redbean
Wed 2/22/06, 2:18PM
John Reynolds EX# 66
CCS South West
Chandler Az. 18-19 Feb 06.
Firebird International Raceway East Track
2000 SV 650
http://www.roadracesw.com/images/trackmaps/FirebirdEast.gif
Results:
Practice – Did not crash J
LW SuperSport - 5th
LW Thunderbike – 4th
LW SuperBike –7th
Best Lap: 1:03
What a great way to start off the 06 season as an expert. No run offs, or crashes, well for me anyway and I didn’t get schooled even though it is apparent I have a lot to learn. To be honest I had a little apprehension about mixing it up with the experts for the first time. Here I am, my second year racing and I’m competing with the big boys in my class. To make it even more interesting SW region combined amateurs and experts LW into one class to make the grids larger for contingency moneys so I’m competing against everyone. As it turned out all my apprehensions were for not and I did just fine.
On the grid with Big Headz Racing this weekend was Am Racer 813 Kevin “Doc” Lynch, Am Racer 77 James Kissinger, Ex Racer 215 Alex Torres, who was pit bitching for us and myself. We got out of San Diego a little late on Friday, Ok waaaaay late. We had planned to leave at 3-330 but one of our racers got held up and we didn’t get on the road until very close to 5. It was terrible. Bumper to bitching all the way out to the boarder checkpoint before you drop down into the desert. Now it doesn’t matter why this individual couldn’t be at the departure point on time. It didn’t matter that he had ran over his wheelchair bound Grandmother’s dog that morning. It didn’t matter that he spent the entire afternoon at the Vet. Nope, all that matters is that he was late which opened the door for lots of abuse. We were brutal, it was all in fun of course, but we where brutal just the same. We arrived at the track around 1130, our hopes of getting a good spot on the paddock were shattered as we found our selves 10+ trailers back from the entrance. Oh well, we prepped the trailer so we could go to sleep, had a couple rounds of Captain (Morgan) and crashed. Oh, I made up the part about the Grandmother’s dog.
The next morning I was up around 530-6. The track always opens the first of two gates around 6 so everyone can move up to the next gate. If you sleep in you get passed and I wasn’t about to let that happen. Later that day James commented on the sensation of waking up in a moving trailer. I believe it went like this “ Hmm, I think we are moving.“ then he promptly went back to sleep. We were on the paddock by 630 and hoping to find a spot that had a water connection. We were staying in the trailer and being able to take a shower was a must have. The last thing I wanted in my trailer were these guys stinking up the place after a race day. After some searching and repositioning we found a pole with a water connection. Sweet!!! Showers are on the menu. We quickly unloaded the gear and headed off to registration and the riders meeting. Alex finished setting up the area and prepping the bikes. He was the best Pit (bitch) Crew a team could ask for. The entire weekend he did everything. Tire warmers, gas, repair. Even as amateurs we felt like pros. Thanks Man!
The first 10 min practice started at nine. It had been almost 3 months since the last time I’d seen this track and it was apparent that there were some major changes to the runoffs and a large patch placed in turn 3. Damn it. All my markers were gone. Truthfully I forgot them but its easer to blame the construction if I messed up. I took it easy making sure I understood were all the changes where and how they were going to effect the bike especially the patch in turn 3. I don’t think I got down below a 1.12 the entire session. Luckily I got in before James and Doc went out for their practice and gave them a quick down and dirty. Not sure if it helped as it was their first time on this track, but anything is better than nothing.
Second and third practices went much better. The temp came up to mid 60’s and the track was starting to look familiar. I was still having problems with turn 3, which had a new big bump in the middle, turn 9, which I went down in last year and turn 10 which I just don’t feel smooth in. The bike on the other hand was performing fine. The brakes were right on, drive was great and the new wind screen kept me well out of the wind. I only wished Id installed a GPR. I was getting a lot of head shake as I drove out of turns. Shaking is bad and it always makes me nervous about tank slapping or possibly tucking the front when driving out of the lean. By the end of third practice I was averaging 1.05/3 which was great considering my best lap on this track was 1.03. I was confident that I’d get down into the 3’s during the race but it wasn’t going to be good enough to place top 3. 1.01/2 was needed if I was going to win and I had serious doubts that I was going to get there that day with my inability to get through turns 3, 9 and 10 fast.
