Race Report

I had one of those weekends that just makes you feel like you're doing this all for a reason. After Sears Point I was pretty dejected, but I'm pumped now, and those guys out at Rd. America better watch their stuff in a couple weeks.

I practiced on Friday, except for an apparent lack of grip that wasn't allowing me to turn the times that I felt I should be turning, things went pretty good. I'm not sure if the track was green from not having anything run on it for a while or something, but I couldn't get below a low 1:10 even though I was sliding both ends most of the way around the track. Saturday I spent the day wrenching and fabricating trying to solve a little chronic steering dampener problem I've been having. I crank the dampener up probably 3 times as hard as most people, and I think I've been putting a bit too much strain on the system. I've blown out 3 of them now this year, thankfully the Circuit One guys are around to do the wicked job they do on that kind of stuff.

Sunday morning went about as good as it could have. I won all of my qualifiers, securing pole position for the mains. The times came down to reasonable low 1:09's when I needed to. No one else was posting times like that so I felt pretty good going into the afternoon. 750 Supersport and Superbike I won going away. The only drama there was that the starter didn't follow his regular routine in one of the races, and I wasn't looking when it went green. I didn't even have the revs up and by the time I got my wheelie sorted out and almost flipped over to the side and got it under control, there must have been around 15 bikes ahead of me. I passed a ton of guys on the brakes into turn 1 and ended up around 5th by the time we settled into the turn. I was second by the end of lap one and the leader had about 2 seconds on me, but I chased him down and won by a good, safe margin.

Open Superbike was a tiny bit tougher. Starting with the big bikes is a little annoying as they always win the drag race to turn one, and even if you might be able to turn quicker lap times, you have to come from behind. I was 4th going into turn one and ended up getting the leader at around lap 5 of 10. When I came around for the win they were still flying the white flag. I guess they didn't see me because I was in a pack of lappers. I just kept going until I saw the checkers, I guess I did 11 laps ... whatever. Formula Unlimited was a pretty tough race. I was 4th going into turn one, got one of them into turn 3, then another on the brakes into turn 7, putting me into second. Between getting held up on the first lap, and making a big mistake in turn 3 on the second lap, John Dugan (leader) had about a 2 second lead on me and an extra 30 horsepower as he's on his 1000 while I'm on the 750. I rode so hard that race and closed the gap back up to John by around lap 8 or so. I put a string of 11 laps in a row in the 1:08's with a best of 1:08.43. Last year's pole time for the FUSA Unlimited class was set at 1:07.9, so I'm looking forward to a good showing in that race later this year. My bike is about 10 horsepower down on the class limit, so if we do anything special to the motor for that race I should be right there for the win. We'll see. Regardless, I caught up to John but couldn't get by all that horsepower. He'd pull about 40 feet on me down the front straight even though I could out drive him and come up beside him at the start of the straight. It was impossible to even get a sniff of the draft as his bike would just motor away once we got anywhere near 5th gear.

I'm totally pleased with the results. We're headed to Wisconsin for the AMA National in a couple weeks out at Rd. America. I'm really looking forward to running with that group of guys again, I feel like that is where I belong. I took a digger in the points from missing Rd. Atlanta, I went from 5th to 11th. I'm also going to have to miss Loudon in about a month, but other than that I'll be in the remaining AMA rounds. Virginia might be a stretch later in the year, but at least I've got some time to figure that out.

Special thanks to the Tuff Dog crew for being so supportive. Also mad props to Dave at Circuit One for swimming in hydraulic oil for me, SMI Motorsports for being so pro-active, and understanding that crashes happen some times. EBC brakes have a new hardened backing plate GSXR brake pad that rocks the block too! Pirelli's stick like no other .....