jadeblue1
Mon 4/16/07, 7:19PM
The Solo series races are run on saturday night and are 20 laps long. They are great for endurance training and also to practice for the toyota 200 in september. I planned to run all of them this year, as I want to field my bike w/a 3 person team @ miller for the WERA endurance race in june, as well as running n the 4 hr @ Infineon for the AFM endurance race in September again.
Endurance racing is different from sprint racing-you need to be less aggressive with your body movement, ride your bike a little differently, and really relax & not tense up. You also need to be really consistent. My goal for this race was to have all of my laps within a .5 sec range (example: all laps fall 1:40-1:40:50).
The wind was really bad all day, and we were the last race of the night (5:35 start). So the sun was dipping & the temp was dropping. A few of the other people on the grid crashed during the course of practice & the one person I knew I would be able to dice it up with decided to launch himself off T6 around 2 pm. So I asked Amy Hronek-my endurance team partner, to race her CBR400 on the grid so it would be a little more challenging (Amy keeps me very honest in T8 & she rails that CBR through the corners like it's a 2-stroke)
As I was getting ready to grid up, it kind of started to sprinkle, and I was hoping the cloud wouldn't open up on us...just as I started cussing, it stopped. Yay! So my luck was holding-I even had the pole position! We gridded up, with a string of 2 strokes behind us, and as the flag dropped, I followed #517 into T1 & decided to hang off his butt until I saw Amy by me. As we went into T3 and I watched his back wheel slide & start to step out, I thought I was actually going to grab the lead by default. But he managed to ride out the wiggle & straightened his bike out just before T4. I settled into my groove, and figured Amy was right on my butt, so I unleashed the mighty power of the sv & drove the crap out of the inside line from T5, over T6 & into T8.
My strategy was work hard for 5 laps, hold the pace for 10 laps, and work hard the last 5. My plan was working pretty well-Amy slid by me in T8 on the 4th lap,and I hooked onto her tail & hung in her draft. As I settled into the pace I wanted to hold for the next 10 laps, I kept telling myself to just relax, just relax, follow amy, just relax....
It was going great until about the halfway point when I saw a wheel come up beside my in T8. So I went a little deeper into T9, and drove a little harder onto the front straight, thinking to myself, who's behind me? Then going into T3, I decided to run the midline-the wind was giving a tailwind into T3 & the extra push was great for carrying speed. Plus I wanted to be under whoever was behind me. I turn in & suddenly there's a bike RIGHT THERE! (right on the candy stripes and not turning!) so I got my whole body off the bike, pushed it up & tried to get over 3 feet before we connect...it worked, but I got onto the off camber part of the turn. With back wheel churning, I got it up into 4, turn too low & too soon & had a flashback of what happened the last time i did that, so I took a deep breath, held it, made myself pull it back together & drive into T5. Back into T8, I'm thinking it's about time to start working again.
Sure enough I see the tire again in the next lap, so I shut the door until T8 when #750 Ken Ryder squeaks by me. I grabbed onto him like a pitbull with lockjaw & got by him going out of T2 into T3. He stayed behind me for about a lap then put the move on in T8 again. this time we see the white flag. I go for a move in T2, and hope I cn hold him off in T8 this time, but the wind has been freaking me out in this turn all race, so once again he gets by me. I chase him to the line, but couldn't get him.
I got my first willow podium since my novice races (3rd) and all my laps were within .8 secs of each other. It was a good race.
here's a pic of the females that dominated the podium making a racerboy sandwich:
http://www.ericangel.com/misc/tmp/CIMG1061.JPG
Endurance racing is different from sprint racing-you need to be less aggressive with your body movement, ride your bike a little differently, and really relax & not tense up. You also need to be really consistent. My goal for this race was to have all of my laps within a .5 sec range (example: all laps fall 1:40-1:40:50).
The wind was really bad all day, and we were the last race of the night (5:35 start). So the sun was dipping & the temp was dropping. A few of the other people on the grid crashed during the course of practice & the one person I knew I would be able to dice it up with decided to launch himself off T6 around 2 pm. So I asked Amy Hronek-my endurance team partner, to race her CBR400 on the grid so it would be a little more challenging (Amy keeps me very honest in T8 & she rails that CBR through the corners like it's a 2-stroke)
As I was getting ready to grid up, it kind of started to sprinkle, and I was hoping the cloud wouldn't open up on us...just as I started cussing, it stopped. Yay! So my luck was holding-I even had the pole position! We gridded up, with a string of 2 strokes behind us, and as the flag dropped, I followed #517 into T1 & decided to hang off his butt until I saw Amy by me. As we went into T3 and I watched his back wheel slide & start to step out, I thought I was actually going to grab the lead by default. But he managed to ride out the wiggle & straightened his bike out just before T4. I settled into my groove, and figured Amy was right on my butt, so I unleashed the mighty power of the sv & drove the crap out of the inside line from T5, over T6 & into T8.
My strategy was work hard for 5 laps, hold the pace for 10 laps, and work hard the last 5. My plan was working pretty well-Amy slid by me in T8 on the 4th lap,and I hooked onto her tail & hung in her draft. As I settled into the pace I wanted to hold for the next 10 laps, I kept telling myself to just relax, just relax, follow amy, just relax....
It was going great until about the halfway point when I saw a wheel come up beside my in T8. So I went a little deeper into T9, and drove a little harder onto the front straight, thinking to myself, who's behind me? Then going into T3, I decided to run the midline-the wind was giving a tailwind into T3 & the extra push was great for carrying speed. Plus I wanted to be under whoever was behind me. I turn in & suddenly there's a bike RIGHT THERE! (right on the candy stripes and not turning!) so I got my whole body off the bike, pushed it up & tried to get over 3 feet before we connect...it worked, but I got onto the off camber part of the turn. With back wheel churning, I got it up into 4, turn too low & too soon & had a flashback of what happened the last time i did that, so I took a deep breath, held it, made myself pull it back together & drive into T5. Back into T8, I'm thinking it's about time to start working again.
Sure enough I see the tire again in the next lap, so I shut the door until T8 when #750 Ken Ryder squeaks by me. I grabbed onto him like a pitbull with lockjaw & got by him going out of T2 into T3. He stayed behind me for about a lap then put the move on in T8 again. this time we see the white flag. I go for a move in T2, and hope I cn hold him off in T8 this time, but the wind has been freaking me out in this turn all race, so once again he gets by me. I chase him to the line, but couldn't get him.
I got my first willow podium since my novice races (3rd) and all my laps were within .8 secs of each other. It was a good race.
here's a pic of the females that dominated the podium making a racerboy sandwich:
http://www.ericangel.com/misc/tmp/CIMG1061.JPG