LW SuperSport was my first of two races on Sat. I gridded pretty far back and if I was going to have any chance of hanging up front for a couple laps I needed to get a good start. To complicate the matter I was having trouble seeing the flagman. So there I am moving around to get a better view and I see the board drop. Damn! Flag was coming up any second and I didn’t even have my feet were I needed them let alone my head in the game for a great start. Woosh, up goes the flag and we are off. I gave it the best I had but could only manage 5th into turn one. This sucked. Bob Russell and the other fast guys are out in front and I was going to have put my head down if I had a hope of keeping them in my sites for all twelve laps. After 3 or 3 laps I was getting into the grove feeling good when Pat Bushell on a Kawi 650 came up underneath me in turn 10 and started to pull away as we exited the turn. Oh no you don’t, I drove hard out of the turn and out broke him going into turn one. The same thing happened again on the next lap. Didn’t learn my lesson the first time. Kinda hard headed. For the next several laps we battled it out. With me finally putting him behind near the end of the race giving me a 5th over all and a best lap time of 1.03. I felt good. It was my first race as an expert and 5th was respectable. Besides battling with Pat was fun.
After coming into the pit I received a good debriefing from Alex who made it perfectly clear that during that race I was opening the Pat the entire lap then losing it all as I came out of turns 8 and 9. If I was going to make up time anywhere on the track, it had to be there first. It was that crash there last year that was slowing me down. It would take another race at least to help me put that corner to bed.
My next race was Thunderbike. This race was pretty uneventful. I got a good start and ended up 3th out of one and was with the leaders for most of the lap. It felt good but I knew it wasn’t going to last. The guys in front of me were consistently producing 1 to 2 sec better lap times and it was only a matter of time before I was on my own. About half way thru the race I caught a shadow of someone trying to get under me in turns 5 and 10. In both cases I tightened up my line and drove hard forcing who ever it was to back off and get in behind me. Not sure if it was Pat or Guy Lachlan on his 738 but I did know I had no intention on letting them pass me. We started coming up on lap traffic near the end of the race and if I played my cards right I might be able to work a pass that would force whoever was behind me to wait another turn before he could make his pass. That’s when luck took a passing glance at me and presented the perfect opportunity to do just what I had hoped for. As I came out of turn 3 we found ourselves coming up fast on an amateur. If I timed it right I could go outside in 5 and beat the amatuer into the corner forcing my hunters to have to wait till after 6 to get by him. It worked and it seemed the chips were still falling for me as I got under another guy in 8. Sweet!!! Now all I had to do was keep my head down. I looked back for the first time after taking the checker to see Guy back there. Good race man, Good race. My best lap time was 1.03 as expected 2 seconds behind Bob Russell
LW SuperBike. The last race of the weekend. I was gridded 3A . Only thing between me and the front row was Kevin Wettner on a KTM 525. If I got a good start I could get past him on the outside and have a shot at the front pack by turn one. Unfortunately it wasn’t the start I was looking for. Being a little late on the throttle got me pinched and had to slow down to take Kevin on the inside. Not the plan but I got lucky and still got 5th into one. As before Bob Russel was out in front with the three riders between me and him. I put my head down and gave chase. Problem is I’m slow and even with a good start I could match the speed they flew through some of the corners at. Then it happened. I got passed by Aron Weiss in 10. GDmit. When will I learn to shut the door there? I give chase down the straight and out brake him into one and regain 5th. He tries to pass again in 10 and goes wide and I drive past him on the exit. I think to my self, if I don’t get thru 8, 9, 10 faster I’m going to get keep getting beat. So I push it and I BLOW it. Cool how that goes together. You knew it was going to happen didn’t you?. So there I was just minding my own business and this bully comes riding up on me. I’m thinking he’s good but not as good as me. So I drive hard out of turn 6 thinking Ill run up on the smooth part of the rumble strip like I had been practicing and get a better drive thru7 8 9. Umm nope. I drive to far in and hit the Tiger Teeth and my bars start dancing around like a farmer with fire ants in his pants. It was every thing I could do not to panic and resist. I stayed on the gas but it cost me Aron and Thomas Page drive past me. One mistake equals two places lost. To add insult to injury I miss shift into 7 costing me even more time. Two mistakes equal NO chance catching them and leaving me with a 7th. At least there was one bright shinning star to the whole race. I lapped my friend James. No disrespect to him. It was his second race weekend, his first time on this track and he ran off earlier in the race but no matter, bragging rights are bragging rites.
Overall It was a great weekend. To bad It will be my last with SW region as the Navy has decided that I’m needed in Va. SW will be missed but I am looking forward to racing with CCS Mid Atlantic on some great tracks like VIR.
