Race Report

"What a Joke"

I can't say that the first race of the year really gave me warm fuzzies. I felt like I was in a bad re-run of the Gong Show, and someone hid the gong.

I'd never been to Daytona before, and it took me a couple of rain-delayed days to start to get a feel for things. I was trying to ride with a pretty cool head too because I have no plans to compete in the full FUSA series, it's simply a warm-up for next week's AMA races. I'm also on a 750 for the first time ever. Up till this point the fastest bike I had ever really raced had 106 horsepower, so 138 took a little to get used to.

Race day. Horribly, we woke up to the weather channel informing us that rain was inevitable. Rain it did, in droves. Our first race was totally soaked out and I got off to a terrible start, spinning the rear off of the line. It seemed like everyone passed me on the grid and I think I was in 20-something place into turn one. I was steadily working my way back up through the field when I overshot the chicane on the second or third lap. Apparently they didn't like where I re-entered the track and gave me a stop and go penalty even though I lost about 8 positions during the process. That effectively reduced me to who knows what position. I was pissed. I didn't even bother to check the results I was so disgusted. I still haven't, and I don't plan to. Then, to make matters worse, they decided to cancel the second race as it was getting too dark because of all the delays, and they counted it's results the same as the first leg. I read the rulebook later and realized that you have 3 laps after getting the meatball (stop and go) flag to come into the pits. Since I got it with only 2 laps remaining in the race?? hmmmmm?? Makes you wonder, what if? Too bad I didn't know that then.

Thank god we've got another weekend of racing, the serious weekend. Time to regroup for the next couple of days, dry out the gear, and get some solid footing for the AMA weekend. At least I didn't wreck too much gear.