CCS ROUND TWO

The second round of CCS Road Racing South West kicked off February 17-18 and turned out to be a great weekend of racing for some and a week of repairs for others. There was a new track record set by young Ivan Garza while amateur racer Mike Adams tested the fence at the end of the straight away, it’s the only bile in the photos that is vertical against the fence. One of the attractions of the race weekend was the vintage class; this class brought racers from all over the states and proved to be just as competitive and damaging as the more modern late model race bikes.
One class I would like to point out is the Super Motard Class, this is the class where you will see production dirt bikes, with street tires and other modifications, railing around the track and at time dragging a knee and passing the normal looking Road Race motorcycle. The fast guys in the class that cause some of the other racers to pull their hair out are Matt Hitchon #525 on a KTM 450, Shawn Heath #427 on a KTM 560 and Jamie Bubeck #13 on a Honda 450. To paint you a vivid picture, imagine you an amateur racer on a typical road race bike, your doing great in the race, your feelin’ like your on a rail as you pass a couple of fellow competitors. Then you hear a slight sound of a four stroke dirt bike, the next thing you see is either a bright orange KTM of Hitchon or Heath ripping past you or you hear nothing at all and see a flash of red and notice it’s Bubeck on his Honda passing you like your on an electric scooter.

Class and bike recognition
This section is for those that are new to Road Racing and I want to take a minute to give you a basic overview of the different Racing Classes. There are two different levels of racers in the Road Race South West series, Amateur Racers and Expert Racers. The amateur racers are the least experienced of the bunch and display a yellow number plate, the expert racers are the more experienced and some compete at the national level of AMA Road Racing, these motorcycles display the white number plate. The classes are broken up into obviously an amateur or expert class as well as heavy weight, middle weight and light weight, which refer to the displacement of the motorcycle. A Heavy Weight motorcycle is anything over 750 cc, A Middle Weight motorcycle is anything from 600-750cc, the Light Weight motorcycles are anything up to 600cc’s which includes what are referred to “GP” bike’s. These motorcycles have two stroke motors and are much more temper mental to tune and take a bit more courage and knowledge to ride. In the United Sates, the popular versions of these motorcycles are the Yamaha TZ 125 & 250 and the Honda RS 125 & 250. Included in the above mentioned classes are the Vintage bikes, which is any motorcycle that was built before 1974. This is basic information to help you at the next road Racing South West event which is going to be March 24-24 and it is a USGPRU round of racing. This is a great event to attend, there will be quite a few of the two stroke motorcycles and a great field of racing.

Moving on to the racing

The first race of the weekend was the 125 GP race, which was won by arguably one of the fastest women in Arizona Kim Brauneis. Yes guys, girls are racers too and this particular girl is a fast EXPERT that will not hesitate to go around you on the outside or stuff you in the middle of a turn! You heard me right, she has a white number plate and is winning race’s in her class, if you don’t believe me, get a bike a show up at a track day and I’ll put my money on Kim with photos to prove I won!

The 125 GP race results..
1st  Kim Brauneis   Yamaha 125
2nd Mike Mcdonough  Honda 125
3rd  Rick Moreau  Yamaha 125
4th  Brian Heess  unknown 125

In the first all amateur race of the day, Middleweight Grand Prix, Trevor Van Horn Jr. took the win on his Honda 600 just barely ahead of Matthew Heppler on his Yamaha 600, first place was deceided by less than .200 of a second. Third place Miguel Pacheco on his Honda 600 came across the line almost a second later.

