How I missed it all.
The anticipation, the anxiety, the adrenalin, the team effort, the fun, the overtakings, the pushing it just a bit more, the sweat, the pain, the finish line, the aches the next day. I really missed the endurance races that I used to participate in.
A month and a half ago I read in a national magazine that there was the possibility of an Endurance race to be held at the Estoril track, but there was no confirmation. I emailed the National Motorcycle Federation for more information, but they didn't confirm that the race would take place at all. The following week the magazine mentioned it again, that the race would be held after some construction work was finalized. Contacting the mentioned race organizer, I finally was able to confirm that a race would be held on October 5th.
I decided that I would participate in this race, together with my wife's "permission". After all, she's almost 9 months pregnant with my future son (due this next week), and I really wanted this to be a fun event, not something that would cause fights at this stage 
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For the race, teams had to be composed of 2 or 3 riders, with the possibility for each rider to use his own bike. Participants were divided into 3 classes: 600, 1000 and Open. The Open class was for basically almost any bike, and for teams with 600 and 1000 bikes.
So, almost everything was ready, I "just" needed a team and to prepare the bike for passing the technical verifications. A sudden invitation from some friends from the PerformanceTotal site solved the first problem . Tiago on a Ducati 749, and Miguel on a Ducati 748, and we could enter the 600 class. For the second problem, I had a checklist, created from reading the regulations:
- Go with stock fairings (allowed by regulations)
- Tape headlights and stoplight
- Remove turnsignals, mirrors, sidestand, license plate holder
- Wire oil case cover
- Install recipient for excess fluids not to pour onto the track
- Make number "plate" and numer from sticker sheet
I took the bike to my current mechanic shop, Lucapower, and asked them to perform those tasks on the bike, but also replace the front fork seals and oil.
Just for you guys to picture it properly, I do NOT have:
- a centerstand or bike stands
- trailer
- tire warmers
- racing fairings
- double bubble screen
- pit crew
- lap time panel
I basically raced with a stock bike, except for the Akrapovic pipe, PCIII (I currently use this map) and kevlar brake lines. I added some new Metzeler Racetech tires (K1 front and K2 rear), and that's it.
THE RACE
Things didn't go as well as we wanted. Not at all. First thing in the morning, after all the verifications, was the free practice. Since we only had 45 minutes and only one of us could be on the track at one time, Tiago left the pits on his 749 to get a feel for the new repaved sections of the track.He was back in on his second lap. with his engine making all kinds of strange noises and having lost all its power. He was so frustrated. He had put on some new pipes on the bike, had it all sorted out, and the engine had simply failed on him, on the second lap !!! We were all concerned, but I had to get going and scrub the tires in with a few laps, since they were brand new. Back in the pits, things weren't much better, the Ducati 749 wouldn't start.
Miguel had a pair of brand new tires for his Ducati 748 waiting for qualifying practice, but once we got there, he simply couldn't remove the rear wheel to replace the tires. He did his qualifying laps on a pair of used tires, and Tiago used my CBR 600 RR to qualify, like I did. And once we did manage to remove the 748's rear wheel, it was so close to the start that, altough he was the one expected to start the race, I had to do it. And his front wheel was also a tough nut to break, so I was concerned that my bike would end up the only one fit enough to race that afternoon...and Tiago was already going to ride my bike after his 749 gave up on him...
So, with all this back luck, you think the race would be fine, right ? Wrong. This webmaster of yours, having done quite some endurance races already, and even after the usual practice start and 2 warm up laps, used the kill switch to turn off the engine for the starting line. And yes, it's and endurance style start, where we stand at the side of the track and run across it to the bike, jump on it, start it and go. But you can only start the bike if the kill switch is in the "ON" position !!! For the first time in my humble racing career, I must have looked soooo stupid. It took me the best of 3 seconds to figure it out, and by then ALL the other riders were heading towards the braking point for the first corner. Darn it was so embarassing, to goof up in front of everyone!!!
Nevertheless, I managed to recover up to 23rd (from 31 teams) by lap seven, and by then I was fighting off an Aprilia RSV 1000, which was fun since I was faster than him almost everywhere, but frustrating because he was passing me on the brakes on the main straight. I got tired of trying to push harder on the brakes so he wouldn't pass me, then passing him in some corner, and my 20 minutes of planned race time came to an end. Perfect race strategy advised for 45-50 minutes each rider, but we're getting old at this and the 3 of us were quite out of shape and not looking for any front places, so we had decided to make smaller 20 minute "sessions" each. The race was going to last 4 hours anyway...
We kept changing rider every 20-25 minutes, which caused us to lose some places, but we were having fun and hanging on to repectable laptimes that would place us in 3rd-4th in the 600 class. Everytime we changed to a rider which was on another bike (me and Tiago on my 600 RR and Miguel on his Ducati 748), we had to remove the transponder from the arriving bike, and place it on the exiting bike. One of those times Tiago went out and forgot to put the tranponder on the bike, so he did 10 laps without any of them counting for the end result. Yes, we lost lots of places there !!!
Even so, after 4 hours of racing, we finished the race without any fall or serious problem, just a lot of bad luck, and we managed to finish in the 25 th position, altough 25 laps down on the winner (10 or so of which were due to the transponder problem). We looked at the laptimes sheet, and we could have ended up in 15th if we hadn't had the problem like that, and maybe even better if we could make the 45-50 minute session. But we didn't, and we couldn't, so 25th it was . Still, I loved it, I missed it, and I hope that next year I'll takje my bike again to a race, maybe a Promocup race where almost stock bikes are allowed. And where races only last 30 minutes.
Also a big thanks to my team mates, a Edu and Mauricio for the help around the pits and to everyone who helped us and visited our pit with words of encouragement 
As always, Miguel "Kidhornet" Santos was there to take some great pics !!! Thanks Miguel !