CCS South West
Chandler Az. 18-19 Feb 06.
Firebird International Raceway East Track
2000 SV 650
http://www.roadracesw.com/images/trackmaps/FirebirdEast.gif
Results:
Practice – Did not crash J
LW SuperSport - 5th
LW Thunderbike – 4th
LW SuperBike –7th
Best Lap: 1:03
What a great way to start off the 06 season as an expert. No run offs, or crashes, well for me anyway and I didn’t get schooled even though it is apparent I have a lot to learn. To be honest I had a little apprehension about mixing it up with the experts for the first time. Here I am, my second year racing and I’m competing with the big boys in my class. To make it even more interesting SW region combined amateurs and experts LW into one class to make the grids larger for contingency moneys so I’m competing against everyone. As it turned out all my apprehensions were for not and I did just fine.
On the grid with Big Headz Racing this weekend was Am Racer 813 Kevin “Doc” Lynch, Am Racer 77 James Kissinger, Ex Racer 215 Alex Torres, who was pit bitching for us and myself. We got out of San Diego a little late on Friday, Ok waaaaay late. We had planned to leave at 3-330 but one of our racers got held up and we didn’t get on the road until very close to 5. It was terrible. Bumper to bitching all the way out to the boarder checkpoint before you drop down into the desert. Now it doesn’t matter why this individual couldn’t be at the departure point on time. It didn’t matter that he had ran over his wheelchair bound Grandmother’s dog that morning. It didn’t matter that he spent the entire afternoon at the Vet. Nope, all that matters is that he was late which opened the door for lots of abuse. We were brutal, it was all in fun of course, but we where brutal just the same. We arrived at the track around 1130, our hopes of getting a good spot on the paddock were shattered as we found our selves 10+ trailers back from the entrance. Oh well, we prepped the trailer so we could go to sleep, had a couple rounds of Captain (Morgan) and crashed. Oh, I made up the part about the Grandmother’s dog.
The next morning I was up around 530-6. The track always opens the first of two gates around 6 so everyone can move up to the next gate. If you sleep in you get passed and I wasn’t about to let that happen. Later that day James commented on the sensation of waking up in a moving trailer. I believe it went like this “ Hmm, I think we are moving.“ then he promptly went back to sleep. We were on the paddock by 630 and hoping to find a spot that had a water connection. We were staying in the trailer and being able to take a shower was a must have. The last thing I wanted in my trailer were these guys stinking up the place after a race day. After some searching and repositioning we found a pole with a water connection. Sweet!!! Showers are on the menu. We quickly unloaded the gear and headed off to registration and the riders meeting. Alex finished setting up the area and prepping the bikes. He was the best Pit (bitch) Crew a team could ask for. The entire weekend he did everything. Tire warmers, gas, repair. Even as amateurs we felt like pros. Thanks Man!
The first 10 min practice started at nine. It had been almost 3 months since the last time I’d seen this track and it was apparent that there were some major changes to the runoffs and a large patch placed in turn 3. Damn it. All my markers were gone. Truthfully I forgot them but its easer to blame the construction if I messed up. I took it easy making sure I understood were all the changes where and how they were going to effect the bike especially the patch in turn 3. I don’t think I got down below a 1.12 the entire session. Luckily I got in before James and Doc went out for their practice and gave them a quick down and dirty. Not sure if it helped as it was their first time on this track, but anything is better than nothing.
Second and third practices went much better. The temp came up to mid 60’s and the track was starting to look familiar. I was still having problems with turn 3, which had a new big bump in the middle, turn 9, which I went down in last year and turn 10 which I just don’t feel smooth in. The bike on the other hand was performing fine. The brakes were right on, drive was great and the new wind screen kept me well out of the wind. I only wished Id installed a GPR. I was getting a lot of head shake as I drove out of turns. Shaking is bad and it always makes me nervous about tank slapping or possibly tucking the front when driving out of the lean. By the end of third practice I was averaging 1.05/3 which was great considering my best lap on this track was 1.03. I was confident that I’d get down into the 3’s during the race but it wasn’t going to be good enough to place top 3. 1.01/2 was needed if I was going to win and I had serious doubts that I was going to get there that day with my inability to get through turns 3, 9 and 10 fast.
