warmseth
Mon 2/20/06, 11:57AM
Well this weekend marked my first race as a probationary expert. Weather reports called for rain, wind and cold with a distinct possibility of snow. I drove out on Saturday night and stayed at the luxurious Motel 6 in lancaster. On the way out, there were indeed snow flurries and icy snake like paterns dancing across the highway. I hadn't eaten ANYTHING all Saturday and decided that 10pm was the perfect time to order a large dominos pizza and eat the entire thing while watching bobsled racing on NBC and dreaming of turns 3 through 5. I woke up shortly before 6 with a wonderful belly ache and wondered if vomitting might be a good idea. I thougt better of it knowing that while vomitting may relieve some of the gut wrench it would somehow validate the infirmed mental state that I was trying to fight.
As I left the hotel, the weather was living up to 2 of the 4 incliment weather predictions: very cold and rainy. In regards to weather, I am beggining to understand that Willow might just as well be known as "the least predictable weather in the west!" because while dark clouds and rainfall covered every corner of sky that my eyes could find, there was ONE small patch of cloudbreak directly above the track.
I suited up, went through registration, and headed to tech where I was informed for the second time that my hoseclamps must be safetywired...I promise to do it before next race.
The ground was still VERY moist and VERY cold and practice #1 was a slippery affair. But having missed Saturday i needed a refresher, slippery or not. Practice #2 was quite a bit drier and warmer and i started to feel more comfortable. Good thing as race #1 was the new formula twins lightweight class.
I was gridded 7 which is a pretty good place to be as far as i was concerned. Flag dropped and i got passed by seemingly hundreds of other riders going int o turn one. I am a bit nervous in crowds anyways, so put the crowd on motorcycles and send us barreling into a corner at high speed and my wall flower personality makes itself known. So I backed off a bit and took a very outside line. Once i was able to discern that the riders wouldn't be drifting all the way to the outside edge of the track I layed on the throttle and was able to pass two or three of those guys back again. I got another guy going into T8 a lap later and then it was just me by myself for tha rest of the race. I finished 7th and my fastest lap was over a second faster than my previous best.
Race #5 (Battle of the twins middleweight) was my second race. This is a class made up of some SVs and a lot of Ducatis...at least that's how it seems. This is also a two wave race where vintage lightweight bikes take the second wave. I had written my gid positions out of order unfortunately and put myself on grid #47 (which is where I was meant to be in the last race) instead of grid #12 (which is where I wa SUPPOSED to be...stupid). This incidently was a fullthree or four rows back BEHIND the vintage lightweight guys. :eek: Oops. Rookie mistake to be sure. Next time maybe i'll write my grid positions down in order. :D I got lapped by the race leader no more than forty feet from the line and so his lap 6 victory checkered flag was my lap 5 "nice try kid" checkered flag. This was a pretty non-eventful race as, with my slow laptimes, even if i had gridded correctly i may have ended up last. I did have a bit of fun passing the vintage lightweight guys. :p So maybe it wasn't all for naught. Side note: this was my 7th race on 1 set of tires and right sides of both began to maintain the consistency of ricotta cheese. So I decided I'd change them.
I went to do a tire/wheel change using the set of wheels that I bought last month with the fresh buns on them. I only had a few races of time to do this. But I wasn't too concerned as it was a simple job. simple until i learned that the inner diameter of the bearings on my rims was entirely different than the set i bought last month and so neither the spacers nor the axel would fit the new wheels. a QUICK run to the tire vendor had them swapped out and we got them mounted seconds before the first guy left the pregrid for their warmup lap. I was the LAST guy to leave the warmup lap line by about 20 seconds...Mark gave me a very annoyed wave by. ;) I slid so much more than I ever do in T1 during that warmup that I looked back to make sure my wheel wasn't wobbling or something was amiss.
