Racing up the learning curve
Rider continues adjusting to Expert class after sweeping track titles in Intermediate division
Dustin Lambert works on vehicles as a licenced mechanic at D‘n’A Car Service in Welland.
All manner of screwdrivers and wrenches, metric as well as imperial, are easily within reach in his full-time day job at the family-run business.
While the 23-year-old son of Dana and Tina Lambert doesn’t take work home with him, he never goes on a “little vacation” to escape the stress of everyday life without his toolbox.
Those screwdrivers and wrenches also come in handy when your passion for the past 17 years has been racing motorcycles and working on them between races.
“It’s like a little vacation. All the stress, everything from work during the week, all the bills, all that stuff, is gone,” he said. “It’s out the window.
“It’s stress-free.” Lambert, who was six when he began racing around the quartermile clay track on Netherby Road east of Highway 140 in Welland, has yet to get tired of racing. He doubts he ever will.
“I love every minute of it. We have fun, we don’t make it a job,” Lambert said. “That’s not the way we are.”
It wasn’t always that way, however.
“We tried that many years ago, making a career out of it pretty much,” he recalled. “It didn’t go right, always fighting and yelling at each other.
“Now, it’s just having fun. If we win, we win; if we don’t, we don’t.
“But, of course, try. That’s what we’re here for, right?”
And “try” is the operative word as Lambert continues to climb the learning curve after graduating from the Intermediate to the Expert racing class. He found out firsthand — and is still finding out — that the pace is much quicker in Expert than it was in Intermediate.
“They’re a lot quicker. In Intermediate, it looks like we’re going fast, but then you hop into Expert and now you’re running in the middle of the pack because they’re three seconds faster, which is a lot.”
Lambert, who placed seventh in the points race in his rookie season in Expert, attributes that three-second gap to a combination of “experience and the rider.”
“It always comes down to that.” SEE MOTORCYCLE,
“A nice bike setup does help — 100 per cent — but it’s experience and the rider.”
Lambert bought a new motorcycle last year with the goal of shaving time off that three-second gap. He said at the track’s season opener on Saturday night he is pleased with his progress.
“I am picking up the pace every time I get on the bike. Every race, picking up, picking up and going.”
But while he would like to be among the front-runners in Expert, Lambert, the track’s Intermediate DTX and Intermediate Open leader in 2019, isn’t about to let impatience outrun his better judgment.
“If you push too hard, you’re going to end up hurting yourself,” he said. “You do want to push yourself, but you do want to find your limit in other words.
“It takes time. Time and practice are what it is.”
Years of racing and wrenching motorcycles have taught Lambert that the line between rider and machine is especially fine. It comes down to know-how and what to do with that knowledge.
“You have to understand what you’re riding and what setup you have under your seat,” he said. “You have to understand how the bike works.”
Race teams tweak settings on the bikes after practice runs and qualifying heats and before the final. Lambert also pointed out the track can change into something “completely different” after water is added between races.
“Is it hooking up in this corner? Is it not hooking up? Is it too much, is it not enough? Is the front end loose?” he said.
“It all depends. “Everyone is fast. Wherever the traction is at the end of the night is where they’re going to be riding.”
While motorcycles in a particular division are essentially the same, preparing them for racing is anything but an across-the-board formula.
“Every setup in this pit is different regardless,” he said, speaking from experience.
“There is no setup that’s the same because every rider is different.”
And, yes, to answer the final question, Lambert has wondered about racing cars after spending so much time repairing them at his day job.
“I would like to try it one day that’s for sure, but the most fun I have is on two wheels,” he said with a grin.
Riders, start your engines!
‘‘ If you push too hard, you’re going to end up hurting yourself.
DUSTIN LAMBERT