Dominus
Tue 5/30/06, 10:22AM
Bryan Galvan (WSMC# 931)
Race Report #1
5/20/06
Well, I went ahead and took the racing plunge! After a lot of support from friends and people on this board, I have successfully converted my 03 SVS into an official “racing machine”…it, nor I, am that fast yet but I’m working on it. Read on…….
Since this is a race report I’ll spare all the ugly details of getting my bike drilled, lockwired, painted, and prepped and go straight to the Saturday events (ie. New Racer School).
First thing I’d like to mention is that Kurt was very helpful in letting me pit with him and all the other guys for the weekend and he was also very helpful in pointing me in all the right directions on where to go for tech, check in etc etc. So thanks a bunch Kurt!
New Racer school, for those of you who haven’t taken it, is not much of a school at all really (at least I didn’t get the feeling that much was being taught to me). To me it seemed like more of a “let’s make sure you don’t ride like an idiot, and we’ll give you a novice license” test. Basically, what it consisted of was nothing more than a track day with classroom time in between sessions where the instructor (Thad) would talk over a few details of some do’s and don’ts around the track…so I guess you could say there was some learning going on there…but mostly common sense type stuff. But all in all it was a good time. Class started at 8:30 (bike should have been tech inspected prior to this), and we hit our fist track session at about 10:00 or so. From there we’d ride for about 15-20 minutes, and upon pulling off the track, we’d head immediately to the classroom for some learning and scolding. Once the class was done, we’d head back to our bikes and ride again. This cycle was repeated and we got a total of 4 sessions in, followed by a session of practice starts, which I find that I suck at, but fear not, I’m getting better.
So at the end of the day, we were dished out our Novice licenses, at which point I joyously ran my way to the admin office to register for my first race (Novice middleweight, as it is the only one available to me for now) and to buy my transponder ($280…ack!).
At the end of the day, Kurt, Shandra, Tom, Cody, the TWF crew and I all ventured to some Mexican restaurant where I watched Zoran consume a whole fish and watch Shandra eat its eyeball. Kurt ate something known as a “Chimichanga” which for some reason he kept referring to it as a deep fried burrito…but that’s ok, he holds gringo status so I’ll let it slide. I also don’t even know where to begin when it comes to everybody’s crashes and the massive amounts of teamwork undertaken to repair bikes. It was great! Never in my life have I seen a sport where everybody that competes against one another is so eager to help out one another and get them back out on the track. After all, people could very easily just say, “hey, too bad for you, one less person I have to race”. But that’s not the case at all. I had once thought of motorcycle racing as a “solo sport”, me vs. everyone else…but turns out there’s more teamwork involved than any other sport I’ve ever participated in and I love it. You people are all great and I am grateful to be part of it all.
5/21/06
Oh…yeah…that’s right I registered for a race today! So I get my two practice sessions in for the morning and since I’m not racing until race #17, I figure I’ve got some time to kill. So I decide to be productive and get a half day of corner working in as a requirement to transition my way out of novice. I spend my corner working time on turn 4a and 4b, which actually proved to be a good vantage point to see how others take this turn that has been so difficult for me. I watched everyone’s lines and got a good look at the track, all of which I believe has benefited me.
After corner working I go to check the board to see where my starting position is on the starting grid and I find that I’m gridding 29th out of 30 riders…ouch…..I’ve got my work cut out for me.
I take my warm up lap and basically try to take it all in. I decide I have two goals for myself for this particular race:
1. Don’t crash.
2. Have fun.
So upon placing myself in my 29th slot of the starting grid, I find myself swarmed amongst GSX-r 600’s and R6’s…again…ouch. But that’s ok…neither of those directly affect my ability to achieve my two goals. So with that frame of mind, I found myself relaxed and care free…just in time to realize that the green flag is about a split second away from dropping so I quickly pull in the clutch and put the bike in gear and rev it up.
Launching the bike was not the fastest, but it was clean and I swung into turn one wide and to the right, this proved to be very advantageous as I slung shot my way past a handful of several riders…yay! And for the remaining 6 laps I spent my time slowly reeling in bike after bike up until I realized the race was over and I had worked my way to 19th place…and just a fraction of a second behind 18th place. A bulk of the race was fuzzy details as I didn’t really pay attention to them, I just rode my ride and made sure I wasn’t going to be responsible for making anyone crash, and I just happened to pass a few people along the way. So all in all I managed to achieve both my goals, and thus I was happy.
The Hard Data:
Times:
Practice 1 1:43:163
Practice 2 1:42:427
Race 1:39:596
Equipment:
Bike 2003 Sv650s
Mods See Profile
Tires Michelin Pilot Powers
Budgeting:
New Racer School $110
Novice License $120
Race: $80
Transponder $280
Gas $75
Lodging $20
Food $40
Total To Date $725
Is it worth it Hell yeah!