Last race was 550superbike which I was indeed gridded #47. Boy what a difference new tires makes. once they warmed up I was going pretty good. I passed a bunch of guys and had some really good times putting my sites on folks and hunting them down. last two laps were especially good in that respect. I saw that i was slowly gaining on Steven Brefka (#571) and was able to catch him on lap 4. then on lap 5 i set me sites on Chris Rogers (688) and started gaining on him. I drafted him out of 9 and had I been in a lower gear out of 9 or carried just a tad more corner speed through there I might have caught him but alas, he maintained his lead over me by about 1/2 a bike length and took it. It was great fun though. Ultimately, during this race, I bested my previous best lap time by over 4 seconds!!!
March cannot come soon enough! :D
As I left the hotel, the weather was living up to 2 of the 4 incliment weather predictions: very cold and rainy. In regards to weather, I am beggining to understand that Willow might just as well be known as "the least predictable weather in the west!" because while dark clouds and rainfall covered every corner of sky that my eyes could find, there was ONE small patch of cloudbreak directly above the track.
I suited up, went through registration, and headed to tech where I was informed for the second time that my hoseclamps must be safetywired...I promise to do it before next race.
The ground was still VERY moist and VERY cold and practice #1 was a slippery affair. But having missed Saturday i needed a refresher, slippery or not. Practice #2 was quite a bit drier and warmer and i started to feel more comfortable. Good thing as race #1 was the new formula twins lightweight class.
I was gridded 7 which is a pretty good place to be as far as i was concerned. Flag dropped and i got passed by seemingly hundreds of other riders going int o turn one. I am a bit nervous in crowds anyways, so put the crowd on motorcycles and send us barreling into a corner at high speed and my wall flower personality makes itself known. So I backed off a bit and took a very outside line. Once i was able to discern that the riders wouldn't be drifting all the way to the outside edge of the track I layed on the throttle and was able to pass two or three of those guys back again. I got another guy going into T8 a lap later and then it was just me by myself for tha rest of the race. I finished 7th and my fastest lap was over a second faster than my previous best.
Race #5 (Battle of the twins middleweight) was my second race. This is a class made up of some SVs and a lot of Ducatis...at least that's how it seems. This is also a two wave race where vintage lightweight bikes take the second wave. I had written my gid positions out of order unfortunately and put myself on grid #47 (which is where I was meant to be in the last race) instead of grid #12 (which is where I wa SUPPOSED to be...stupid). This incidently was a fullthree or four rows back BEHIND the vintage lightweight guys. :eek: Oops. Rookie mistake to be sure. Next time maybe i'll write my grid positions down in order. :D I got lapped by the race leader no more than forty feet from the line and so his lap 6 victory checkered flag was my lap 5 "nice try kid" checkered flag. This was a pretty non-eventful race as, with my slow laptimes, even if i had gridded correctly i may have ended up last. I did have a bit of fun passing the vintage lightweight guys. :p So maybe it wasn't all for naught. Side note: this was my 7th race on 1 set of tires and right sides of both began to maintain the consistency of ricotta cheese. So I decided I'd change them.
I went to do a tire/wheel change using the set of wheels that I bought last month with the fresh buns on them. I only had a few races of time to do this. But I wasn't too concerned as it was a simple job. simple until i learned that the inner diameter of the bearings on my rims was entirely different than the set i bought last month and so neither the spacers nor the axel would fit the new wheels. a QUICK run to the tire vendor had them swapped out and we got them mounted seconds before the first guy left the pregrid for their warmup lap. I was the LAST guy to leave the warmup lap line by about 20 seconds...Mark gave me a very annoyed wave by. ;) I slid so much more than I ever do in T1 during that warmup that I looked back to make sure my wheel wasn't wobbling or something was amiss.
Last race was 550superbike which I was indeed gridded #47. Boy what a difference new tires makes. once they warmed up I was going pretty good. I passed a bunch of guys and had some really good times putting my sites on folks and hunting them down. last two laps were especially good in that respect. I saw that i was slowly gaining on Steven Brefka (#571) and was able to catch him on lap 4. then on lap 5 i set me sites on Chris Rogers (688) and started gaining on him. I drafted him out of 9 and had I been in a lower gear out of 9 or carried just a tad more corner speed through there I might have caught him but alas, he maintained his lead over me by about 1/2 a bike length and took it. It was great fun though. Ultimately, during this race, I bested my previous best lap time by over 4 seconds!!!
March cannot come soon enough! :D