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Cobra, Viper, Boa, and of course, The Rattler
In
the late 1980's Dave's brother, Mike, and some of his friends were
into talking on C.B. radios. All of their call signs were
snake names and Mike was The Rattler.
As the novelty of C.B. radios wore
off the next move was to computers. This is where Mike and one
of his friends started Rattler's Rock BBS (bulletin board service).
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Rattler's Rock On-Line Service
Next was a go at the online world
and the new WWW (World Wide Web)
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Rattler's Rock Racing is born
At last racing begins. The
year is 1999 and Dave gets his YSR50 prepped for racing. Pat's
on his GSXR and they made a few races during the year. Not much
to show for it but, hey, they were just getting started.
Year number two, 2000, saw Dave
working on his racing on the YSR track at Prairie City SVRA.
Pat just couldn't sit on the sidelines watching the small bikes and
decided he must have a YSR too.
In 2001
it was Marcus' turn. He ran his very first year on a YSR to
the Novice SuperSport Championship! He wasn't finished there
though, he also scored 2nd place overall in the Novice SuperBike
class. Guruniyam took her first shot at racing with borrowed
gear and even a borrowed bike, but by the end of the year she was
the proud owner of her own YSR.
One of our best years came in 2002.
A complete season of YSR racing brought many podium finishes.
The year ended with Pat getting 2nd place overall in Novice
SuperSport, 2nd place overall in Vets Modified, and 3rd place
overall in Novice SuperBike. Dave earned 2nd place overall in
Novice SuperSport and 3rd place overall in Novice SuperBike.
But
2002 was not without a glitch...During the second wave of heat
races, for Vets modified, going into turn 1 there was an accident.
The result was a broken left clavicle, collarbone to the lay person.
The collarbone happened to belong to Pat. Also
for 2002, Guruniyam concluded her first year on the track racing
YSR's and finished 4th place overall in the Women's class.
Dave started his AFM career with racing school and one race on Pat's
GSXR.
What happened in 2003? This
year it started to get difficult to run the entire season due to
military duty but we did our best. Dave finished his race
requirements as a novice rider, on his Yamaha R6, in the AFM to earn
his white number plates (expert rider). Our YSR racing took a
bit of a back seat to the AFM so attendance was limited.
Marcus ended up selling his YSR with visions of moving to the AFM.
2004,
the Air Force is still keeping us busy but we managed to
make several AFM races and a track day at Thunderhill.
Highlights from the year included Pat with an 8th place
finish in AFM Open Twins. Dave had a double win at
the last YSR race of the year. Unfortunately the
first and last YSR races was all that time permitted.
Pat ended the year in typical Pat fashion. During the 4
hour endurance race,
on the F2,
he high sided at the 3 hour mark going though turn 8a.
He managed to bounce off his head and come to a stop in
the dirt. He broke two vertebra in his neck but luckily
he is going to have a full recovery and best of all he's
still walking!
2005 was another great year for the
team. This year saw the addition of 3 new members, Martin,
Bob, and Brandon. And with the addition of these guys came
some great results, the best being Martin's Open Production
Championship. Bob came out of the season with a 6th place
finish overall in the Novice ranks. We were not able to run
any of the mini-bike races this year. Retiring from the team
this year was Marcus.
Excitement
continued in 2006 with the teams best result coming once again from
Martin Szwarc with a 2nd overall in the Open Production
class. Added to the team, Mike, makes his big return to racing.
Our perennial crasher, Pat, showed us his style again with a big get
off early in the season, thus having to sit out several rounds.
Dave gave a go at the liter class during the last round and joined
the top 10 club. And of course the biggest news of 2006…Dave and
Guruniyam got married!
 Two
more championships for the team in 2007. Martin came through
with championships in the Open Production and Open GP classes.
It was a good year for most of the team. We also came away
with 2nd in Open Superbike (Matin), 3rd in 650 Twins (Wil), 4th in
Formula IV (Brian), and the number 5 plate goes to Martin in Formula
Pacific. 2007 also saw Dave and Pat move up to the liter
class. That puts the whole team on Suzuki for 2008. Took
for more great results and we'll see you at the track! |