Race Report

Portland Suzuki World Cup Qualifier

Well to continue the trend of bad luck from Laguna I figured I'd better lose the front at 130 mph and destroy my bike completely the morning of the big race. It was the first lap of my qualifying race, I was in the lead, and as I touched the brake pads to the disks for the very first time for turn 9 the front end just went away. It wasn't much of a big deal for me but the bike took a digger and cartwheeled itself into oblivion.

I had a second bike available but without a motor. We pulled the motor out of what was left of the first bike and got the second working. It took quite a bit of work as there were some really strange things wrong with the bike like coils and injectors and whatnot, but we kept switching parts until it ran OK. Somehow the motor lost a considerable amount of power during all of this and I knew it the second the clutch plates were fully engaged off of the start.

I had to start from dead last because of missing the qualifying race while putting the bike together. I filed into turn one in about 6th place. It took me a couple of laps to get into second, but 2 laps behind traffic is long enough for a large gap to get built. I charged hard for a few laps, turning the fastest laps of the race and closing the gap a bit, but I could tell that I could risk it all in every corner and it still wouldn't be enough to close the large gap with the motor I had between my legs. After the race it dyno'd 6 hp down from what it was in the morning.

I packed up my stuff and off it went for Mid-Ohio the next weekend.