Amateur Unlimited SuperBike
1st  James Joyce   Suzuki 750
2nd Jon Naumann  Suzuki 1000
3rd  Gary King   Yamaha 1000
4th  Allan Jaffray  Suzuki 750

One of the fun race’s of the day for spectator’s is the Formula 40 race, to enter this race you must be over 40 years old. This means weaker bones, worse eyesight than when they were 20 and the bright side of it all, they are closer to retirement! All jokes aside, these guys may be over 40 but they are still fast and know how to control a very fast motorcycle.
The race results for FORMULA 40 are as follows:

1st  Tom Savoca   Honda 1000
2nd  Kris Gilbert   Suzuki 1000
3rd Gary King   Yamaha 1000
4th  Scott Lado  Suzuki 750
5th  Joel Dennis   Suzuki 650
6th  Steve Aycock   Honda 998

Race results for LIGHTWEIGHT FORMULA 40:

1st Thomas Boge   Suzuki 650
2nd  Mike McDonough  Honda 125
3rd  Mark Kochman  Suzuki  650
4th  Kenneth Murray unknown
5th  Kim Brauneis  Yamaha 125
6th  Rick Moreau  Yamaha 125
7th  Ed Jones   Kawasaki 500
8th  Dave Ramsey   Suzuki  650

Now we move on down the field and up in cc’s to the expert hot rod’s and the racer’s that make the asphalt scream for mercy. The young gun Ivan Garza set a new track record of 57.5 in the Unlimited Superbike Class. Ivan is possibly one of the most polite and classy young men you could ever talk to and an absolute terror on the race track! When I spoke to Ivan after the race he wanted to give a huge thanks to E.S.P., DUNLOP-JIM COX RACING, GPR STABILISERS, LEO VINCI EXHAUST and says, “I couldn’t of done it with out all of them”! Something to keep in mind, Ivan Garza is racing with, against and sometimes winning  over top privateer fast guys and AMA racers like Mark Ledesma, Chad Rolland, Davie Stone, Kris Gilbert, to name a few. These guys are fast, very fast, they are the talk of the paddock at every race and they look over their shoulder at every race to see who is and who isn’t at the track. To put it all in perspective, the top five racers lap times are all under 1:00 and as fast as Garza’s 57.5, on machine’s that have over 200 hp, the rest of the field as far as classes go, are running lap time’s of 1:03 and slower. As I mentioned these are the fast guys in the paddock and they do straddle a, “Go Fast Hot Rod”!

EXPERT UNLIMITED SUPERBIKE:

1st  M. Ivan Garza   Suzuki 1000
2nd  Mark Ledesma  Honda 1000
3rd  Chad Rolland   Suzuki 1000
4th  Davie Stone   Suzuki 1000
5th  Tom Savoca   Honda 1000

The Expert Unlimited GP race started out with Garza in the lead, startling the likes of Ledesma and Shreve, looking like another win for Garza. The consistency of Mark Ledesma and a bad tire choice for Garza almost literally handed the win to Ledesma as Shreve wanted to spoil Ledesma’s podium spot and literally pounded on Ledesma’s back door for the remainder of the race.  Knowing Ledesma and watching him race as long as I have, he is a very cool calm customer when he has his leathers and helmet on. In conversations with other racers, I refer to Ledesma as the “Stalker”, it’s fitting because he won’t go away and when the moment is right, he attack’s and moves on for the win! (Mark, I mean all of this in a very good and positive way, so don’t rum me over in the pits!!)

EXPERT UNLIMITED GP:

1st  Mark Ledesma  Honda 1000
2nd  Mike Shreve  Yamaha 600
3rd  M. Ivan Garza  Suzuki 1000
4th  Chad Rolland   Suzuki 1000
5th  Dale Kieffer   Suzuki 750

In closing I would like to give another HUGE THANK YOU, to Mr. JACK FROST AND THE ENTIRE ROAD RACE SOUTH WEST CREW , and a SPECIAL THANK YOU to “CARTER” Stephen Epps the event announcer that kept wickedmag.com and Extreme Motorsports in the ear of all the spectators and fans. I also want to thank Brian Gray and the publisher’s, editor’s and staff at Wickemag.com that make all of this possible!! Thank You all again and we’ll see YOU in the paddock!

PHOTOGRAPHY AND STORY BY MICHAEL HOUP OF WWW.HOUPPHOTGRAPHY.COM