Race Report

I've been bugged by a number of people trying to get me to race at Mission for quite a while now. I've had to answer all the questions of 'why not?' in many different ways. I was almost running out of reasons. After my bike blew up a couple races ago at Portland, Marbod from M-Speed Performance in Vancouver lent me one of his bikes to do a practice/track day they had there.

The track is insanely tight and short. My R6 gets geared so low – I go TWO teeth smaller on the front sprocket AND two teeth larger on the rear compared to most places – crazy huh? The Mission track surface is a little 'irregular', and few corners have some safety issues, but I didn't feel like I was in impending doom while riding around. Anyway, I had my R6 there this past weekend for the double header that the WMRC was putting on. Things went pretty good.

With the combination of only having 10 minutes of practice time to try to sort my bike out, and being gridded at the back for all my morning heat races, I had my work cut out for me. Trying to learn the track and pass people to secure a good grid position for the main all in 4 laps proved to be a challenge. Best I could do was to get on the third row for my afternoon starts.

I could go into race by race detail, but the long and short of it was that I just steadily improved throughout the day. I was in a total of 4 mains for the day and finished 2nd, 4th, 1st, and 4th, I think. It got kind of confusing cause there were some DQ's and whatnot, but I know that I won one anyway. That much I know. It was a pretty good start to the weekend, and I was incredibly bagged from the huge day of set up, bike prep, qualifiers and mains. I just went to my family's house in Vancouver and slept like a rock.

For day two I decided not to run the Open Superbike races as they don't have any qualifiers for that class. They grid you up based on your current season points for the class (of which I have none, obviously), and I just wasn't interested in being forced to work through traffic any more. I knew it would just stress me out and frustrate me, and the whole point of the weekend was to take my time trying to learn the track and size up the competition. I didn't want anything to harsh my buzz.

My first qualifier of the day (Pro 600) went really well. I finally got the start I was looking for and was in forth place into turn 1. WMRC is a smaller club, and there's basically three guys that check out in all the races. I have my sights set squarely on them, and I finally got in behind them to do some 'follow the leader' learning sessions. I basically hung with them except for a couple little mistakes I made. Bike placement and turn in points are absolutely critical at such a tight "point and squirt" style of track. Although I was able to follow their lines a bit, I was basically screwing them up as it was so fresh to me. I drifted back slightly.

Open Supersport qualifier was a little trickier as I got caught up with a couple guys that let the leader get away before I could get clear of them. I finished second, and didn't get much of a chance to learn anything.

My Pro 600 main was a little bit of a let down as well. I didn't get a very good launch off of the grid, then made a few mistakes on the first lap to let the leaders gap me out slightly. I missed my chance at another lesson and slowly drifted back to finish forth again.

My Open Supersport race was a little more interesting. I got the holeshot this time and was leading for about 3 laps or so before the red flag came out. Although I knew I wasn't running the pace that would let me get away, I knew I was fast in the passing zones and would be hard to get past. My intent wasn't to win at all costs anyway, what I was most looking forward to was getting passed so that I had the ultimate chance to tag onto the back wheel and get dragged the fast way around for a bit. That didn't happen though. After the red flag my start wasn't as good, I screwed up the first lap a bit, and had to float around about 10 bike lengths back from the leader for the entire race. We gapped out the rest of the field though, and I finished second.

Overall the weekend went really well. I've definitely come a long ways towards knowing the track and my competition there. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to be around the club more often next year, and spending this past weekend learning will be better than spending the first weekend learning when it matters. I look forward to racing there some more, and I'm pretty sure I'll have something for the leaders in a very short time.

I want to say a special thanks to Murray Newman of Fury Performance for spending some time working with me on some bike set up and racing line information. Also Spike's Sprockets for coming up with a big pizza pie sprocket to let me get out of the turns so well. Spike's makes super high quality sprockets that rival the biggest manufacturers' quality right here in the Northwest. They're local, cool, priced right, and work really well. Check them out on my bike next time you see me at the track.

Next race is at PIR. I'm leading the championship race there for the number 1 plate. Unless something drastic happens, I should be able to secure it. Wish me luck, and keep posted.