I've always heard that the roadracing community is more like a family. I'm here to tell you it's better than that!
We just returned from the 2012 WERA GNF at Barber Motorsports Park and I'm still amazed at what happened while we were there. My son, Eric Williams, had a pretty bad get-off in practice Thursday afternoon. I couldn't find him for a while after the crash, which is a tense situation for a parent. He finally showed up in the crash truck with what I kind of recognized as our race bike. It was in lots of pieces, some of which were missing. What wasn't broken or missing was bent, and what wasn't broken, missing or bent was leaking. Bryan Altmeyer and Keith Hertell dropped what they were doing and unloaded the bike while I checked on Eric and tried to find out what had happened. I talked to Eric for maybe two minutes in the trailer and when we came out I couldn't even see the bike. It was totally surrounded by people and tools. Bryan and Keith were hard at work as was John Hutchinson, Brandon Spradling, Steve McNamara and Jesse Davis. Brandon Altmeyer took the wheels to have the dirt and grass removed, checked for straightness, and the tires remounted. MacMan made an inventory of needed parts (which continued to grow as the work progressed) and took off to find parts. Hutch took care of the bent bars and controls. Brandon offered "anything at all" from his trailer. Keith and Bryan kept removing bad parts and removing debris. Jesse Davis was right in the middle of things and would remain there with MacMan through the evening and giving up his own practice time to get us back on the track.
DJ Ricks asked Eric and myself to come with him to his pit. When we got there Mike Sweeney was waiting for us and offered us his SV with a newly rebuilt motor and fresh suspension. We were totally blown away. These guys are awesome!
All of the effort would have been in vain if the TOBC team had not come by to ask us what we needed. They brought us parts.......lots of parts. Darrell Emerson and Russell Masecar went above and beyond to help us out and even offered us a bike to ride if we couldn't get ours repaired. Some of you might remember the TOBC guys from the first CMRA round this season. They came all the way from Maryland to see what the CMRA was all about and said they had a great time and really enjoyed the hospitality they were shown. I hope they make more CMRA rounds next year. They have a facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/tobc.racing?fref=ts
Jesse Davis sent us to the hotel ( I hadn't slept in over 40 hours by that point) to get some rest and he worked late into the night to get the bike finished. We showed up the next morning and had a running bike with a fresh tech sticker. Eric took it out for a few practice laps and we looked it over for leaks or any other problems. There weren't any.
When I saw the bike roll up on the crash truck I figured I'd just load it up, watch races and drink beer. I never thought Eric would get to ride it. Thanks to everyone I mentioned and probably a few people I didn't even see, Eric managed to get to the podium at a WERA National in his first expert season. Eric, his mom Liz, and myself would like to thank all of you from the bottom of our hearts. This really is a family!
I have officially adopted Jesse so if anyone ever has an issue with him at the track just come looking for me before you mess with my kid. I'm easy to find.
Also, congratulations to the CMRA riders who won titles and made the podium at the GNF. Lots of hard luck this year, but lots of success too. I don't want to get specific until I can review the results because I don't want to leave anyone out. WERA should have their results posted soon and I'll post up the CMRA racers finishes unless someone beats me to it.
