Kurt'sSV
Wed 3/28/07, 9:05AM
WSIR, March 18, 2007
I love practice at WSMC because when else can you be riding an SV and be on one of the fastest bikes on track? During one of the Sunday morning warm-up sessions I caught a huge gaggle of people while I was going through turn eight. I went around a few of them but then just sat back there through turn nine. Once on the front straight I just tucked in and pulled back the throttle. I had a big, dumb grin on my face as I motored about a half dozen other bikes.
My launch from the inside of row one for 550SBK wasn’t bad. Palmer and Rogers got a better jump than I did, but I could tell that I was going to beat Kevin Jump to turn one. Being down on the inside of the track made turn one kind of sharp and I couldn’t carry the speed into the apex like Jump could. As expected, right at about the apex Jump went around me. We weren’t going to touch or nothing, but it still caused me to chop the throttle and that cost me my drive out of turn one.
For some reason I now suck at turn two. The three guys pulled on me starting at the mid point of the turn. I got a decent drive out of the turn and that stopped the bleeding. Coming out of turn five I saw Palmer’s rear tire come way around and then him get tossed up out of the seat pretty good. Shrek’s lucky he’s as heavy as he is in this instance. A little guy like me or Rogers would have been put into orbit. This allowed me to close up the gap on Palmer down the back straight. With the wind blowing out of the South, there was a huge draft coming off the bikes as we came around turn eight. When I caught Palmer’s draft it was like my bike caught another gear. I started pulling up on him fast. It’s a lot harder to do a sling shot maneuver mid corner than on a straight and all I was thinking as Palmer got closer and closer was “OH FUCK, OH FUCK, OH FUCK!” Fortunately we hit the shut-off point for turn nine and I didn’t have to try that maneuver. Damn, once I got in his draft, I could tell that I started going really god damn fast.
Once onto the front straight I stayed right on his rear wheel, but couldn’t motor past. We hit the braking zone for turn one and I’ve got nothing for him there. Another lap or so and we started catching people from the heavyweight twins class that started in front of us. I did pass Palmer one more time as his bike popped out of gear exiting turn one. He caught me going into turn eight and put me back into fourth. Coming around into nine on the next lap there was a huge cloud of dust off the track and Rogers had crashed. I saw him get up so he was fine and must of just lost the front and slide easily off the track.
I caught a pair of heavy weight twins guys coming out of turn one on the sixth lap and went around both of them in turn two. At the end of the seventh lap I caught a 749 in eight. He shut off a lot earlier than I was expecting into turn nine and my closing speed suddenly got really fast. The pass I made on this guy around his outside was kind of close, but at least it didn’t slow me down. He caught me at the very end of the front straight and went back in front of me as we started to brake for turn one which pissed me off because all he was going to do was get in my way. I sacked up and made sure I was able to go around him at the apex of one and got him out of my way so I could carry speed into turn two.
Not that it mattered because I was going to be on my own for the rest of the lap anyway. I crossed the line in 3rd. I ran some better lap times than last month and won myself some money. But for the April round, I need to get a lot better.
Thanks to my sponsors: West Coast GP Cycle, SoCalSVRiders.org, Little Big Racing, Suomy, LP Team Privateer.
I love practice at WSMC because when else can you be riding an SV and be on one of the fastest bikes on track? During one of the Sunday morning warm-up sessions I caught a huge gaggle of people while I was going through turn eight. I went around a few of them but then just sat back there through turn nine. Once on the front straight I just tucked in and pulled back the throttle. I had a big, dumb grin on my face as I motored about a half dozen other bikes.
My launch from the inside of row one for 550SBK wasn’t bad. Palmer and Rogers got a better jump than I did, but I could tell that I was going to beat Kevin Jump to turn one. Being down on the inside of the track made turn one kind of sharp and I couldn’t carry the speed into the apex like Jump could. As expected, right at about the apex Jump went around me. We weren’t going to touch or nothing, but it still caused me to chop the throttle and that cost me my drive out of turn one.
For some reason I now suck at turn two. The three guys pulled on me starting at the mid point of the turn. I got a decent drive out of the turn and that stopped the bleeding. Coming out of turn five I saw Palmer’s rear tire come way around and then him get tossed up out of the seat pretty good. Shrek’s lucky he’s as heavy as he is in this instance. A little guy like me or Rogers would have been put into orbit. This allowed me to close up the gap on Palmer down the back straight. With the wind blowing out of the South, there was a huge draft coming off the bikes as we came around turn eight. When I caught Palmer’s draft it was like my bike caught another gear. I started pulling up on him fast. It’s a lot harder to do a sling shot maneuver mid corner than on a straight and all I was thinking as Palmer got closer and closer was “OH FUCK, OH FUCK, OH FUCK!” Fortunately we hit the shut-off point for turn nine and I didn’t have to try that maneuver. Damn, once I got in his draft, I could tell that I started going really god damn fast.
Once onto the front straight I stayed right on his rear wheel, but couldn’t motor past. We hit the braking zone for turn one and I’ve got nothing for him there. Another lap or so and we started catching people from the heavyweight twins class that started in front of us. I did pass Palmer one more time as his bike popped out of gear exiting turn one. He caught me going into turn eight and put me back into fourth. Coming around into nine on the next lap there was a huge cloud of dust off the track and Rogers had crashed. I saw him get up so he was fine and must of just lost the front and slide easily off the track.
I caught a pair of heavy weight twins guys coming out of turn one on the sixth lap and went around both of them in turn two. At the end of the seventh lap I caught a 749 in eight. He shut off a lot earlier than I was expecting into turn nine and my closing speed suddenly got really fast. The pass I made on this guy around his outside was kind of close, but at least it didn’t slow me down. He caught me at the very end of the front straight and went back in front of me as we started to brake for turn one which pissed me off because all he was going to do was get in my way. I sacked up and made sure I was able to go around him at the apex of one and got him out of my way so I could carry speed into turn two.
Not that it mattered because I was going to be on my own for the rest of the lap anyway. I crossed the line in 3rd. I ran some better lap times than last month and won myself some money. But for the April round, I need to get a lot better.
Thanks to my sponsors: West Coast GP Cycle, SoCalSVRiders.org, Little Big Racing, Suomy, LP Team Privateer.