Page Title

Press Release:

Sipp has an up and down weekend at VIR!

Alton, VA – Blue Springs Harley-Davidson rider Walt Sipp finished 6th
at round five of the Formula USA Thunderbike Championship, held at
picturesque Virginia International Raceway. After missing the first round
of practice Friday due to a late arrival at the track, Sipp worked quickly
to get on pace. He used the CCS Thunderbike race as a tune-up
finishing a respectable 4th place. Saturday practice was even better
with him further quickening his lap times; although it wasn’t without
incident. “Yeah I was coming out of turn two and just got on the gas a
little too hard. The rear spun up and almost high-sided me. I saved it,
but I came down on the windscreen shattering it with my chest. From
what I hear, the guys behind me got a pretty good show!” Qualifying
looked to be even better with the shiny new slicks mounted. However, it
was not to be. On the third lap of qualifying a rear brake issue caused
the rear end to lock up and come around almost high-siding him again!
This time though he was not as lucky as he found his way in to the
grass and crashed. All wasn’t lost though, as the one lap Walt did do
was good enough for 8th on the grid with a 1:37.260. “I was pretty
disappointed with not being able to run more laps in qualifying; I was
just getting warmed up. With as effortless as the low 1:37 felt, I’m sure I
could have run 1:36 flat,” said Sipp.

After two hot, but beautiful days, things changed dramatically Sunday.
The rain came and soaked the track along with much cooler
temperatures. So with the damage from Saturday fixed, Walt began
then to prepare the bike for a wet race. Walt said, “I wouldn’t call myself
wet weather specialist, but the rain doesn’t bother me. I think that’s a
big part of it, you know keeping a positive attitude.” With full rains
mounted he took off for the sighting laps; only one problem though, the
rain had stopped and the sun started coming through and drying the
track. With no time to change to a different tire, he was forced to start
on the super soft rain tires. After getting held up a little bit on the start
behind a rider with DOT’s on and falling back to eleventh, he slowly
started making his way back to the front. “When the track was still
pretty damp I felt good, but as the race wore on and the track got more
and more dry I started to get worried about my tires. I caught and
passed as many people as I could, but on the last few laps I backed my
pace down trying to make sure my rains would last till the end. After the
race was over the new Dunlop rains still looked good. I probably could
have pushed even harder and caught at least one more person,” said
Walt. As it turned out he made his way up to 6th at the end. Not what
he was looking for, but it’s something to build on after the tough luck so
far this season.

Look for Walt and the Blue Springs crew to be back fighting for a
podium at the next round August 12-14 at Barber Motorsports Park.
Find out more at www.waltsipp.com.

Walt Sipp is supported by: Blue Springs Harley-Davidson, LaserCycle,
Inc., FuntasticLLC.com, Lockhart Phillips, Sprocket Specialists, KBC
Helmets, EBC, Sidi and Dunlop.