Season ending 2000 .

Thanks to all that have sponsored us this season. If anyone has ever tried to achieve a goal most have found that it is much better to have the support of friends. During our first full season of racing we made many friends. As a person with previous experience at the track I knew what to expect. Those of you who know me at the track have seen my traveling companion. These fine people are Heather and Tanner Holloway. Heather and Tanner had never been exposed to these situations. You know high money loss, very little sleep, and crappy hotels. Not to mention my mood swinging high and low. I am happy to say that Heather and I are ENGAGED! With all that the two of them had went through this season and they still wanted me around, you just don't let that get away. Not all of there track happiness is do to me though. All of the people that we have met at the track and in our travels are what have added to there happiness in racing.

Our year ended well and we hope our next season will go well also. Now I would like to thank all of the people we helped for letting us do so. A special thanks to all that helped put us on the track.

Thanks.

The Plastic Dr.-    Mark Vanhoff

Dalton Creative Machine-  Dr. Bob Nuels

Suzuki Yamaha of Dalton-   Greg, Vicki, and the entire SYD gang.

Advanced Wellness & Physical Therapy Centers-   Dr. T.  

 Lockhart Phillips USA-   Morgan Broadhead

Stay tuned to news of the southeast and prep for our 2001 season.

Updates from Roebling Road in the month of August. 

Friday 8-11-00 Practice Day. Our day starts with the pit setup. We get this knocked out and prep the bikes for practice. This is an ED Bargy practice and is well worth the money for the amount of track time you get. Davy and I will use this day to get some setup time before the race weekend.     

Saturday 8-12-00 Race day!  Here we are again race fans! Who would have thought that you would be here reading about our team. I would because I know you love racing and that is what we are all about! Ok our day starts out and I (rick) get to be in first practice. It is a little foggy out so few bikes are going out. It turns out I am the only bike to go out in first practice! First bike out on race day. Our practice sessions go well and we learn a little more. Our friends Davy Chastain and Brent Baubach will get to practice and race together all weekend. Practice will go well for both and they will work on their on track friendship. 

As you know the Saturday races are reserved for solo20 races. These are our long races and here are how they turned out.

Green Flag! Ok lets start with my middle weight solo race. Yeah so this race is a gimmie. There are only 2 experts in this race, me and Keith Hoogstad. Thats ok anybody can move up, it is your own choice if you don't want to! Any way it was a long 20 lap race. We started out pretty quick, Keith is very fast and I am only getting faster. Our first lap was in the low 18's and Keith wasn't letting up. That's ok I will only learn. On our third lap a red flag  was thrown due to a rider on the racing line. We go into the pits and wait for our call to come back out. About 15 minutes later we re-grid for a full re-start. Same as the first start and Keith is taking off again. No red flag and we carry on to finish 2nd out of 2. Davy is up next in the light weight solo 20. 

Green Flag! Go Davy! So most of you will know Davy doesn't have much time on his bike and is still coming to terms with the beast. You should also know that Davy has only ridden the bike seven times total this year. Here is how his race went. Starting from the third row makes for a long tough race, that is ok because it will drive the man to race hard. Race hard he does by the half way mark Davy is in the top ten of the nearly thirty rider field! With less than ten laps to go Davy is blazing to the front. The checkered flag will fly and Davy brings home a 6th place! After our 20 laps both Davy and the rest of our team is ready to go. We are hot tired and ready for the pool. See you 2-morrow.

Sunday 8-13-00 Race day! Are you ready? Lets roll . This is the day for the serious sprints. Davy and Brent will be racing in Light Weight Superbike and Formula 2 and I will be racing in Middle Weight Superstock/ Superbike, Heavy Weight Superbike. 

Lets start with the Light Weights. Davy and Brent will square off in Light Weight Superbike. The Green Flag flies and they are off. For 8 laps Davy and Brent will swap brake markers to see who will win the position. Forget first place these two guys will race each other the entire 8 laps! After it is all said and done Brent will finish third and Davy fourth. People they were on top of each others tires the whole race. They both have one more race together, Formula 2. These guys just can't get enough of each other. Both of them have poor starting positions, that is ok some how they seemed to have found each other just fine. This race is looking like a re-play of the first! 8 laps who is the winner of the fight! Davy third, Brent fourth. Way to go guys! On to the R6.

