Race Report

I've never had so many reasons why I just flat sucked at a race before.

If it weren't for the on-track activities, it would have been a perfect weekend. Ate great food, hung out with great people, got to watch some great races, and had a great time out on the town. But I also had to ride the bike ...

Thursday morning started out just fine enough. I posted the 17th fastest time in AMA Superbike for the first session of the weekend. Later that afternoon I dropped another .5 of a second, but everyone else dropped more and I ended up qualified somewhere on row 7 for the main. Then all the fun ended.

Friday we had a single one-hour session that I was determined to make the most out of. I wasn't happy with my times to this point and was set on lowing them. I was pushing pretty hard when the front end washed out in the middle of turn 11 (the slowest turn on the track). I picked the bike up, it wasn't even scratched, and got going again. I started to lean on it a little more in the turns after that, still determined to lower my times, when the front washed out again in the middle of turn 3. That turn's a little faster than turn 11 and there was some more significant damage. I called off the extra curricular activities for Friday night to get the bike fixed up for the next day (race day), swapped to my other set of bodywork and used a bunch of my spares. The worst part was that my times still didn't get any lower.

I got desperate and tried a fairly drastic geometry change on the bike for Saturday morning. We put a lot more weight on the front of the bike and it changed the steering so much that I had to re-learn a bunch of my turn-in points. At first I was just making a mess of the whole deal and couldn't make it through hardly any of the turns without having to make steering corrections. Later in the session it started to work a bit for me and the times started to come down to a reasonable 1:31.6 range. Then the front end washed out on me in the middle of the fast downhill right hand turn 10. This time the bike was really a mess. We scrambled to get it back to the rideable point. We had to graft the old crashed bodywork from the day before onto it. Everything except for the frame, motor, forks, and wheels needed to be changed out. My spares tub is pretty light now, and things only get worse from here.

I got a terrible start from the green light. The brake bottle was leaking and sprayed my faceshield and windshield with a fog of brake fluid that haunted me for the entire race. The vents in my helmet were still all full of dust from my crash and blasted my eyes with sand for the first few laps. I had no confidence in the front end at all after crashing in almost half of the corners of the track, all in a row. The last three times I hopped on the bike the front washed on me. I rode around like my skirt was blown up in my face and basically got my ass handed to me.

Saturday night I focused on forgetting it all. We got trashed at the Blue Fin and had to talk our way back into the facility at 3:30am (they close the gate at midnight). I just got home yesterday and I leave for Portland again tomorrow. Me and the bike are pretty beat, but we charge on. Wish me some luck – and make it the good kind this time!

I want to give an extra special shout out to Karen, Sluggo, and the rest of camp chug-a-lug. Excellent times and even better food. You guys truly made us feel at home, and make me look forward to going back, even if I can't keep a front tire under me.