Race Report

Things at the OMRRA races are shaping up just fine indeed. Every event since the first I’ve continued to win and win races, extending my lead in the overall championship at every race meet along the way. Going into the last race of the season this weekend I’ve got a substantial lead. In fact, if it wasn’t a “double points” weekend I could just stay home. I’ve got over a full normal weekend’s worth of points lead over my nearest competitor.

I’m pretty glad that I got the monkey off my back in the way that I did. Until this past race weekend I hadn’t laid a handlebar on the ground all year. In morning warm-up on the 600 the front just went away from under me going into one of the medium speed turns. A few people talked about how a bike spewed coolant right there just a few moments before I came through there. I can’t say for sure that was the case or not, but there just wasn’t any traction at that point. The tires were up to temp, and at the proper pressure and whatnot, aside from the coolant – I just don’t really get it. Anyway, the bike wasn’t too badly damaged at all, and after replacing a couple parts we had it ready for its first morning qualifier.

I wasn’t overly confident in the track conditions going into the morning qualifier sessions. I floated around a couple seconds off of the pace to make sure there weren’t any other mishaps, but still either won or got second in all of my qualifiers.

There wasn’t much to report out on in either of the 750 races. I won by huge margins in both of them – I’ll spare you the details there.

The 600 obviously wasn’t phased at all by the morning tip-over. I was immediately able to run a strong pace on it in the afternoon in the 600 Supersport race. Fellow competitor, Mike Sullivan, was able to hang with me though. I towed him along and he nipped me at the end. I have to hand it to him. He beat me fair and square with an outbraking move on the last lap. As much as I respect and like Mike, I wasn’t ready to roll over and let that happen again though.

Last race of the day was the 600 Superbike event. It was a pretty stange start to the race. Me and Mike just seemed to be tripping over ourselves for the first 3 laps or so. Each time either of us would get into the lead we’d take turns making mistakes and handing the lead to each other. Finally, just before the halfway flag I decided to get my head on straight. It was probably best for both of us, cause we needed to get our programs straightened out fast. We were coming up to the lappers now in full force, and you need to be on your game to make split second decisions that you, your competitors, and the lappers (without knowing it) all have to rely on. We picked our way through traffic one by one. Luckily I didn’t get into any of them on the last half of the last lap and I was able to maintain my lead through to the line.

After it was all said and done I had once again stretched out my lead for the championship. I can float around at whatever pace I feel like for the upcoming weekend. Even if the weather was to be bad I’m not too stressed about it. Even if I wreck I’m still in a pretty good position. The way they count the points at OMRRA is they total the points from your two “best” classes. When you total the points from my best two compared to everyone else’s best two that’s what makes up the current standings. What’s interesting is that even if you total my two “worst” classes, I still have a substantial points lead on everyone. Of course it’s not over till it’s over – as anything could always happen – but even with my competitors going “all in” I’ve still got some poker chips to spare.

Stay tuned for the final schmidty report to come soon. I just gotta kick this cold-flu thing here before the weekend. Maybe I better go thrash my dirtbike for a few hours? Sounds like doctor’s orders to me……