In a nutshell: thin.  This describes quite well the attendance for our latest esacapade. 

The fourth round of the five round USGPRU National Series, Western Region Championship found the boys returning to the familiar confines of beautiful (and normally hot at this time of year) Las Vegas, Nevada...with a twist.  Contrary to the numerous previous meetings at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the Classic Course was not the playground to which the pilots flocked for the weekend, instead finding themselves inside the hallowed halls of the speedway-proper to ride the Infield Road Course.  As the exact configuration of this 2.5mi expanse of asphalt was not totally clear going into the round - and a top-end rebuild and ensuing setup adjustment was performed prior to departing for the track - the team gambled a bit on the expected layout of the track as being one of a rather tight, technical, slow nature.  It was with some concern then when the time arrived to find that in fact the layout comprised nearly the entire speedway oval, or at least its inside skirts and straights!

Stepping back for a moment, the Möbius camp has just recently acquired a new race hauler in the form of a 2001 Ford E350 Super Duty van with the wonderful Powerstroke Diesel 7.3L turbo direct injection powerplant.  As might be imagined, the team was quite anxious to test drive the new upgrade for the trip out to Vegas, however registration niggles hampered the effort and as a result the normal transport union of Team Möbius and NSP Racing occured uniquely with the teams meeting on the 15 freeway enroute to Sin City.  Leaving midday on Friday allowed for plenty of time to make the 5-odd hour trip from SoCal out to Vegas and the boys arrived with daylight to spare and set off unpacking, getting the pit setup and generally preparing for the remainder of the weekend.

Saturday practice was run by Fasttrack Riders Assoc, as is the norm for WERA West events.  The FRA practice day was run quite smoothly and the boys set off on a rather leisurely effort to acclimate to the course.  From Start/Finish it is a short run to the first curve, a 90° left leading quickly to a 180° right.  The former taken in 1st gear with the latter being slightly quicker in second.  Another relatively short chute sends the riders toward the most technical part of the course, which Vince got on with straight away.  Turn 3 is a 90° right followed quickly by turn 4/4a, a double apex left that tightens considerably on the exit and was quite bumpy and torn-up along at the second apex.  Turn 5 is a very long and fast, sweeping left that is approached on full acceleration from T4a and really seperates the men from the boys.  Crossing painted lines back and forth along its arc, a rider so inclined can hold the throttle wide open while upshifting through second, third and fourth gears before being slingshot onto the speedways main straight for the uneventful run toward the T6 chicane.  While the transition from infield skirt up onto the banking of the speedway was not so bad, the same can not be said for the approach and entrace to the T6 chicane.  Designed to bleed off speed before circling the far end of the speedway oval, the chicane provided to be a quite severe discontinuity and the forks were constantly bottoming out with a gut wrenching 'CLUNK' each lap.  The situation was surely not being helped by the fact that a recent front end setup adjustment had removed some 10+mm of oil from the front forks in an effort to lessen the air-spring effect at full fork compression.  Alas, life aboard the bike is a compromise. 

After negotiating the 'pothole' of the left-right T6 chicane, the course bends back to the left for T7, another long left around the opposite end of the speedway from T5.  This 4th gear left exits onto the back straightaway where speed builds back up until the hardest braking point on the track for the left hand T8.  Eight can be taken as a double apex, but our man preferred the dirt track style approach of nearly overshooting the corner and then squaring it back off to maximize acceleration out of the corner and toward T9, a third gear left hand kink followed closely by T10, a right hand kink of approximately the same speed.  From this point it is a quick jab on the brakes to slow for the final corner, the second gear 180° right leading back onto the Start/Finish straight.

The track was rather simple to learn and get up to speed on, aided by its flat nature and generally simple layout.  The infield section was working quite well, but as alluded to earlier, the bike setup was not at all favoring the highspeed section from T4a through T9; almost 2/3's of the entire track!  This was clearly made evident early on when Vince was trying to size up the competition in the form of young gun Bradley Adams.  Adams was clearly setting the pace for the weekend and although Vince could hang in the tight sections, the 224 bike was getting really hammered down the straights and in the fast stuff. 

Thanks to the graciousness of the FRA folks, qualifying was held on Saturday afternoon, despite WERA not officially commencing activity until Sunday morning.  As seems to be the norm now for our man, Vince went out for a very quick effort of 4 laps, with two of those being the out and in laps.  When the times were tallied, the Möbius bike found its way to second spot on the grid from Adams; albeit some 3.8 seconds adrift from Adams' 1:46.7 with a 1:50.5.  Not looking too good for a racepace!  On the upside (arguably) is that a top 5 finished was guaranteed as there were only 5 bikes in the qualifying session.  Although not entirely clear as to why, the paddock seemed quite empty and even the normally large 125 class only had 11 entries.  Speculation concluded that a combination of August heat in Vegas and a concurrent AFM round being run the same weekend to be the primary contributors to the low turnout.

Sunday dawned as one would expect in Vegas: warm.  By the time the boys rolled out for the morning warmup at 08:45, the thermometer already registered a balmy 92°F.  Vince was quickly up to speed, eclipsing his qualifying time no less than twice out of the four flying laps had during the session with a best time of 1:49.79 shaving nearly a second off the previous best.  With some time to kill before the race the boys set about taking care of the last minute bits normal to any pre-race routine: lots of cleaning and once-over’ing of the bikes.

By 14:00, it was time to roll out for the warmup of the 14 lap finale around the Infield’s 2.5 mile layout.  Little did anyone know that they were about to be treated to some of the best racing of the 224 bike all year.  With Adams on pole, the green flag dropped and it was an immediate drag race between the 15 of Adams and the 224 of Rolleri.  Young gun Adams exhibited his unreserved youth with an ungodly fast and deep entrance to turn one that saw him nearly run off the edge of the track at the exit.  Vince never being one to look a gift horse in the mouth immediately squared up the exit and beelined for an inside line into two that saw the two protagonists side-by-side as they arced through the 180° sweeper with Vince gaining the advantage by holding the inside line as the two went into the one-line T3-4-5 complex.  As the riders exited the infield for their first trip up onto the banking, it was Vince out in front…but it was to be shortlived.  Adams bike blasted past our man on the banking leading him back into the infield for the second half of the lap.  Vince able to make the most of his new tires and nimble chassis was able to keep the gap even – perhaps even pulling a little time back – on Adams and as both riders went up on the banking the second time it was Adams out by just a nose.  Unfortunately, that was about all he needed to pull a gap.  For the first 5-6 laps, it was Adams eeking out time by the 0.1’s, but by lap 7, with a practically insurmountable gap to the faster Adams and a healthy gap back to third Vince decided to play it safe and slowed his pace over the second half of the race, dropping from the consistent, low 1:46’s to high 1:47’s with the last lap dropping off again to 1:48.

In the end it was Vince across for 2^nd from Adams with young gun Tyler Reiswig completing the podium.  With a 3+ second laptime reduction in the race, the team was quite pleased with the performance and this sets the stage for the final regional race of the year at Fontana, with our man Vince looking very good to take the Regional Championship!  Stay tuned…..