In a nutshell: down to the wire.  As you might expect, that is how things went for the regional championship hunt....did the Möbius team pull it off??? 

The fifth and final regional round of the USGPRU National Series, Western Region Championship found the boys very close to home in Fontana, CA at the very swanky California Speedway.  Best known for its NASCAR and IRL races, the speedway is an oval with an infield road course.  The infield has multiple configurations and the one employed for the weekend is the ubiquitous 'AMA' course which utilizes the main straightaway banking of the speedway inconjunction with the infield layout.

Ironically, although (by far) the closest circuit to Team Möbius' home base of Huntington Beach, it was the first time Vince had ever lapped the circuit, being not a fan of speedway circuits in general and never having raced at the circuit previously.  Fortunately, as a flat, generally featureless layout, the circuit was acclimated to quickly and the team hampered not by this relative lack of experience.

Again racing with WERA, it was a FRA day on Saturday for practice with qualifying set as the final session of the day.  This afforded four sessions for the team to sort out the setup of the bike before qualifying, which was also to include some time for motor breakin following a quick rebuild (and setup for the speedway) of the motor following the previous round in Vegas.

With break-in the priority, and not crashing a close second, the first session was mild with times in the 1:40-1:45 range.  The layout is easy enough to pickup despite the Speedway's ambitious corner numbering indicating some 20+ corners!  Many 'corners' are comprised of 3-apex chicanes which may explain the larger-than-normal corner count.

By 11:00 and the start of session two Vince was already getting the pace up, immediately dropping his times below 1:40 with consistency found in the range of 1:38.  Unfortunately, some setup niggles stymied effective progress beyond this point and, in fact, the Möbius effort ended up qualifying fourth with a time of 1:37.796.

Not surprisingly it was young Brad Adams on pole with a field-demoralizing time of 1:34.0!  From Adams, at 1:36.8, it was rising international star and fellow young gun Garrett Carter coming out to SoCal all the way from Michigan and in-between his racing escapades in the Spanish CEV series (generally regarded as one of the most competitive feeder series in the world).  Carter was without the assistance of his usual domestic equipment provider and tuner Rocky Stargel and was relegated to riding the Yamaha 250 of fellow USGPRU'er Darryl Baker which was being toted around the country by Nobi Iso, piloting the Bruce Lind Traveling Circus rig.  Catch all that?  Good!

From Carter it was local hotshoe Billy Dalu at 1:37.4 sitting third on the grid with our man Vince fourth at 1:37.8.

Unfortunately for Möbius associate team member and NSP Racing's Mike Lytle, a failed crankshaft signaled the end of his effort for the weekend; the disappointment of which was slightly offset by the local location of the track providing a quick ride home for him and his equipment.  In fact, the Möbius team headed back to HB for the evening to rest up and provide some relief to our beloved pitdog and mascot, Lola, who was decidedly not as happy to be in the sea of asphalt also known as Cal Spdwy.

Sunday morning the team was up and headed back out to Fontana in the new Möbius transporter.  The 45minute drive passed quickly and without incident and the team was ready to go for the morning warmup at 08:30.  Having not readjusted the carburetion for the morning's relatively high air density, the bike was running slightly lean, yet very cold so a tempered session was the result.  No matter as no times were to be had via the onboard timer; which seemed to have gone south at somepoint over the weekend.

Not thinking much about the points situation, arguably a wise decision, the basic strategy was as always: go as fast as we can for as long as we can and finish on two wheels!  Actually, it was necessary to finish in the top 6 to assure the Regional Championship and that was not going to be any walk in the park as a number of potential spoilers were lined up on the first several rows of the grid, notably Reiswig, late arrival Mark Watts and several pesky 125's.

Of course, in accordance with Murphy's Law, as the Vince rolled out on the warmup lap it happened: after running without incidence all weekend, the 224 bike began a very unsettling hiccup of cutting out momentarily at high-rpm during the warmup lap.  With no time (or direction) to address the situation, it was time to suck it up and let fate have her day....

As the green flag dropped, Vince got an OK start off the inside of row 2, holding fourth position to T4 where he was able to make a quick pass on Resiwig on the brakes while watching Dalu overshoot the corner.  So, it was with a bit of surprise and alot of excitement that we saw our man emerge in second, albeit already with a gap to Adams in first.  

Adams, riding on a level of his own, was off to the races, but the race for the 'best of the rest' was just getting underway.  With Dalu back on track with a pace to make things interesting it was Vince leading the chase group over the stripe for the first 3 laps of the 10 lap duration.  It was then that Watts, with his obviously superior machinery, made best use of his kitted 2001 TZ to make a pass attempt on Vince in the double apex left T7/8 on lap 4.  With Watts in a little too hot to keep a tight line it was Vince making the most of his racecraft to square up the corner and keep the Briton behind.  It was only a matter of time, however, as Watts' bike was a bit too much for the old 224 huffer, and Vince could only watch as Watts pulled at least a second down the front straight banking to take second going on lap 5.  

Meanwhile, Rieswig was just behind the 224 bike, which continued to imbibe its pilot with agita by routinely cutting out on the fastest parts of the track, magnifying its already problematic top-speed deficit.  This required a bit of over-riding in the twisty bits to remain on the pace, and in front of, the remainder of the pack thereby increasing concern over tyre longevity as the race wore on. 

The problem became worse on lap 9 when it was first noticed that Dalu had finally caught back up with a pace some 0.5sec/lap faster than the duo fighting for second.  Dalu made his first pass attempt on the outside going into the first chicane off the banking but had to pull up when Vince went in even deeper on the brakes to hold off the charging ex-AMA pro.  Attempt two came several corners later at the same spot Watts had attempted his first overtake, the double apex left.  Like Watts, Dalu had to go too late on the brakes to get past our man and, like Watts, Vince was able square up Dalu and out drive him at the exit to maintain second spot.  With Dalu clearly looking to get by for second and only one lap remaining, it came as some surprise that for the remainder of the lap and the beginning of the next, and last, circulation Vince saw nary a wheel of the 122 of Dalu.  That came to an abrupt end going into the final complex off the back straight on the final lap whereby Dalu made another brave attempt to outbrake our man, but it proved too difficult for the wily vet as he went in way hot and had to run straight on thus blowing the corner.  When Vince saw this, he realized that Dalu had made an infraction and thats how it was.  Although Dalu crossed the line just ahead of our man, it was all for nought as he was reprimanded by the marshals and the third place - and the resulting Regional Championship - was awarded to our man!!

Next order of business, the completion of the USGPRU series and the Overall National Championship to be decided in TX....the following weekend?!?!