Kurt'sSV
Tue 1/23/07, 8:55AM
Up until about 2 weeks ago I wasn’t planning on racing at WSMC at all in 2007. I wasn’t going to buy a WSMC license or even do a track day at Big Willow all year. Then John Ulrich of Roadracing World e-mails me and says that if I cover the WSMC races for their website and magazine, that I’ll get comped a race entry free. So I figure, hell, I’ll drive up there Sunday mornings, do 1 race for fun and then pay attention to the other races for the magazine write-up.
Saturday the 20th was our WSMC 2006 awards banquette. At the banquette they also have drawings for prizes. I won 5 gallons of VP race fuel, which I don’t need (and will be selling), but I also won free Friday and Saturday practices for all of 2007!
So now my racing plans have totally gone up-side down. I was to do the entire AFM series this year, but now I think I may only do half of their season. AFM can wait until 2008, I guess. I can’t pass up all this free WSMC stuff. WSMC would probably like to have their new Streets of Willow series covered in Roadracing World, so I’ll be doing that four round series as well this year. Originally I was only planning on doing eight race weekends this year. Now it looks like I’ll be doing maybe 20 instead.
So I did the 550 Superbike race on Sunday the 21st without any practice since November of last year, and it showed. My first lap was a waste because my warm-up lap sucked so my rear tire wasn’t up to temp. I got the hole shot, but spun the rear tire on the exit of turn one, got bumped by Andy Palmer as he went around me and couldn’t even pretend to keep up with him and Chris Rogers in turn two because of the rear tire not having any grip.
After the first lap my tire was up to temp and stuck fine, but my second lap was still slow as hell; in the 1:36 range. I was getting passed by everybody. Kevin Jump, JC Gibbs on his FZR400, Codzilla, and Corey Mann. When Corey went by me I thought oh shit, I am going slow. After the first two laps I kind of got my feet back underneath me. I repassed JC on the gas and caught back up with Cody and Corey. I had no problem keeping up with them, but because I suck in the wind and lacked that banzi attitude that comes with racing every month, I just couldn’t make a pass on either of those guys.
Turn 2 was the only place where I felt comfortable to make an attempt and it was real hairball going through there with how the wind was blowing and us being so close together. I would try going around Corey on the entrance, then get in behind Cody who’s line for turn 2 is always too wide. With the wind pushing you out, it was really hard to try to go underneath Cody as we came around to the exit, so nothing ever came of my attempts.
On the last lap Cody, Corey and myself all decided we’d try going inside of each other on the brakes going into turn 3. Well we all couldn’t do that, so we just stayed in a line down real low entering the braking zone. JC must have been looking at us like we were a bunch of idiots. He stayed wide, blazed passed me and almost got Corey, too. Coming out of turn 9 I was going to motor JC to the finish line, but the bike hit the rev limiter in 5th gear just before we got to start/finish and he beat me by, like, a 100th of a second. Oh well.
I’m not going to say that I don’t want to repeat as 550SBK champion, because I’d like to, but I need to get a lot better to do so because my competitors are getting a lot better. I guess with all this free track time, there’s no reason I can’t put forth a serious effort in doing so. And hell, the 12 round WSMC season is a long season. Last year I started off the year with a 10th place finish, but still won the class, so 6th place on Sunday isn’t so bad.
Thanks to my sponsors: Westcoast GP Cycle, SoCalSVRiders.org, Suomy, LP Team Privateer.
Saturday the 20th was our WSMC 2006 awards banquette. At the banquette they also have drawings for prizes. I won 5 gallons of VP race fuel, which I don’t need (and will be selling), but I also won free Friday and Saturday practices for all of 2007!
So now my racing plans have totally gone up-side down. I was to do the entire AFM series this year, but now I think I may only do half of their season. AFM can wait until 2008, I guess. I can’t pass up all this free WSMC stuff. WSMC would probably like to have their new Streets of Willow series covered in Roadracing World, so I’ll be doing that four round series as well this year. Originally I was only planning on doing eight race weekends this year. Now it looks like I’ll be doing maybe 20 instead.
So I did the 550 Superbike race on Sunday the 21st without any practice since November of last year, and it showed. My first lap was a waste because my warm-up lap sucked so my rear tire wasn’t up to temp. I got the hole shot, but spun the rear tire on the exit of turn one, got bumped by Andy Palmer as he went around me and couldn’t even pretend to keep up with him and Chris Rogers in turn two because of the rear tire not having any grip.
After the first lap my tire was up to temp and stuck fine, but my second lap was still slow as hell; in the 1:36 range. I was getting passed by everybody. Kevin Jump, JC Gibbs on his FZR400, Codzilla, and Corey Mann. When Corey went by me I thought oh shit, I am going slow. After the first two laps I kind of got my feet back underneath me. I repassed JC on the gas and caught back up with Cody and Corey. I had no problem keeping up with them, but because I suck in the wind and lacked that banzi attitude that comes with racing every month, I just couldn’t make a pass on either of those guys.
Turn 2 was the only place where I felt comfortable to make an attempt and it was real hairball going through there with how the wind was blowing and us being so close together. I would try going around Corey on the entrance, then get in behind Cody who’s line for turn 2 is always too wide. With the wind pushing you out, it was really hard to try to go underneath Cody as we came around to the exit, so nothing ever came of my attempts.
On the last lap Cody, Corey and myself all decided we’d try going inside of each other on the brakes going into turn 3. Well we all couldn’t do that, so we just stayed in a line down real low entering the braking zone. JC must have been looking at us like we were a bunch of idiots. He stayed wide, blazed passed me and almost got Corey, too. Coming out of turn 9 I was going to motor JC to the finish line, but the bike hit the rev limiter in 5th gear just before we got to start/finish and he beat me by, like, a 100th of a second. Oh well.
I’m not going to say that I don’t want to repeat as 550SBK champion, because I’d like to, but I need to get a lot better to do so because my competitors are getting a lot better. I guess with all this free track time, there’s no reason I can’t put forth a serious effort in doing so. And hell, the 12 round WSMC season is a long season. Last year I started off the year with a 10th place finish, but still won the class, so 6th place on Sunday isn’t so bad.
Thanks to my sponsors: Westcoast GP Cycle, SoCalSVRiders.org, Suomy, LP Team Privateer.