BGPR Pad Their Stats...

July 13th 2008

At the tail end of Stampede Week, and full of corn dogs, mini donuts, STDs and Coors Light, the racers of Team BGPR Schools made their girthy presence felt at Calgary’s picturesque southeast “soon to be a landfill” industrial park Race City Speedway, turning 143 race laps, scoring 82 points, and burning a billion gallons of fuel and oil in their clapped-out jalopy racebikes.

Number 17 Brad “UpOnOne” Gavey AKA “The Gavalanche” offended and frightened spectators, fellow racers, volunteers and race officials when he rudely and flagrantly “’popped a wheelie” on the back straight while riding as a marshall in Saturday’s novice race. Mothers covered their children’s eyes, old men wept, and young girls lost their innocence. Even though it was a crap wheelie, the trial at the CMRA Supreme Court was over quickly; the heart-wrenching eyewitness testimony was overwhelming and Brad was fined fifty dollars and placed on double secret probation. Fortunately, Brad was able to cope with the guilt, reconcile his debt to society and bring home a hard-fought 5th place finish in the Heavyweight Sportbike Expert race. With both wheels of his slow heavy Honda firmly planted on the cratered asphalt, Brad later challenged to a second place finish in the Senior Open race, narrowly losing to number 33 Tim Johnson, who now sits only 4 points behind Brad in the Geezer Championship. After a hearty cheeseburger lunch, Brad returned in the afternoon to ride 15 laps of close, intense racing to an 8th place finish in the Open Superbike race, turning some of his fastest laps of the year on the slow heavy Honda.

Number 15 “Marlborough Mitch” AKA “The Rat” Mitch Rathje had a consistently consistent weekend, setting his Yamaha on cruise control, and setting a veteran example for the rookies to look up to, even though he claims he’s not old enough to run the Senior Open. Mitch came in Mitchth place in the Heavyweight Sportbike Expert race, and repeated with a solid Mitchth in Calgary’s fastest race. Mitch currently ranks Mitchth in the Open Superbike championship. Marlborough Mitch briefly debated hanging up his helmet and retiring from the sport of roadracing, citing the old cowboy adage: “Always drink upstream from the herd”, and “It’s better to quit while you’re Mitchth.” But this sport needs Mitch, otherwise the rankings would go straight from 5th to 7th, and that wouldn’t make any sense.

Number 55 Jennifer “Fish” Salmon returned to Race City Obstacle Course and set to work rebuilding her confidence after Gaveying her shoulder in a round 1 crash. She was scheduled to have reconstructive surgery but they accidently rolled her gurney into the wrong OR and performed a breast augmentation instead. Her leather racing suit was a bit confining, and her shoulder still tender, but she didn’t seem to mind. Fish finished 13th on Saturday and repeated for 13th on Sunday the 13th. Don’t worry about it.

Mandy “Midge” McKay AKA “The Slingshot” once again won the drag race to corner 1 in both novice contests, hurtling her freshly-repainted CBR600RR off the grid with a mind-bending quickness. Midge went fast enough to splatter a couple of yellow birds down the side of her baby blue Honda, and splattered her previous best lap time by a full three seconds. Defending assaults from several challengers, Midge collected 9th and 10th place finishes, had a lot of fun and made major progress. If the Slingshot ever challenges you to race for pinks…. Don’t.

Number 82 Taylor “The Tan” King AKA “Prettyboy” couldn’t bear to have a sticker on his flawless motorcycle that said “SLOW” so he registered for the fast practice and proceeded to function as a handsome rolling pylon for several sessions before getting demoted to slow practice. He then added injury to insult when he punctured his radiator in the final Saturday session, and was forced to get his immaculately manicured hands dirty performing a transplant. On Sunday, Pretty Boy invited his family of English majors to captivate the BGPR paddock with a pseudo-intellectual conversation on the finer points of politics and modern art over a round of white wine bellinis. Thoroughly inspired, The Tan was the 9th fastest amateur in both the Heavyweight and Middleweight Sportbike classes, and rode to 10th place in the Middleweight Superbike race, setting a new personal fastest time and winning fifty bucks, which he spent on Hawaiian Tropic SPF 15.

Number 87 Chris “Skippy” Trickett, who is still not old enough to shave, was bleeding from his virgin ears at the graphic tasteless discussion of the sex lives of his depraved teammates taking place in the paddock. Still, he was mature enough to take back-to-back runner-up positions in some of the best novice racing action the fans will ever see. Skippy was determined to win the novice crown in round three, but didn’t count on getting stomped by Pete DeGraaf, an 86 year-old on his first sportbike. Still, Skippy’s fast, smooth novice racing won him a graduation to the amateur ranks, where he nursed his Yamaha R1, tinfoil heat shield and all, to a convincing 10th place finish in the Heavyweight Sportbike Amateur race.

And so it was another great weekend for the BGPR Schools racers, and once again we couldn’t have done it without a lot of help from our friends. We would like to extend our praise and gratitude to Parts Canada, Redline Motorsports, Coors Light, Pirelli, Angus, Hyper-Sloth, Hard-Nox, and all the volunteers that support our sport.

Take it to the Track and we’ll see you in Round 4!