RGN Round 5 –
Drag Race by Trevor Sadler

Last Thursday the RGN Drag Race, held at the Great Lakes Dragaway, was my first ever RGN event, and also marked my first time setting foot on a drag strip with anything motorized. What a blast.

I have known about RGN for a couple of years now… mostly by just hanging out in the local moto scene and getting to know RGN luminaries Juan, Wes, and Ronnie, amongst others. Juan, the ever so persuasive recruiter has always tried in the past to get me out to RGN events, but you see, I have this allergy to dirt… actually that’s not it – the limited amount of dirt riding I’ve done has been a TON of fun, but it’s something I just haven’t had enough time for.

Most of my leisure moto time is taken up with being a track coach for Sportbike Track Time, and alas, I just haven’t had the time to do the RGN events. But drag racing, that I could do! It’s simple, right? My dedicated track bike is a Suzuki GSXR 1000… it’s not exactly the ideal drag bike, but what the hell, this is just all for fun anyway, so I wasn’t too worried about it.
My biggest concern was my launching off the line, something I typically suck at and have little need to do in the course of a trackday (where there are no “hard” starts – just everyone easing out of the pits at their own pace and comfort level). As the date neared, my thoughts and worries of looping the short-wheelbase, 165hp gixxer off the line grew. I wasn’t so concerned about hurting myself, but the embarrassment!

My worries were eased when I picked up Juan and the Chickenhawk at his house and we turned my truck south on I-94: there were practice runs, as many as we wanted and had time for, and since we were arriving early, I’d probably get as many as I needed. Since this was my first time, I was a little un-familiar with the process of setting a “dial- in” time, but after a few spirited practice runs I settled on a dial- in of 7.5 seconds for the 1/8th mile. It seemed most of my runs were in the high 7 second range, so this made sense to me.

Upon returning to the RGN van I went to see who I was going to be up against in the first round – it was Wes. Great. Here I am, a first timer, going up against someone with a proper drag bike and who has done this, well, a lot more than me. When it was finally time to line up across from Wes, my heart was pounding – I didn’t expect to win, but I had to at least make a good showing. As I hit the staging lights I got set and raised the revs of the gixxer…. and as the last yellow was fading I nailed it. I actually got a pretty solid start and made a good run down, barely beating Wes to the line…. but there was no light? Huh? What happened? As it turned out, SOMEBODY had stepped on the timing lights, messing up the timing, so we had to re-run.

Coming back to the line I was feeling more confident, but I got a lousy start and saw Wes leap ahead of me. In 2nd gear I gassed the gixxer hard enough to carry the front wheel about a foot in the air most of the way down the 8th mile, using the gixxer’s massive horsepower to get back ahead. I thought it was a good run… until I saw the light go off in Wes’ lane…. I broke out. In my adrenaline crazed fury of wanting to beat Wes I managed a 7.1, beating my dial-in time of 7.5.

Fortunately my night wasn’t done, I was now racing in the “B” class for the consolidation prize, and to top it off, my first run was a “buy” run since the number of competitors was un-even. Awesome… as far as I was concerned it was one more practice run I could take. The first thing I did was find Leah to change my dial-in time down to 7.0 seconds, worried that as I was getting better I would once again blow my dial-in if left at 7.5 seconds. I ran by myself in the “buy” run, posting a 7.1 with a solid launch of the gixxer off the line, and enough gas to keep the front wheel in the air most of the way down the 1/8 mile.

I was feeling good about where I was at in relation to my dial-in time, and after pitting the bike wandered over to the RGN van to see who I would be up against in the next round. As I gazed at the board I had a laugh – I’d be going up against the one and only Ronny Z in the next round. In the past year or so I had gotten to know Ron well, and I really like the guy – but Ron would always talk about how fast he is – I knew if I let him beat me I’d never hear the end of it. I had to focus: Must. Beat. Ron.

After a brief rest and a drink of water time was nearing for the next round of eliminations. I donned my helmet and gloves and fired the bike up – the gixxer quickly settled into it’s angry growl of an idle and I moved the bike around into the staging line. Since this was now the 3rd round of eliminations we were moving through things pretty quickly as we has less competitors. As I waited in the staging line I concentrated and visualized myself coming off the line – rev’ing the gixxer to about 9 grand and feathering the clutch out perfectly as the last yellow light went off.

I was so into “the zone” that I barely noticed that Ron was nowhere to be found! I put my head up, looking all around for him as we were now the next bikes to be staged at the starting line. I tried stalling for a few precious seconds (hey, I really wanted to race Ron and beat him fair and square) but he was not in sight. The starter was now motioning for me to get up on the line for about the 5th time, and I obliged, taking an easy run down the 1/8th by myself, slightly sad that I had not had my chance to hand Mr. Zastrow his ass in a straight up drag race.

My next run against Anthony was a good race – I barely edged him out for the win, and so here I found myself in the final elimination round for the “B” title! Even though this was just for fun, and just for the consolidation prize, I still found myself a bit nervous approaching the line. Since we were down to the last couple elimination rounds I had no time to regroup after my win against Anthony. After coming back up the return road it was straight around, back to the line for the final run. I nosed the big gixxer up to the line, hit the second staging light and rev’d the bike to 9000 rpm.

As the lights started falling on the tree I got ready and let out the clutch on the last yellow. I bogged the bike off the line a bit and instantly thought “crap, I’m beat”, but just as that thought passed through my head I saw the red light in his lane! Nice! At this point I was ready to take a win any way I could get it, so this was fine with me! I took an easy pass down the 1/8th mile for the win and then road the bike back to the trailer. All in all, an AWEOSME night. It was my first RGN event, but I’m sure it will not be my last. Thank you to Juan for encouraging me to come out – it was good to see some familiar faces and meet some new ones.

A super fun night for sure!

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