Race Report

It was exciting to show up at the Westwood races at Mission, B.C. this past weekend. It’s been a fairly long off-season for this series and I was looking forward to seeing all the people again. Plus, I’d been riding my dirtbike a few times the week before and was feeling like a champ – so I wanted to see some green flags!

I skipped the practice day on Friday, so my first view of the track was morning warm-up. The club swapped back to the old configuration for the last bit of the lap as well, so that took even a little bit more of a re-learn.

The first race of the weekend for me was Pro Superbike Race #1 just before lunch. Because I missed the first round due to a scheduling conflict, and they grid based on points, I had to start from the 5th row back in about 17th position. I got a fairly ‘motivated’ launch though, and filed into the first turn in about 6th place or so. Two turns later I was up into 4th, and started chipping away at the leaders. By the time I got into second position the leader had about a 1.5 second lead. I closed it up fairly quickly though, and before I knew it the last lap flag was out and I had stretched a healthy lead to take the win.

Without ever having ridden my new GSXR-1000 at Mission before I figured I’d enter it in Pro Open Supersport just for some development/track time to see if I could make any progress on the forks, which I’ve been having troubles getting to work properly. The Mission Raceway has intensely hard braking zones, and since my problem with the big-gix is keeping the fork up off of the bottom, it didn’t work so good. I just couldn’t stop the thing! I worked my way up to the leader, and could run a faster pace than him, but to make a pass it had to happen on the brakes. That was the challenge. I followed him around hoping he’d make a mistake so I wouldn’t have to endanger us both by trying a pass under braking. That didn’t happen so once I saw the white flag I started trying anyway. Turn 1, I shot way off the line, he came back under me. I caught back up and tried it again in turn 7, but achieved the same results. Second place and a little knowledge on which direction to go with the forks. That’s all I could muster.

Luckily between the first and second Pro Superbike race of the day they reset the grid based on the new points standings. My win earlier in the day moved me from the fifth row to the second. I might as well started from further back in the field though, because the results were better the first time! It took me a while to get into second place, and even longer to chip away at the lead up to 1st. Finally when we were about to head into turn 1 for the last time and I had a run on the leader coming out of the last turn my bike wouldn’t shift between 2nd and 3rd gear! I was pissed! I regrouped though, and figured I’d give it another shot into turn 3. Again, it wouldn’t shift into 3rd gear! I had to finish in second position, and was ready to ghost ride my bike into the wall I was so mad. I don’t get like that often, but I think just the fact that it waited till the last lap to act up, did it twice, and cost me the win didn’t help the situation.

I want to say a big thanks to my buddy Wayne Webster and my wife Christi who helped so much all weekend to keep the bikes and equipment working so well. Also, a huge thanks to Pirelli Tires for making my job easy by never having to worry if I’ve got the best tire set-up on the grid! Also a big “wassup” to my buddies at MotorcycleUSA.com and OGIO for always being there for me and looking after my junk for years now.