You’ve heard of Disney on Ice, but Edward Hessel was showing WERA racing fans at Indianapolis Raceway Park a new show called “Road Racing on Ice”. That’s pretty much what it was like to ride through the carousel at IRP on a wet track. There are also legends riders tell of how slick Blackhawk Farms and Summit Point were in the rain during this era (late-1980s). This photo also shows you a little about the weather in Indiana – notice the sunshine gleaming off the front tire of Hessel’s Suzuki. As they say, if you don’t like the weather in the Hoosier state just wait 10 minutes.
Edward Hessel tiptoes through the carousel turn at Indianapolis Raceway Park after a rain shower turned the already slick corner into an ice-like surface. (Larry Lawrence photo)
Rider Files 
Turn 11 coming on the straight through the burn-out box was the best! Even better after a big Drag Race. I recently bought another 86′ GSX-R750?
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ED!! Love seeing pics of our friend Hillbilly Hessel, though you can’t tell that his leathers are purple and red in this shot.
Most of IRP wasn’t that bad in the rain, with the notable exception of the painted lines you had to cross in certain areas of the track. Many a bike fell victim to those lines, coming onto the drag strip. As far as the carousel goes, there was a rough line about 2 feet to the left of where Ed is, that wasn’t bad in the rain. You just wanted to avoid it in the dry.
Blackhawk was polished to a fine sheen by many cars over the years. The best tool in the rain there, was an FT500 Ascot, or Lance David’s XT500 Yam. At least when you crashed there, the pavement didn’t provide enough friction to do much damage to your leathers!
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My leathers in this picture are Black / Red “Harros” German touring Leders. Yes I did have a pair of Lou’s Leathers made from Barney’s backside!
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Now I understand the “wet” line, hey Kev!
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Hey Ed! I didn’t realize you had black and red leathers too, though your purple ones looked very similar in terms of the layout.
Yeah….ask me how I know that the line you’re on isn’t a good line through there….
Have you ever forgiven me, for taking your Gixxer and making it the ugliest bike on the grid? Hey man, it was the 80’s, and day glo seemed like a good idea then. Too bad Larry doesn’t have a means for people to post on here (though I get why), so people could get a good laugh off my paint job.
Hope you’re healthy and happy!
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Kevin
You can post pics here. The easiest way is to go to tinypics.com, upload a photo and then copy the url link here like this:
http://tinypic.com/r/1zqcvn9/5
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Or if you size the photo small enough (say 400 pixels wide) you can upload to tinypic.com and then post then copy and paste the html code. Like this:
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Yeah, I would love to see what you did with the Gixxer, stathome@bellsouth.net
eh
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Let’s give this a try.
As you can see by the color selection, this is clearly from the 80’s. It’s even worse than the paint job on Kurt’s TZ above!
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That works. Nice photo.
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