Our first race is Middle Weight Superbike. Here we are again with a small grid. This race will have yours truly and Brad Duncan. No problem. Brad and I will start side by side. Brad is a very good rider and I believe I am too. Our race will be pretty uneventful. Brad is riding well and we can't seem to match his pace and finish about half a second back at the line. Our second race is Middle Weight Superstock. We changed our setup a little bit to get more traction. This seemed to work right off the start. Brad and I are going pretty good and run in the 17's(1.17 seconds per lap). On our second lap of the race I made a mistake going into turn 1 a gear high. This let Brad get a better drive out of turn 2. In the remaining 6 laps I was able to close on brad but I wasn't able to get all the way there. Brad got the win by about 50 yards. Bummer but we improved our set up for the final race.

Last race Heavy Weight Superbike.

Here we go this is the big one. This race will put me against two other experts, both on 2000 GSXR 750's. Yes you read that right. Yes we will race our 600 with them. No the numbers don't add up, I already know. Green Flag! We won! 8 laps and no contest, we got the hole shot and we won with a big lead over the other experts and the whole novice field. For the first time in my racing history I have won a race. This would be on my 11th ever race weekend. The bike was very good and the support from family and friends was outstanding. Thanks to every one Mom, Heather, Tanner, Davy, DJ, Lisa. Thanks to Bob of Dalton Creative Machine, Dr. T. of Advanced Wellness & Physical Therapy Center, Greg and the whole gang at Suzuki Yamaha of  Dalton and finally to Mark The Plastic Dr. See you at Talladega 8-27/27.

Updates from South Carolina in the month of July. 

Friday 7-21-00 Welcome back to South Carolina. Today we are attending an open practice before our race weekend. Open practices are good to help set your bike up and to help get acquainted with the track. Though this track isn't a new one to us , to our friend Davy Chastain it is, kind of. The last time we were here Davy suffered a crash due to a glazed front tire (hardened). What made this even worse the speedy Chastain broke his right foot. Our return trip started today with the practice. Davy and I would ride in the same group. We are doing this to help each other out and we would get to ride together for the first time in over five years!

 Since I corner worked half a day Davy and I will start practice after lunch. We get things under way and Davy is getting to know his new tires. Our first of 5 track sessions goes very smoothly. Few changes are made to our bike though we start making changes to Davy's bike to improve the handling. By the end of the day we both have gained valuable track knowledge and are ready to start racing on Saturday.

Saturday 7-22-00 Race day After a good night in the pool and a good nights rest we are ready to race. We arrive at the track with out superb Hardee's biscuits and are ready to race. Morning practice went very well for both of us. I will race Middle weight superstock(C), Middleweight superbike(C) and Heavyweight superbike. Davy will race Lightweight superbike and Formula 2 on this day. 

Our first race is "C" superstock. We start this race on the front row inside. This wouldn't be so bad if we didn't have the threat of getting our front end pinched off going into the left hand turn one. Regardless we get a good start and don't go down while fighting through turn one. After a fairly smooth race we finish in 4th position.          Mr. Chastain's first race would be lightweight superbike. For Davy this will be the first time he has actually pushed hard on the bike since his crash here over a month ago. Davy will start this race from the back of the grid. Not a good place to start from when you need to be up front. Regardless Davy is more than ready for the challenge. After 6 laps "speedy" will pas many bikes to finish in 5th place. Quite an achievement from the back of the grid.          Our next race is "C" superbike. We will start this race from the second row. Getting a little more comfortable with the track we hope to improve on our previous race finish. Green flag fly's and the battle into turn one is on. This race seems to be more exciting. Must be all the thunder and lightning that is going on while we are racing. Yes it is true, not only do we get to race as fast as we can we get to dodge the lightning to! The race went smoothly regardless and we were actually making some good moves on a few guy's. WERA would throw the red flag out on the 4th lap and call that a race. At that time we would finish in third place.       Davy's next race would be Formula 2. This race "speedy Chastain" will start from the back of the grid again. Yeah you would still think this is bad but this time Davy knows the track even better and his bike is ready to eat ! After an exciting 6 laps Chastain would pass many bikes and finish in 2nd position! Not bad for a guy racing his fifth ever race weekend with a broken foot, you go Davy!      Our last race of the day is Heavyweight superbike. This race will be ran in wet conditions. The rain has came and is hanging around a bit. We make some adjustments to our bike for the wet conditions. This will only be the second time we have ridden our R6 in the rain. Here we go ! Off the front row we slide through every turn until the third lap when the track starts to dry. By this time I have told myself to take it easy and not fall off. With the track drying the softer suspension isn't working very well for the control factor. At any rate we will finish in 4th position. Our weekend comes to a close with no crashes and no injuries, it is a success. Davy gets his first trophy, and we learn where more speed is. Thanks to all of our sponsors who got us here. Our next race will be at Roebling Road Raceway, 8/12th&13th. Look for us if you are in the area, RIDE!

7-12-00 in the pm.

Sitting in a much slower seat I bring you news from Road Atlanta.

