824's classic report

[smf]

I'm not in the habit of posting these, but feel like I need to so I can thank the people that helped getting me going this weekend. for those who don't know I've had a heck of a time getting my suspension dialed in this year. 2nd practice on saturday my bike finally felt like the 20yr old girl I fell in love with. along those lines first, thanks:

Suspension: Mike Martire - GMD-NY. brand new penske and properly setup forks. been bothering him every weekend and he's always willing to give advice/input.
Tires: Boston Moto/Pirelli, especially Scottie and Denno. Great tires and what other tire guy will help run your pit-board??
Engine: Matt Stone. The man knows how to build a motor, my little 700 is just plain _nasty_. As it turns out he also knows how to measure swingarm angle and helped me get that closer to the sweet number.

Thursday: get out for 2 sessions. liking the new layout. radiator springs a leak. patch it with some mystery stuff from a13x. let it sit overnight. fixed!

Friday:
ULSB: guy in front of me stalls the start. grab the brakes to not hit him. last into 1. pick off a few people through 1a/2 and into 3 then set off after Matt (#834). get him in 3 on the last lap. beat him to the line by about 5''. awesome stuff. great fun. finish 6th. run some 21's.

Saturday: 1st practice bike still feels off. scottie from boston moto stops by. pressures are way off. reset them. 2nd practice bike's feeling much better. like my old girl.
LWGP: ok launch. ride around. get passed by a bunch of 250 2-strokes. finish 9th, run some 21's. it's ok. I'll take it.

Sunday:
ASRA Thunderbike: really not feeling it before the race. raining all day, but the track has dried except for a little line of water in T1. take the warm up lap and line up in 12th (where I qualified). green drops. launch. end up somewhere around 11th into 1. takes the first 2 laps for me to settle into 13th behind some asra buell guy, rockwell and quinn. running their pace (21's) is really comfortable and the next group seems way off in the distance so I figure I'll sit behind them until I see the 1/2 way flag. it comes out. pick them all off in the next 2 laps and start to pull away from the crowd. each time by the gap on my pit-board is increasing, +.11, +1.5, +3, +4, +4.5... wow. I'm stunned they're not picking it up, but whatever the hawk feels amazing so I just keep ripping around. the guy in front of me is off in the distance so I'm not going to pass him. guyer laps me on lap 12. babcock never does ( ). get the checkers a lap or so later. finish 9th due to someone crashing.

9th, a bunch of 20's and a new personal best of 1:20.123. HOLY SH!T!!!!!!! This is AWESOME. I didn't realize I was running 20's until I got back into the pits and a13x pointed it out to me. DAMN the bike never felt like I was pushing it. it wanted _more_

thanks to a13x, ceo and denno for running my pit-baord. that was a huge help. it let me relax and plan instead of trying to guess what was happening. made for a very calm race. made the 20's feel like 21's.

as always thanks to Turn 1a North and Zip Tie Alley as well. best garage-mates around.

[scottieducati]

Dude it was great to see you finally make a breakthrough with the bike.... I'm glad we got your rear tire pressure sorted out, you GOTTA keep on that man and know what gains you're seeing!! You were jumping out of your skin after that last race... good work!!

[seth399]

awesome! You looked smooth and really agressive on the bike out there, congrats on the finishes.

[Pittenger5]

Dude watching you in the ASRA race was fucking awesome, you were killing it. Especially after the first couple laps when you were shaking your head when seeing the board.

[Sheppo]

The best part was watching him pick off those 4 riders in front of him 1 a lap and then pull away on them.

[CEO]

Honestly Scott being out there with the pit board and seeing you push harder and harder, clicking off quicker times and passing those guys and then checking out on them, that was the most fun I had all weekend. awesome!!!!!

[OreoGaborio]

Man, I wish I coulda watched you work that bike during the ASRA race, but I completely lost sight of ya like 4 laps in!

You were ridin the frikkin SNOT outta that thing, bro. Good on ya!!!

[smf]

Dude it was great to see you finally make a breakthrough with the bike.... I'm glad we got your rear tire pressure sorted out, you GOTTA keep on that man and know what gains you're seeing!! You were jumping out of your skin after that last race... good work!!

hahaha. damn right I was. I was really starting to doubt myself/wonder if I could do it at this level before that race. thanks for keeping the faith. it's sooo good to be back on the right track.

side note: I forgot to mention, those times were in no small part due to a trackwalk a13x, jro, seth, chris and I did a few weeks ago. that pushed me to finally get the back section working better. thanks guys!

[seth399]

hahaha. damn right I was. I was really starting to doubt myself/wonder if I could do it at this level before that race. thanks for keeping the faith. it's sooo good to be back on the right track.

side note: I forgot to mention, those times were in no small part due to a trackwalk a13x, jro, seth, chris and I did a few weeks ago. that pushed me to finally get the back section working better. thanks guys!

sweet, same here. Personally, before that I was shutting off so early into 11 ugh

[Doc]

Way to go SCOTT!!

I will never catch you now. But good for you!

[a13x]

Honestly Scott being out there with the pit board and seeing you push harder and harder, clicking off quicker times and passing those guys and then checking out on them, that was the most fun I had all weekend. awesome!!!!!

For real I had a ball running the pitboard with Denno, CEO, and Richie. It was a totally different feel and pretty exciting.

Great riding this weekend dude! You really dropping the hammer and are going to be a huge pain in my ass for the rest of the year. Dammit.