Race Report

September 7th was even more of a whirlwind weekend for me. I won't even go into my travel details as you probably wouldn't believe it anyway. It shouldn't have been humanly possible for me to make it to that race, but I did. Unfortunately that meant that I still didn't have time to get the bike working properly. I went out in the first race and finished 3rd, trying my heart out, but once again just too underpowered to be able to do anything about it. I was so determined to win the second race ... I got the holeshot and began stretching out a sizeable lead. It started to sprinkle rain in parts of the track. I tried to push where I thought I could, and play it safe in places where I thought it would be slick. The pavement still looked dry, but the water was running across my facesheild to let me know otherwise. To compound things, it hadn't rained in quite some time in Portland, and the oils and whatnot from previous races were reacting to create a very excitingly slippery surface (you can probably guess what happened next). I though I'd be OK on the brakes straight up and down, and that I should be safe driving out of turns and trail braking ... wrong. The front locked coming off the back straight. I let off the brake and it hooked back up. I knew I wasn't going to make the turn, I was still absolutely flying (I was still in 5th gear at this point). I tried to drag the front brake till I got to the grass to scrub as much speed as I could. The second my fingers touched the lever again I was down. That ended my weekend in a big hurry. I packed up as fast as I could and got out of there. Where I had to be in a specific amount of time was just unhealthy as it was.

I'm going to be back in action for the OMRRA races in Portland on October 17th. I'm really looking forward to being prepared for that race weekend for the first time in the life of my new bike. Keep posted.