I am happy to inform you that we survived a new track without any mishaps. We started our weekend on Saturday July the 8th. Sit back and hold on as we take you on our bike around Road A.

Saturday July 8th. Davy, DJ Chastain and I (Rick) start out for Road A  at 5:30am. We are well on our way and realize we forgot the trailer! Damn! Just kidding we had the trailer. Anyway we get to the track a little after 7am. Since we have pre entered we don't have to worry about the long lines for entry. The bike is teched , rider and crew are jazzed and ready. In the many years that I have been coming to Road Atlanta I have never rolled a motorcycle tire on it. Believe me it was well worth the effort. I have been riding bikes (street) since 1991. In this time I have never ridden any road near this exciting. This course has 12 turns and is filled with many elevation changes along with blind up and down hill turns. Did I mention the heat (hey Steve)? How about the top speed right hand kink? Scary stuff. Practice-First practice Saturday morning. We go out on our bike and soon find out that we don't want to push too fast too soon. After a few laps we came in before the end of our session to make some suspension adjustments. Practice ends for the morning and we wait for our middlewieght solo 16 lap race. Racing begins later in the day and we quickly find that this track is way cool,fast,high-low you name it it has it. Scared will let you how I felt while racing this day. Though scared we made our race without crashing and we learned a little more of the track, on to Sunday.

Sunday July 8th. First I would like to say thanks to everyone for coming out to watch our team. You really know you have friends when they come out and pay to watch you ride around a track. Thanks Beverly,Nicole,Mark,Holly,Issac,Tim,Cody,Ashley, and Haley. Special thanks to our sponsors that came out this weekend, Mark Vanhoff-The Plastic Dr., and Michael Tomasello- Advanced Wellness & Physical Therapy Center. Next to  last but not least thanks to Davy and DJ Chastain for all of there help setting up the bike. Finally thaks to Heather and Tanner for coming out ,I Love You both.

Lets get it on, Sunday racing. Practice went well. We are still improving our setup and finding our way around the track. Our first race is C superstock. We start the race on  the third row with 13 other bikes. Green and we are gone! Not a bad start we are in 10th position until the 4th lap. A nice mistake on my part puts me in 13th position. By the end of the race this is where we finish. Our second race of the day is C superbike. We start this race on the front row. The race went well and I was getting more comfortable with the layout of the track. 6 laps later we finish in 8th position. Not bad considering we have never been here before. Our last race of the day is B superbike. Here we go against the 750's. With our second row start we set out to do better than we have all day. Between races we have been trying to improve our race setup. Since the beginning of our weekend we have made seven adjustments on the bike. Each time we have made a good difference on the way the bike handles. For the last race of the day  the bike is starting to feel real good. With our second row start we ride smoothly to 10th place in the race. Though we weren't on the pace with the fast of the fast. We did learn the track and we didn't crash. Off the pace, yes. Could we get more? Definitely. I ride to ride again at each and every track, staying up on two wheels is the way to go. Thanks everyone for checking up on Passion Racing.  We will be at Carolina Motorsports Park, July 21st and 22nd. If you come out look out for the all white #717 Yamaha R6. See you at the track, Rick Hulsey.            

6-30-2000 in the pm.

Welcome back! Fresh news from Carolina Motorsports Park.       

The good news is that we didn't crash at a new track. Technical and fast will describe this track to a "T". 2.4 miles and 14 turns, lots of hard braking and fast slow turn combinations. Over all a very neat track. Here are the results.

 Saturday 6/24/00 started out with two rounds of practice for me and my endurance partner, Steve Baxter. Since we had half a day each from the previous days practice the bike was fairly well set up but it could still be improved. Practice went well and we bettered our setup just a bit. Lunch time rolls around and we are waiting for our race which is the last of the day at 4:00pm. Democratically Steve and I flip a coin to decide who will start and finish the race. Heads I lose and Steve has to start while I have to finish the now one hour race. Race starts and Steve is off and in second place when he comes around for the first lap. Not a very eventful race so far, Steve looks to have the better of the rider in front of him. To soon to call it a race, on the fourth lap around we watch as our bike coasts to a stop in turn 13,a 1/4 mile away. Damn! A little talking to the officials and the let us go after the bike and take Steve a water. We get the bike in the pits and find that the battery is dead. A quick scramble through the pits and we find a loaner battery to finish the race. After 19 minutes we are about nine laps down and ar

