Thought I would share with y'all my experience from last week.

A couple of weeks ago, my co-worker left a post-it on my desk which said

"Bob, CR is looking for a couple of people to help him in the pit at

Daytona. He was wondering if you would be interested. Here's his cell

number."

Well, that night I cleared it with my wife Diane (who said "What, are you

kidding? You have to go!") and gave him a call. After introductions, I let

him know that I was a pretty slow wrench...but was very interested in this

once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Well, I drove down to his home in Charlotte on Tuesday (3/4/03), and me,

him, and his girlfriend Jen drove down to Jacksonville that evening. We met

up with his father and his friend Marty, who both had transported the race

bikes down to the Daytona track a few days prior.

CR's full name is C.R. Gittere, and this past year he earned plate #81. He

mostly races in the SE U.S.A., mostly with WERA. I think you can find out

more info about him at www.quickcritter.com but I have not been there yet.

Anyway, he planned to run both the Superstock and the Superbike race at

Daytona. He runs the Suzuki GSXR's, and apparently had picked up the

GSXR-1000 about a month prior to this when he decided to give it a go.

So, on Wednesday we went down to the track and I got my introduction to his

750 and his new 1000 during the practices that day. We had to swap out the

rear mono twice on the 1000 until it was close enough to dial the rest of

the way in. He also tried to dyno the bike this day but the guys at the dyno

blistered his rear tire. I was amazed at how hard the track was on tires. We

were measuring tire temps and pressures on each set of tires, looking for

the combination that gave us the best performance and life.

Thursday morning we put new tread on both bikes for morning practices, and

Thursday afternoon was qualifications. I had always thought that

qualifications were held with just "you" running around the track, but it is

just the same as a practice session with everyone trying to achieve their

quickest lap time during the 1 hour session. (They had two sessions, one for

even numbered bikes, then one for odd numbered bikes). Anyway, he must have

caught some nice drafting during this session because he qualified with a

1:56.0??. (To qualify, you must run a speed within 12% of the fastest bike

on the track). Marty and I toasted a couple of beers to this

achievement....We were in the Show!

Friday morning started out the same. We were getting good at changing tires

and safety wiring at this point. Partway through the morning practice

session he came in and I installed another new rear tire. He went back out

onto the track and I waited, waited, and never saw him come back around. I

was getting really concerned when I finally saw him walking back through the

hot pit area and he just said "get the 750 ready". He finished the practice

session on that and I never said a word to him until the session was over

and we were walking back to the garage. He had a slow speed low side on the

new tire.

When we got back to the garage, Marty had already fixed the shifter and the

brake lever, and was working on the steering damper. Since we could not find

one of the bolts for that, we concluded that was probably the true cause of

the get-off. The worst damage was damage to the borrowed plastic lowers and

pan.

After the Friday morning practice runs, and most of the even number

qualification session...it started raining. We were bummed, but the 1000 was

fixed...and we found out we were in starting position 39....FIRST WAVE!

We spent Friday afternoon finishing assembly on a extra-capacity fuel tank,

complete with vent tube. I am not sure of the exact fill time, but with one

of those nascar plunge style quick fill tanks we were able to put in 5+

gallons in 4.??seconds.

Friday evening we went downtown. This was the only evening that we went

downtown since we were driving back and forth to Jacksonville (Jen's

Parent's) house every night. On the way down I spied the Boot Hill Saloon.

And when we parked about 3 blocks from there I decided that I was going back

for a beer and a tee-shirt. Well, it took me 45 minutes to walk back over

there. Wow, very very crowded sidewalks.

Saturday we slept in till 7:30, ate breakfast, and got to the track around

11:00...I guess. There was no practice sessions for us since the Supercross,

etc were being run today. Me and Marty did some sight seeing at the track,

having our pictures taken with the Ducati girls, watching Carmichael win #4,

etc. Then we went back to the garage and installed a quick change rear axle

system on the 1000.

Sunday morning we got there early, put on new tires again, pulled off the

extra-capacity fuel tank because we decided that tires would be our limiting

factor and we might as well not haul around extra fuel, ran some practice

laps, and were ready for the race. As you probably know, it started raining

about 10 minutes before the race...and never stopped.

Monday morning we arrived and went through the routine again. The race was

to begin at 11:00 am and the skys were clear. At 10:45 CR decided to change

from a 41 tooth sprocket to a 40 because the winds were swinging around and

blowing from a different direction than they had all week long. We pulled

the rear wheel, changed the sprocket, tightened the chain...which meant

moving the quick change axle assembly, and re-trueing the rear wheel. During

the National Anthem I took off my cap and was still busy putting safety wire

through the tiny bolts on the rear assembly. (I was worried about this, but

my Nascar friend later assured me that you just continue working, and this

is not a show of disrespect).

He ended up 25th. He might have done a little better but he almost lost it

coming off the infield and up onto the inclined track and his "tip-over"

ignition cut-out switch tripped and he lost 3 or 4 positions while trying to

reset it.

It took me and Marty about 27 seconds to change the rear tire. An eternity

compared to the factory guys, but a once-in-a-lifetime experience for us.