:D
Race Report #1
5/20/06
Well, I went ahead and took the racing plunge! After a lot of support from friends and people on this board, I have successfully converted my 03 SVS into an official “racing machine”…it, nor I, am that fast yet but I’m working on it. Read on…….
Since this is a race report I’ll spare all the ugly details of getting my bike drilled, lockwired, painted, and prepped and go straight to the Saturday events (ie. New Racer School).
First thing I’d like to mention is that Kurt was very helpful in letting me pit with him and all the other guys for the weekend and he was also very helpful in pointing me in all the right directions on where to go for tech, check in etc etc. So thanks a bunch Kurt!
New Racer school, for those of you who haven’t taken it, is not much of a school at all really (at least I didn’t get the feeling that much was being taught to me). To me it seemed like more of a “let’s make sure you don’t ride like an idiot, and we’ll give you a novice license” test. Basically, what it consisted of was nothing more than a track day with classroom time in between sessions where the instructor (Thad) would talk over a few details of some do’s and don’ts around the track…so I guess you could say there was some learning going on there…but mostly common sense type stuff. But all in all it was a good time. Class started at 8:30 (bike should have been tech inspected prior to this), and we hit our fist track session at about 10:00 or so. From there we’d ride for about 15-20 minutes, and upon pulling off the track, we’d head immediately to the classroom for some learning and scolding. Once the class was done, we’d head back to our bikes and ride again. This cycle was repeated and we got a total of 4 sessions in, followed by a session of practice starts, which I find that I suck at, but fear not, I’m getting better.
So at the end of the day, we were dished out our Novice licenses, at which point I joyously ran my way to the admin office to register for my first race (Novice middleweight, as it is the only one available to me for now) and to buy my transponder ($280…ack!).
At the end of the day, Kurt, Shandra, Tom, Cody, the TWF crew and I all ventured to some Mexican restaurant where I watched Zoran consume a whole fish and watch Shandra eat its eyeball. Kurt ate something known as a “Chimichanga” which for some reason he kept referring to it as a deep fried burrito…but that’s ok, he holds gringo status so I’ll let it slide. I also don’t even know where to begin when it comes to everybody’s crashes and the massive amounts of teamwork undertaken to repair bikes. It was great! Never in my life have I seen a sport where everybody that competes against one another is so eager to help out one another and get them back out on the track. After all, people could very easily just say, “hey, too bad for you, one less person I have to race”. But that’s not the case at all. I had once thought of motorcycle racing as a “solo sport”, me vs. everyone else…but turns out there’s more teamwork involved than any other sport I’ve ever participated in and I love it. You people are all great and I am grateful to be part of it all.
5/21/06
Oh…yeah…that’s right I registered for a race today! So I get my two practice sessions in for the morning and since I’m not racing until race #17, I figure I’ve got some time to kill. So I decide to be productive and get a half day of corner working in as a requirement to transition my way out of novice. I spend my corner working time on turn 4a and 4b, which actually proved to be a good vantage point to see how others take this turn that has been so difficult for me. I watched everyone’s lines and got a good look at the track, all of which I believe has benefited me.
After corner working I go to check the board to see where my starting position is on the starting grid and I find that I’m gridding 29th out of 30 riders…ouch…..I’ve got my work cut out for me.
I take my warm up lap and basically try to take it all in. I decide I have two goals for myself for this particular race:
1. Don’t crash.
2. Have fun.
So upon placing myself in my 29th slot of the starting grid, I find myself swarmed amongst GSX-r 600’s and R6’s…again…ouch. But that’s ok…neither of those directly affect my ability to achieve my two goals. So with that frame of mind, I found myself relaxed and care free…just in time to realize that the green flag is about a split second away from dropping so I quickly pull in the clutch and put the bike in gear and rev it up.
Launching the bike was not the fastest, but it was clean and I swung into turn one wide and to the right, this proved to be very advantageous as I slung shot my way past a handful of several riders…yay! And for the remaining 6 laps I spent my time slowly reeling in bike after bike up until I realized the race was over and I had worked my way to 19th place…and just a fraction of a second behind 18th place. A bulk of the race was fuzzy details as I didn’t really pay attention to them, I just rode my ride and made sure I wasn’t going to be responsible for making anyone crash, and I just happened to pass a few people along the way. So all in all I managed to achieve both my goals, and thus I was happy.
The Hard Data:
Times:
Practice 1 1:43:163
Practice 2 1:42:427
Race 1:39:596
Equipment:
Bike 2003 Sv650s
Mods See Profile
Tires Michelin Pilot Powers
Budgeting:
New Racer School $110
Novice License $120
Race: $80
Transponder $280
Gas $75
Lodging $20
Food $40
Total To Date $725
Is it worth it Hell yeah!
:D