 Sunday 6-25-00,time to sprint race. Our first race of the day is middle weight superstock(600cc). The race starts out with eleven bikes in the field and by the end there would only be seven. Four bikes would crash and we would survive to finish in sixth position. Learning more about the track along the way and not falling off pays big dividends. Our second race of the day would be middle weight superbike(600cc modified). With only four bikes in the field, due to the first race crashing, we know we will get a good finish. At the end of this race we finish in third. Good  finish and more track knowledge. Our third and final race of the day is heavyweight superbike(750cc modified). Maybe just a little bit scared of racing against the big bikes, not a lot though. Off the start we are in seventh place. After 6 laps we will finish there. Though we weren't a factor in this race in due time we will be. Our last race of the day we would run our fastest laps all weekend. Attending this new track we have learned a lot. Racing is more than just riding fast around a track with a bunch of other men/women. With help from fellow racer Steve Baxter we are learning more about setting up our bike to handle. This with track time is what will give you competitive success  at the race track. Our bike is still mostly stock and can only get better, I hope to do the same. 

Thanks for keeping up with Passion Racing 

Our next event will be at Road Atlanta in Braselton, Ga. July 8/9th. If your at the track Look for the all white #717 Yamaha R6. See you at the track, Rick Hulsey      

 6-16-2000 in the pm.

Thank you for visiting with us!

Flash top five all weekend! Yes it is true. Passion racing raced the weekend of the 10th and the 11th at Roebling Road Raceway in Sav., Ga . 

Our 20 lap Saturday race started out great. We get the jump on the rest of the field and lead until turn four. Yeah this is when you try your best to hold on. For three hard laps I tried to run the leaders pace. Trying my best to keep up we just couldn't do it. We just couldn't match the leaders pace going in and coming out of the corners. With only five racers in this race. We rode around the remainder of the race and raced the track. Yes the fifth place was a gimmie but we did get valuable track miles and we didn't fall off!

Sunday 6-11-00

  Sunday starts out with two rounds of practice before lunch and then racing. First practice we go out to make some laps and learn more. No problem we can do that. Second round we go out and do it again. Done. One problem our new rear tire we bought for the 20 lap Saturday race has now been burnt up with just 30 laps on it! No problem go and see the tire man. Problem tire man says he doesn't have a tire for us, he has run out. Our only option is to buy another brand of tire. With many questions asking around the paddock we decide to go with Dunlop. With no practice left we will have to get used to the tires during our races on this day. We hope it will go ok.

Our first race of the day is 600 Superstock. We start on the second row of the grid in 4th out of 5 positions. Our start is off good. We go into the first turn in 5th place. The new tires are going pretty good and I am gaining confidence. Racing for eight laps I finish in 4th place. I am happy with that considering we have new tires to get accustomed to. We drop one second on our lap times.

Our second race of the day is 600 Superbike. On the grid we get a little better starting position. We are starting on the front row of the grid in 3rd position out of 5 racers again. Our start goes good and we go into the first turn in 4th position. racing around for 8 laps we stay in 4th place and drop two seconds on our lap times. (tires must be working)

Our third and final race of the day is B Superbike(750cc). On the grid we start out on the second row in 5th position. On our start it goes ok except that we are in last place. No problem though because I am gaining more confidence in our tires and we go better than we have all day. After it is all said and done we come out in 3rd place against the 750's on our 600. We drop one more second off of our lap times. All in all we have a good weekend. Coming away with the bike and myself in one piece we have saved some money. Hopefully we can continue to improve and keep finishing in the top three even when their are more racers in attendance.

Our next race will be in Kershaw, Sc. on the weekend of 6\23-25th. On this weekend we will attend an open practice Friday the 23rd. Saturday the 24th we will have our first endurance race. Partnering with my long time friend and fellow racer, Steve Baxter. Steve and I will race in the first of the WERA 2 hour regional endurance races. On Sunday the 25th I will race three classes again 600 superstock, 600 superbike and 750 superbike.

Thanks for keeping up with Passion Racing. See you at the races,

Rick Hulsey

Thank you for visiting with us!

Please feel free to look around and take part in our brand new website. Sign our quest book or post in the forum.

We should have our pictures in our gallery in the next few days.

Thanks again

Passion Racing

e well out of the race win. For the track time we get back out and Rick finishes the race dead last with several laps down. We got some track time anyway and we didn't crash. Time for dinner then some rest before Sunday.

This Archive section is where we would store old news and stories. So if you don't see a report in the news, look here for it!

  Early retirement from 2000

From the month of  may we have surprising news. Riders Eric Bowman and Ken Stafford have decided to call it a season. Both riders felt if they had continued the season racing that they would damaged the potential for the 2001 racing year. With this in mind both Ken and Eric will hold racing off for 2000 to become better prepared for the 2001 season. Eric and Ken are still involved at the track by helping out fellow racers and giving me an extra hard time. Look for Ken and Eric and let them know what they are missing.