jadeblue1
Mon 4/28/08, 1:13PM
new year, new things happening-my injuries from the crash last summer are now 90% healed up (according to the doc, but i feel great!) the bones have almost completely fused back together, and i was told i could go back to racing, working out, etc, on january 5th. i jumped into the fontana opener for WERA west a week later... wow, was i out of shape. so after 2 races of just trying to hang on to the bike, i figured i'd better do some pushups or something before i tried racing again.
fast forward to march...i now have my hands full with 2 bikes for the afm rounds this year, and 3 bikes for Wera West. I'm racing the SV in both- it's now a Yellow bike :D, along with a project bike i've been given to work on- a Hyosung GT250R-a5 speed air cooled twin that puts out about 27 hp (for 250 prod (afm), clubman and D-superbike (wera). and the last wera bike is a Honda CRF80-in the minis
after the afm opener at buttonwillow, i was in 6th overall for 250 prod, and 37th for 650 twins, much better than i thought i was going to do. I ran both bikes at the streets series 2 weeks later to get ready for Wera West at Las Vegas (april 10-12). still getting some setup issues taken care of on the 250-i was having gearing and jetting issues-but i manage to get it figured out to have a good run at vegas. for the wera weekend at the classic course, i showed up friday nite, got 2 practice sessions in on saturday morning,htat was it, then it was time to race... i ran 6 races (2 on satruday, 4 on sunday), got 4 trophies, and ran a 1:31-1:32 on a track that i hadn't seen in over a year.
on to infineon 2 weeks later-this past saturday and sunday. i haven't raced infineon since last september, did 1 track day since then in february, and showed up on friday night to race. saturday practice was 4 sessions-just enough for me to remember which way the track went-it that was it.
on a grid of 14 for 250 prod (3rd wave of race#3) i had an epic battle for 6th place with a ninja 250...i overheated my clutch on the start and got a bad launch, but managed to latch on to #294 and it was back and forth with him the whole race-i could get him going through a corner, but he could out pull me on the straights... it was probably about like watching 2 snails drag racing....but he got me by 1/2 a bike at the line-but it was so much fun! little bikes are great because you cann't spin up the rear tire-no matter how hard you try to...
next up-650 twins. i was gridded 55th at the start-the grid was full (60-70 bikes) and my goal was just to get into the top 40 and run under 2:00. the first lap of the race was carnage-i saw at least 4 bikes go down in front of the group i was in and we got to ride through the debris fields...i spent the race chasing down 2 people in front on me i knew, but a couple of mistakes in turn #7 cost me some precious seconds and i pulled up a little short of my goal-finishing 42 (still in the points, but just barely) and running a 2:01.
Formula IV was race 11, so i vowed to get a better start and just stick in the middle of the group-try to ignore all the traffic and just hang on. there was some good crashes in this one 2-but i was able to stay focused a little better, and was a the middle of a 5 pack of bikes. i'm going to have to put a camera on my bike on of these times just to show some the action i see-some of it's just plain crazy...but i stayed in the dice up-right to the checkered flag-again took a 42nd, but ran a 1:59...
all in all-it was a very good, fun day. thanks to my sponsors: Twin Works Factory, Crago Racing, Stone Brewing Company.
here's a coouple of link to pics to check out of the bikes:
http://gotbluemilk.com/web080427/157/imagepages/image1.html
http://gotbluemilk.com/web080427/157/imagepages/image4.html
http://gotbluemilk.com/web080427/157/imagepages/image9.html
http://gotbluemilk.com/web080427/157/imagepages/image35.html
fast forward to march...i now have my hands full with 2 bikes for the afm rounds this year, and 3 bikes for Wera West. I'm racing the SV in both- it's now a Yellow bike :D, along with a project bike i've been given to work on- a Hyosung GT250R-a5 speed air cooled twin that puts out about 27 hp (for 250 prod (afm), clubman and D-superbike (wera). and the last wera bike is a Honda CRF80-in the minis
after the afm opener at buttonwillow, i was in 6th overall for 250 prod, and 37th for 650 twins, much better than i thought i was going to do. I ran both bikes at the streets series 2 weeks later to get ready for Wera West at Las Vegas (april 10-12). still getting some setup issues taken care of on the 250-i was having gearing and jetting issues-but i manage to get it figured out to have a good run at vegas. for the wera weekend at the classic course, i showed up friday nite, got 2 practice sessions in on saturday morning,htat was it, then it was time to race... i ran 6 races (2 on satruday, 4 on sunday), got 4 trophies, and ran a 1:31-1:32 on a track that i hadn't seen in over a year.
on to infineon 2 weeks later-this past saturday and sunday. i haven't raced infineon since last september, did 1 track day since then in february, and showed up on friday night to race. saturday practice was 4 sessions-just enough for me to remember which way the track went-it that was it.
on a grid of 14 for 250 prod (3rd wave of race#3) i had an epic battle for 6th place with a ninja 250...i overheated my clutch on the start and got a bad launch, but managed to latch on to #294 and it was back and forth with him the whole race-i could get him going through a corner, but he could out pull me on the straights... it was probably about like watching 2 snails drag racing....but he got me by 1/2 a bike at the line-but it was so much fun! little bikes are great because you cann't spin up the rear tire-no matter how hard you try to...
next up-650 twins. i was gridded 55th at the start-the grid was full (60-70 bikes) and my goal was just to get into the top 40 and run under 2:00. the first lap of the race was carnage-i saw at least 4 bikes go down in front of the group i was in and we got to ride through the debris fields...i spent the race chasing down 2 people in front on me i knew, but a couple of mistakes in turn #7 cost me some precious seconds and i pulled up a little short of my goal-finishing 42 (still in the points, but just barely) and running a 2:01.
Formula IV was race 11, so i vowed to get a better start and just stick in the middle of the group-try to ignore all the traffic and just hang on. there was some good crashes in this one 2-but i was able to stay focused a little better, and was a the middle of a 5 pack of bikes. i'm going to have to put a camera on my bike on of these times just to show some the action i see-some of it's just plain crazy...but i stayed in the dice up-right to the checkered flag-again took a 42nd, but ran a 1:59...
all in all-it was a very good, fun day. thanks to my sponsors: Twin Works Factory, Crago Racing, Stone Brewing Company.
here's a coouple of link to pics to check out of the bikes:
http://gotbluemilk.com/web080427/157/imagepages/image1.html
http://gotbluemilk.com/web080427/157/imagepages/image4.html
http://gotbluemilk.com/web080427/157/imagepages/image9.html
http://gotbluemilk.com/web080427/157/imagepages/image35.html