LW SuperSport was my first of two races on Sat. I gridded pretty far back and if I was going to have any chance of hanging up front for a couple laps I needed to get a good start. To complicate the matter I was having trouble seeing the flagman. So there I am moving around to get a better view and I see the board drop. Damn! Flag was coming up any second and I didn’t even have my feet were I needed them let alone my head in the game for a great start. Woosh, up goes the flag and we are off. I gave it the best I had but could only manage 5th into turn one. This sucked. Bob Russell and the other fast guys are out in front and I was going to have put my head down if I had a hope of keeping them in my sites for all twelve laps. After 3 or 3 laps I was getting into the grove feeling good when Pat Bushell on a Kawi 650 came up underneath me in turn 10 and started to pull away as we exited the turn. Oh no you don’t, I drove hard out of the turn and out broke him going into turn one. The same thing happened again on the next lap. Didn’t learn my lesson the first time. Kinda hard headed. For the next several laps we battled it out. With me finally putting him behind near the end of the race giving me a 5th over all and a best lap time of 1.03. I felt good. It was my first race as an expert and 5th was respectable. Besides battling with Pat was fun.
After coming into the pit I received a good debriefing from Alex who made it perfectly clear that during that race I was opening the Pat the entire lap then losing it all as I came out of turns 8 and 9. If I was going to make up time anywhere on the track, it had to be there first. It was that crash there last year that was slowing me down. It would take another race at least to help me put that corner to bed.
My next race was Thunderbike. This race was pretty uneventful. I got a good start and ended up 3th out of one and was with the leaders for most of the lap. It felt good but I knew it wasn’t going to last. The guys in front of me were consistently producing 1 to 2 sec better lap times and it was only a matter of time before I was on my own. About half way thru the race I caught a shadow of someone trying to get under me in turns 5 and 10. In both cases I tightened up my line and drove hard forcing who ever it was to back off and get in behind me. Not sure if it was Pat or Guy Lachlan on his 738 but I did know I had no intention on letting them pass me. We started coming up on lap traffic near the end of the race and if I played my cards right I might be able to work a pass that would force whoever was behind me to wait another turn before he could make his pass. That’s when luck took a passing glance at me and presented the perfect opportunity to do just what I had hoped for. As I came out of turn 3 we found ourselves coming up fast on an amateur. If I timed it right I could go outside in 5 and beat the amatuer into the corner forcing my hunters to have to wait till after 6 to get by him. It worked and it seemed the chips were still falling for me as I got under another guy in 8. Sweet!!! Now all I had to do was keep my head down. I looked back for the first time after taking the checker to see Guy back there. Good race man, Good race. My best lap time was 1.03 as expected 2 seconds behind Bob Russell
LW SuperBike. The last race of the weekend. I was gridded 3A . Only thing between me and the front row was Kevin Wettner on a KTM 525. If I got a good start I could get past him on the outside and have a shot at the front pack by turn one. Unfortunately it wasn’t the start I was looking for. Being a little late on the throttle got me pinched and had to slow down to take Kevin on the inside. Not the plan but I got lucky and still got 5th into one. As before Bob Russel was out in front with the three riders between me and him. I put my head down and gave chase. Problem is I’m slow and even with a good start I could match the speed they flew through some of the corners at. Then it happened. I got passed by Aron Weiss in 10. GDmit. When will I learn to shut the door there? I give chase down the straight and out brake him into one and regain 5th. He tries to pass again in 10 and goes wide and I drive past him on the exit. I think to my self, if I don’t get thru 8, 9, 10 faster I’m going to get keep getting beat. So I push it and I BLOW it. Cool how that goes together. You knew it was going to happen didn’t you?. So there I was just minding my own business and this bully comes riding up on me. I’m thinking he’s good but not as good as me. So I drive hard out of turn 6 thinking Ill run up on the smooth part of the rumble strip like I had been practicing and get a better drive thru7 8 9. Umm nope. I drive to far in and hit the Tiger Teeth and my bars start dancing around like a farmer with fire ants in his pants. It was every thing I could do not to panic and resist. I stayed on the gas but it cost me Aron and Thomas Page drive past me. One mistake equals two places lost. To add insult to injury I miss shift into 7 costing me even more time. Two mistakes equal NO chance catching them and leaving me with a 7th. At least there was one bright shinning star to the whole race. I lapped my friend James. No disrespect to him. It was his second race weekend, his first time on this track and he ran off earlier in the race but no matter, bragging rights are bragging rites.
Overall It was a great weekend. To bad It will be my last with SW region as the Navy has decided that I’m needed in Va. SW will be missed but I am looking forward to racing with CCS Mid Atlantic on some great tracks like VIR.