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The Loudon Classic is the biggiest race weekend of the Loudon Road Racing Series and approached with much anticipation. May’s race weekend had yielded nice results for a new amateur and I was sitting Top 10 in points in 3 of the 4 classes I’m competing in. I entered the weekend both with high hopes and expectations knowing I would be gridded well enough to give myself a fighting chance at by the end of each race.
Thursday
I arrived at the track at about 3:30 and met my teammate #123 Chris Dove in the friendly CMP Garage, 9 North. I had some maintenance planned for my bike and also wanted to switch my bike to GP shift for the weekend. So I spent the rest of the evening changing to a new swing arm as I had bent mine in a previous crash and installing a new chain and sprockets. After a nice meal provided by the CMP grill, I went off to bed around 10 pm.
Friday
After torrential rain Thursday night we awoke to a very wet race track and due to the compressed schedule of the packed weekend, only one morning practice session. I opted to not change to rain tires and go out for practice only to have to change back to a dry setup later in the day. This would prove to be a costly error for me later in the day.
GTO (25 minutes):
I had a nice grid position on the outside of the second row of my wave and got a really solid launch when our new start light system went out. I went into Turn 1 in 5th position and quickly began to regret my decision to skip practice. As a new racer I immediately found how important it is for me to turn a few hot laps and shake off the cobwebs before putting myself in a race environment. I quickly lost several positions and just felt generally uncomfortable on my bike. With about 10 minutes remaining I was lapped by an expert entering Turn 3. This has been a section of the track giving me a great deal of difficulty and I decided to follow him in to see if I could pick up anything. Unfortunately for me, all I ended up picking up were myself and my motorcycle, tucked the front at apex.
Result: DNF
Team Endurance Race (3 hours):
This was just a fun time. The CMP team entered with my teammate Chris Dove, #123, Time Barber #46, and Tony Cerqueira #540, and myself. I started the race for us and rode for about 20 minutes, hardly an endurance effort but my 6’3” frame was feeling very cramped on Chris’ GSX-R 600 which is setup for a guy 6” shorter and about 75 pounds less. The rest of the team rode exceptionally well, I put in another 20 minutes, and we finished 3rd in the middleweight class, 4th overall.
Saturday
Unlimited Superbike (8 laps):
I was gridded on the 3rd row of the field and got off to a decent start but still lost a few spots going into Turn 1. Feeling pretty good on my bike I picked up a few positions over the course of the race and when the white flag came out I found myself in 11th and tracking down a rider ahead. I turned into Turn 3 and just before apex another rider quickly came into view on my inside and struck me, sending us both to the ground. Apparently the other rider came in too hot and didn’t have enough brakes to slow himself down and T-boned me. Definitely an extremely frustrating situation, but I had to move on quickly as I just a one race break before my next.
Result: DNF
Middleweight Supersport (8 laps):
Gridded on the 2nd row I got a great start and exited the infield chicane in 5th place. I was running hard and feeling great, starting to get a nice rhythm going and at about the half way point entering Turn 1 I reached down to grab a downshift and couldn’t locate my shifter lever. After making it through that section I was able to reach a shift but the longer I continued, the more out of reach my lever was. Frustrated and eventually unable to shift my bike at all, I pitted in. Back at the garage I discovered the that the jam nuts that secure the length of my shifter linkage had loosened and my shifter was sagging progressively more as I continued to ride. I realized at that point when I adjusted my bike to GP shift, I failed to locktite those nuts. This is wny you never let the talent touch the tools.
Result: DNF
Sunday
Heavyweight Superbike (8 laps):
My goal honestly this race was to FINISH. I gridded my bike and with the 1 board up, spooled my CBR up to my 10,000 rpm launch speed. Just before the lights went out, I noticed a red light illuminate on my display. Low oil pressure. I launched anyway and went hard, hoping the symptom would drop, but after half a lap it became apparent that wasn’t going to happen. Not wanting to risk damage to the engine, I pulled off of the race line, slowed up, and pitted in. It was a very fitting end to my race weekend.
Result: DNF
Final Thoughts
A very disappointing weekend for the 910 CBR600. After pitting in my last race, I checked over the bike and found nothing wrong. After refiring the engine my oil pressure was fine, I suspect I have a faulty oil pressure sensor which will be replace before the next round of racing. At the end of the day, despite 2 crashes and 2 mechanical DNF’s I was able to depart NHMS with no injuries and a memorable weekend with my racing family. As they say, that’s racing. I have plans to head out to New York Safety Track before July’s racing event and do a weekend of practice to get myself centered again and work on a couple of things I want to correct.
Thanks for reading, and a huge thanks to my sponsor Central Mass Powersports. They’ve been a tremendous amount of support to me and I hope I can produce some better results for them at the next event. Much appreciation to my teammates Chris Dove #123, and Todd Soulrie 246, and all the family around the North Garages.
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