Race Report

It's always nice to come to Laguna. Even if I haven't had the best of luck there, I don't think there's anyone that honestly doesn't like to be at Laguna. Per hour of track time, I've undoubtedly crashed more there than any other track – by far. Just to give you an idea, there's 11 turns at Laguna (and some of those aren't even really turns). I've crashed in 6 of them.

Every year at Laguna the word of the weekend is 'lack of track time'. Well this year it was even worse, as our typical 4 day weekend was shortened to 3. For the whole time that I'm there at the track I only pull my helmet on 4 times, and that's including the race. We got one 45 minute practice session Friday afternoon, one 25 minute practice session Saturday morning, then qualify and race on Sunday.

Practice was going really well for me. On Saturday morning practice I was 13th fastest and right there with the factory riders (with a 1:21.1). I was tremendously happy, and really looking forward to improving again the following day. It was killing me that it was 9:30 in the morning and I was done riding for the day.

Saturday night didn't go so great for me. I have a feeling that some of the problems stemmed from a seafood enchilada intake around dinner time. Sunday morning I couldn't eat breakfast, and felt like I was going to puke. I was obviously off my game. My balance was screwed (I almost fell over putting my gear on) and I could just tell that I shouldn't push things too much. Sure enough, I made about 3 mistakes per lap in qualifying and went .2 seconds slower with a 1:21.3. I took it well though, and knew that if I could get feeling better that things would improve for the race. I took about an hour and a half long nap on the pavement in my pit in the middle of the day and woke up feeling WAY better.

On the first start I got off the line really well. I backed that up with an awesome dive up the inside into turn two and was on a charge. Unfortunately there was a crash behind me and they red flagged it for a restart. Second run at it didn't go as well. I got into turn 2 better than a bunch of guys, but didn't get off the line quite as good. I spent the race chasing a group of 4 or 5 riders right in front of me. It was an awesome carrot, but I was struggling to hold their pace. It was everything I could do to stay with them, and when we got into the lappers I lost touch. I ended up 16th, and put in a really strong ride. In AMA 600 Supersport, anything in the top 20 is a strong ride.

I want to say a special thanks to Connor Gabbot for being my pit slave and driving all the way down there with me (mostly in the back of my small truck). Also big props out to Maxima Racing Oils, Flexi-Glass Bodywork, and eClips Web Design.