Thoughts from the other side of the gravel

I decided that since I have used cornerworkers' services on two occasions, it was time to pick up a few bikes myself. I volunteered as a MARRC cornerworker at Summit Point for the CCS/ASRA races this weekend. I took the school that is offered for it on Saturday morning and early afternoon, and then it's trial by fire.

The school is pretty simple and even the educated generalist who has never been to the track could probably be successful. The instruction was to the point and simple to understand.

Then came the fun part: going to a fast corner with flowing water on the track. I was posted as pick up in turn 10. It was pouring rain most of the rest of the afternoon. The last 2 races were transition races, but the first two were... ugly, to say the least. My corner captain, Sarah Davisson, was just telling one of my fellow classmates that she had worked 10 several times and had never had an incident, so it might be a quiet afternoon. I guess she didn't knock on wood. It seemed like as soon as we would load one, the next one would come flying in. I got to see Arnie Hastings do an amazing highside recovery, come tearing through the gravel, end up in the grass, never stop, and re-enter safely at the highest point on the straight. Then it seemed as if #77 (never caught his name) just enjoyed having his inner thighs bashed around by his seat and tank, since he KNEW that if he went through 10 the same way, the rear would break loose and then quickly hook again. I lost count after about 4, but I think we had 6 bikes down and 6 bikes standing in our gravel (or just passing through our gravel as if only to wave at us). It was a lot of deadlifting, a lot of sprinting through soggy gravel, and a lot of shoving bikes up that steep embankment.

The second day, I chose to be pickup in 1. It was a bright and sunny day. In the morning, I thought we might go the entire day without a crash. With the much improved pavement, 1 didn't quite seem to be the craps shoot it was before. I guess it was my turn not to knock on wood. As luck would have it, one of our first crashes involved 3 bikes. This involves lots of running. We got everything off to the safe area, and no sooner did we clear the last bike that our next Brady bunch paid us a visit. It was some hard racing, and that kind of stuff just happens. We also had a mechanical visitor, which kind of left us baffled. He knew and we knew that he was going to mechanical out with throttle response issues, but he decided to do 3 laps at dangerously slow speeds anyway. He had 2 opportunities to pull off at pit in, but chose to go less than 100 mph down the front straight anyway and then pull off in 1, with the race leader lapping him at the entry to the turn. It made us cringe, and I'm sure if anyone had taken a photo of the 2 cornerworkers and our ASD, it would have had the three of us with our hands covering our mouths, as if watching a horror movie. Luckily, he was able to pull off without causing incident. Our last visitor took a mud bath. That bike was rather challenging to extract, since it was *just* off the asphalt, in the middle of the impact zone, with 6 laps to go in the race. Sorry, but the bike must go. Safety and I sprinted over in a gap, and battled to get the flat-tired bike out of 3" of mud. Both slipping and sliding, we got the seeminly 800 pound bike to safety.

The most challenging part of cornerworking for me was trying to figure out what the racers wanted to do with the bike. I needed to balance their safety and the safety of their fellow riders with their desire to re-enter the race. I did stop one rider from re-entering because his belly pan was full to the brim with pea gravel. I also got on my knees to assist him in emptying it before releasing him. I also had 1 rider who never let me get close to his bike, since he picked it up before I arrived and was back on, and attempted re-entry with no brakes. EEK!!! The easiest crashes to deal with were the ones like Rick Beggs did, where the crashed rider immediately high-tailed it on over the tire wall. I've never seen a man in leathers sprint so fast through pea gravel. Several riders did just that. A few knew they were done for the day, but still insisted on helping to pick up the bike. This is okay, but can be tricky with a rider who is a bit disoriented from the rather rapid earth-sky viewing. One racer very politely asked for a quick crash truck so he could try to start in a race that was fairly soon after. I'm not sure if he made it, but we certainly did do our best to get him out of there fast. The ones who were most challenging to help were the ones who wanted to re-enter after having a downed bike without doing a quick sanity check of the basics to make sure all the parts are there to control the motorcycle and that they won't drop anything on the track that will endanger their fellow racers and quite possibly themselves the next time they encounter their own debris. In the ideal world, we wouldn't have a single guest all day. In the slightly less ideal world, everyone would be able to keep the bike upright and just re-enter. Third choice is to have the bike go down, but have everything be in good enough shape to re-enter. We really don't like sending people back on the crash truck. We want nothing more than for everyone to finish every race. However, sometimes the bike or the gear has had enough for the race, and must be carted out. Most of the riders of this last kind realized it, but we did have 2 who thought they could re-enter, but really, they were going to be a danger to themselves, since something vital was wrong with the bike. If you crash, please do a quick sanity check to ensure the safe operation of your motorcycle before deciding to re-enter. That being said, nobody who had a safe and raceable machine opted for a lift to the pits. I loved that! Way to go!!!

It was a ton of hard work, very rewarding, and well worth the iburprophen I'm going to take tonight. I really recommend to anyone who has any appreciation for motorcycles to volunteer as a cornerworker. MARRC has no contract and is more than happy to have a volunteer for a single day or decades of service. It's all up to you. There are many positions that are well outside the impact zone, and several that aren't even on the track, so if you have a hard time dealing with seeing crashes up that close and personal, we have places for you, as well. With MARRC at Summit, you get free entry, a great buffet for each meal, and free camping at the track in the track staff area, so it ends up only costing you the gas to get there.

If anyone is interested in cornerworking with MARRC, please feel free to ask me how to start.

Many thanks go to the racers who were so wonderful and gracious even when we knew they were about to spit nails. It was even better to have friends who had close encounters of the gravel kind say they were glad to see a friendly face they knew. We're there only for you. Many thanks also go to my fellow cornerworkers who were so wonderful at mentoring me and getting muddy with me moving these machines out of the way. There was one treat-and-release who ended up under the air fence in 7, and no other injuries that resulted in any medical attention. In spite of the conditions, the racers made it a safe weekend.

I can't wait for my next opportunity!