saturday and racing on Sunday.  The twin-sprint format moves practice to Friday to allow for two full days of racing.

 

Not long ago, the Möbius team were devout CCS attendees, but Clear Channels decision to cut the Pacific Region from their calendar didn't win any favor with the team and, as such, the team decided (along, apparently, with many other people) to sit out the CCS races in lieu of saving their equipment and resource for the big show.

 

Once again, the Möbius camp saddled up with NSP Racing to make a collective jaunt from the teams base in Huntington Beach out to Las Vegas in the NSP RV.  Now, one must understand that this author has a storied history of RV experiences that must be shared over a warm snifter of brandy and not during the recap of a race weekend, but suffice to say that being in the passenger seat for the duration of the ride was not such a bad thing and the trip out was deemed uneventful; which is to say excellent.  Leaving HB Thursday around noon, the party stopped briefly to pick up some late arrival sponsor banners before pointing the RV toward the high-desert and the bright lights of beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada!

 

6 or so short hours later, the band of merry pranksters pulled in to the parking lot across from Classic's entrance.  Sure of a morning queue at the gate that is best avoided, the boys jockeyed the RV into a prime position to pounce on the gates in the morning and settled into the evening with a dark, frosty, malted beverage (or two).  By the time the lights were out and eyelids shut the clock was near midnight and the quiet before the storm took its last few breaths.

 

Well, not really.  See, not running any of the CCS races afforded the teams more than normal amount of downtime, which was well spent by the boys relaxing!  This relaxation started straight away as both riders, Mike and Vince missed the first two practice sessions while they got to work unloading the trailer and setting up the pit.  In typical CCS fashion, it was no matter as chaos ruled the day for the most part with myriad schedule changes and session regroupings.  Oy.

 

The pit came together nicely and without much drama and the boys were suited up for the third session, just before the lunch break.  The first session went well with Vince reacclimating to Classic's polar-opposite characteristic contrasted to the now all-too-familiar Willow Springs.  Classic's collection of chaotic curves means heavy braking and hard acceleration are the order of the day.  Throw in a couple medium to fast corners, a decreasing radius carousel and generally good pavement and the layout is not so bad.  It seems to get mixed reactions among the pilots with feelings tending toward the extreme: either love it or hate it.

 

Vince has always seemed to go well at the circuit and the first session was spent getting a rhythm from which to work.  Clipping off time to get up to speed, Vince dropped straight away from high 1:31 to mid 1:27 in the first session.

 

After the lunch break, Vince was back on the bike for session two, times consistently in low 1:28 with Vince working on specific parts of the track; invoking a divide and conquer methodology.

 

Disappointing efficiency (though not surprising with CCS) meant the third practice session was also the last, but Vince made the most of his setup to drop the times off again from high 1:27 to low 1:25; the team retiring quite happy with the day's progress.  Reviewing the days practice times revealed that Vince was in good shape with consistenly faster times than the bulk of the 2T clan by several seconds, with the lone exception being young gun Bradley Adams, out for some extra practice and experience.  Adams posted times ~½ - 1sec. on the quick side of Vince.

 

For the first time all year, a fresh new set of sticky Dunlop rubber was mounted on the TZ for Saturday's qualifying session.  A good grid position was looking requisite in order to get a good start to the race and try to break the field, and new tires were deemed in order.   Ironically, after having rode the life out of the previous set of buns, the new tires transformed the bike.  Vince likened the situation to a batter in the box swinging two bats, a not-so-poor analogy!

 

After a quick five lap warmup in the morning session to scrub in the new buns, the only remaining item on the Saturday schedule was the 15min qualifying session.  Vince's goal was to go out and run a 1-2 fast laps, trying to get some clear track, then pull in and try and find Adams to pull a tow and see his pace.  The former went fine, but when Vince pulled into the pit lane to search for the youngster, he was no where to be found.  A bit dejected over the derailment of his scheme, Vince returned for another couple laps before pulling in - traffic dictating the times were not going to improve.  In the end, it didn't work out so badly: #2 on the grid with a 1:23.238; Adams posting the pole time of 1:22.788, just less than half a second quicker.  The front row was filled out by young gun 125 pilot Will Gruy (1:25.516) and the legend himself, Bruce Lind (1:26.270).  Things looked to be shaping up for a two man battle with Adams.

