Lost

Due to work and bike reasons, I finally got out to a race weekend after a four month break. I got to the track early Saturday morning and felt really tired. With only four hours sleep I was finding it hard to get it together. I also had a new suit that I had to break in and it was a little stiff. I went out for my first session and felt out of practice. I could not seem to limber up due to the suit. Towards the end I started to feel better and probably got into the 34?s. The next session I felt even better and the suit was starting to loosen up and so was I. I had a few good pass exchanges with some expert guys and that gave me a bunch of confidence. It was getting really hot by this time and I tried to take it easy and crashed out during lunch.

Still feeling a little tired, I went out for another session and again dropped more time and was trying some things on the track that I was hoping would give me some time. I tend to let off for a second going into turn eight so I was practicing keeping it open from six to the beginning of nine. I found that I could hold off downshifting until I was bending it into nine which really helped me shave off some time. Feeling good I decided to skip practice starts (which would later bite me), and just relax. I watched the GT races and Jason and Bryant did awesome! I can?t wait to get to the expert class now!

Race morning I felt rested and ready to race. I was so psyched up that it was kind of a bummer that I had to wait so long to race. I watched a bunch of really good races including Troy going from second to last to third or fourth. He was running 24?s when he had been running 28?s all weekend. Finally my race was up and I was totally pumped! I felt great on the warm up lap and knew I was going to have a fun race. I was gridded on the second wave about four rows back. I watched the first wave go and I was determined to catch them. As the flag dropped I had a huge start. I got the hole-shot into turn one. I think it was in turn 6 someone passed me and I was thinking wow! He?s fast! Since he got me in 6 I knew he had a better drive than me and that I would not be able to pass him for a few turns. I noticed that out of 9 he had a really bad line so I pushed really hard and got right behind him on the straight. This guy had a serious motor because I could not seem to get much drive on him but I out braked him into one on the inside and didn?t look back. A few turns later I saw the red flag and pulled into the pits.

More than a little bummed I tried to relax in the pits while they cleaned up the mess. I did not feel anywhere near as focused on the grid for the second restart. We were gridded for a six lap restart. The first wave started and as the starter did the count down I know that my rpm was over 1k too high. Not having time to throttle down, I just hoped for the best as the green flag was waved. I let the clutch out as fast as I normally do and of course lofted a nice wheelie. I dropped the wheelie and proceeded to loft another one as most of the pack rocketed past me. I set the wheelie down and yet again showed off my leet stunna skills by doing a third wheelie! Really pissed at myself by this time I was able to finally get a drive and went waaay outside of one and managed to pick up 7-8 spots with just one guy ahead of me in my wave. At this point I just went to work and tried to put down the fastest laps I could. In lap two (my fastest lap), I slid the rear pretty good coming out of nine but just kept the throttle to the stops and actually felt really good coming on to the straight. I managed to catch the first wave on lap three and now had to deal with 1st wave traffic. Still feeling really good I keep getting closer and closer to the front. On lap five around turn one and two I passed a huge group of about five riders. Feeling like I could make up at least 3 more spots I told myself to keep pushing! Then the dreaded red flag came up ending the race.

Overall I felt great. I know that I could have gone faster with a better start and better conditioning. I did manage to get the fastest lap of the race, a 1:30. Later I looked at mylaps.com and found out I was pretty consistent. My slowest lap turned out to be .1 slower than the race winners fastest lap. I?m really hoping that next month I can get on the first wave. It was a very successful weekend for everyone on the Buymoto team. Troy is on fire and going to be the guy to watch this season in the open class. Ryan Fisher had some amazing lap times for only his 8th time on a sportbike ever! Ryan was racing the expert class skipping the novice ranks entirely, good work Ryan! Jason was killing it and next month will have a fresh motor. Mike and Jerry also were killing it in the novice race and Jerry got a 4th place finish! Nice going! Bryant is looking great on his new ride and trying to get it set up. Look for him to be up at the front next month.

I just wanted to thank Buymoto, Repsol Lubricants and DialItIn track days for all of their support. I want to give a special thanks to Bryant, Mike and Cheryl for all of their hard work this weekend. See ya next month!!!

__________________
#787 WSMC (Ok who is the asshat that stole my # this year!!!!) Errr #587 in 2007
2003 R6, 2006 R6 (see Hypercycles.org for the details on this bike and its race prep)

SPEED

Great write up Aaron! Good to see you back out there this month! :thumbup

__________________
Live to ride another day!"
"Zoomsplat" -Wingers"

SPORTBIKES WEST.COM

• User Maintenance
• General Forum Usage
• Reading and Posting Messages