 

But 'qualifying is qualifying' and 'racing is racing' and one doesnt always follow the other.  Anything can happen, and usually does, and Sunday was no different.  Following a cracking one-two-five race, the 'big boys' suited up and took to the grid for the culmination of the weekends frenzied activities.  Still on the same set of slicks used for qualifying, Vince was feeling calm and confident for the race.  As the one board went sideways and the air filled with the sound of fast and the smell of power the green flag dropped and the epic begins.  Off the start Vince gets a great launch only to find Lind, on the inside, able to match his drive toward T1.  Ex-AMA 250GP Pro Kory Gill showed his prowess with the clutch hand as he absolutely stomped though from the outside of row two to lead on the inside as the field went into T1.  Teamate Lind was right behind the 70 of Gill with Vince on Bruce's tailpipes.  On the run to T2 Vince tested the outside, but the veteran Lind was going to have nothing of it and remained unphased by the mild challenge.  Fearing what lay behind, Vince was not looking to follow and made the leap-of-faith move on the drive out of T2 toward the T3 kink, getting on the gas hard to squeeze by on the outside past Lind.  The intensity of the battle took no time to develop as Vince and Bruce were swapping paint as Vince tried to use everybit of the racetrack to make the move before T4.  Bruce, the consummate professional in the saddle, held his line cleanly and the two came out unscathed and without incident.  Vince, now firmly focused on Gill, the only rider between himself and a clear racetrack, wasted no time sizing up the more experienced Pacific Northwesterner.  Up the inside into the T5 right hairpin and Vince was leading the field out onto the back straight.  Across the line on lap one it was the Möbius bike leading the field, Vince wrestling the bike for all it was worth.

 

It was only considered a matter of time, which happened to occur on the entrance to T1 on L2 that Adams worked up to Vince and went through with the inside line.  Vince, remembering the event nearly one year to the day previous, was quick to settle in behind the younger pilot and begin the stalk.  As the riders circulated around to the back of the track and Classic's ultra-fast right handed T6 sweeper, it was clear that the Möbius bike had the power on the day as Vince was quite easily able to drive up and past Adams as the two headed down to the hard braking T7.  Vince lead the rest of the lap and again lead across the line for lap two, only to have Adams make the same move going into T1.  Again Vince settled in behind the wily youngster and felt content to once again follow.  Pushing hard to stay in touch, Vince followed the young gun for the next five laps, surviving several warnings from the tires that the pace was very near its limit.

 

Unfortunately for Adams, the limit came going into T5 on L7, when he lost the front and was forced to retire from the race.  Now, one might think this is the end of the story and Vince was able simply cruise home having built a sufficient lead, but as he glanced back to confirm going to cruise control, he was quite surprised to find the veteran Watts following not too far behind! 

 

And it was down again with the head.  Or was it?  The limit for Vince came at the last corner of the same lap as the right side of the rear tire cryed 'Uncle' and decided to let go big time as Vince opened the throttle, launching our man up out of the saddle and into that all too unsightly handlebar-handstand!  Eek!  But for a change luck was in the Möbius pit this day and Vince landed back in the saddle, controlled a semi violent post-near-highside wobble, went off into the dirt at medium speed and managed to somehow point the bike back toward the front straight and reenter the race still ahead of Watts - shockingly!!  It seems Watts had been hung up in some backmarkers affording the critical extra time necessary for Vince to regain his footing.

 

Now the real pressure began as the lead that was once quite comfortable was suddenly very much gone and the lead now in serious jeapardy of being taken by the Ulsterman.  For the next 8 laps Vince pushed hard to keep Watts behind, fought through traffic, and in the end it was our man to cross the finish line some 4+ seconds clear of Watts.  Whoohooo!

 

After being schooled by these two great riders for the past few months, the team has no qualms about relishing the moment, knowing all too well how quickly it will fade into the history books.  As such, Vince took the golden opportunity to completely hose down Watts during the podium ceremony as the unfortunate runner-up struggled with the cork on his champagne bottle.  All in good fun, of course.  In the end the team did great work, our good friend Mike advanced three spots from his P18 grid slot to finish 15th which was the icing on the cake of a great weekend. 

 

And to cap it all off, luck hung out with the team the whole drive home as we were shocked to find the normal Vegas-to-LA line of cars that appears every Sunday was eerily non-existent on the ride back, affording the team a quick and easy return trip.

 

With round one down, we are leading the 250GP championship, our goal for the year.  It will be a tough championship but the team is in good spirits and looks set to fight for the title.  Stay tuned......