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HOLY EFFING LONG!!!
Cliff's notes: Had a lot of fun, putted around, then did good in my last race
Arrived Friday evening with plenty of time to put finish putting the bike back together... I had it buttoned up almost as much as I could w/o the bodywork, tank & key from Arcy.
Began getting it together, got the tank on, tossed a pint of fuel in the tank, turned the key.... crank, crank, crank, crank, crank, crank....... crank, crank, crank, crank, crank, crank, crank.... Won't fire & the FI light is blinking. WTF?!?!?! We go over all of the wiring from the tank back... everything's hooked up right but the fuel line from the tank wasn't seated quite right, so we fix that... crank, crank, crank, crank, crank, crankcrank, crank, crank, crank, crank, crank.... Battery is crankin plenty strong, everything sounds good but still no smell of fuel coming out of the tail pipe... Okay, put a little more fuel in... key on, fuel pump sounds good, crank, crank, crank, crank,
Long story short, with the help of Daviid () we find out it's the damn tip-over sensor. When I replaced the sub-frame and removed all the wiring I musta pulled it out of the little rubber grommet holder, which has an arrow and the word "upper" on it and installed it upside down, cuz the arrow was pointed up, but the sensor itself was upside down
Well at this point it's 11:30pm and I'm BEAT. The bike still has no bodywork on it and we still gotta fit it... Guess I'll be missing at least 1st practice cuz I'm goin to bed.
Saturday
Get up round 7 & get to work.... My teammate Jason Hillsgrove arrives & I get the rest of my parts (Thanks Motorcycles of Manchester!) Arcy and I get the bodywork on, fix the rest of my shit & get through tech... Didn't make it to either practice, but whatever, that's one of the reasons why I do the GTL.
GTL - Gridded 2B and I continue my streak of awesome starts. I'm in the lead pack going into turn 1 but back down a little since this is my first time through the Chicane Triplets. I still have some T8 crash jitters so I kinda cruise around for the full 20. I had a very brief back & forth with Tom Joyce at the end, but I power past him & KB down the straight (sorry KB, I'll wave next time), put my head down a little & kept him behind me for the last lap, taking 13th out of 18 starters.... Meh... I was very impressed by the T1 lay-out, but unimpressed with my riding.
LWSB - Again gridded 2b and AGAIN a good start, except very unconventional this time aroundI get it fired as they're dropping the 3 board, but the damn thing doesn't stay lit... I watch the 2 board drop and I crank again as I see the 1 board start to tilt... the bike fires to life, I rev the motor, the green waves, I release the clutch and just CARRY the front wheel a foot off the ground, just barely modulating the throttle as needed all the way to the rev limiter, shifting to 2nd as the front wheel comes back down
For a wheelied start, I still got a decent jump and hardly lost a spot going into T1 because of it.
Then came out the red flag as the tire/air barriers in 1 collected someone.
2nd start was much better, as was the THIRD start (yup, redflagged twice). I was still off my game & took the checkered while cruising around pretty much all by myself in 9th place out of 12 starters.
That night I decided to go out to dinner & have a quiet bite to eat but instead bumped into Denno, Noel, Mike and Q at the restaurant... Needless to say the evening did NOT go by uneventfully
A grand time was definitely had by all
Sunday
Morning practice 1 ended about 1/2 a lap in, cuz some crazy foo decided to tuck the front on the opening lap.No idea why they decided to call the practice finished, but whatever.
Practice 2 went a little better and I slowly began to turn things up a bit since my crash last weekend & feel the "thirst" that feeds the fire.
LWSS - The weather rolls in and it's doin the ole Loudon wet/dry/wet/dry thingI decide to head out on DOTS and it turns out to be the right decision. The race line began drying up pretty quickly & I woulda roasted my brand spankin new rains. I pushed the front & spun up the rear a few too many times for my liking so I cruised around by myself for the most part. My pace slowly increased as the track dried up, but I was still way off pace... I shoulda came in on the last lap, but index doesn't really matter as an Expert, so I crossed the line in dead effin last
LWGP - This race was a different story... The track was definitely gonna stay wet for this one so I got the rains on & headed out. When the green flag flew I got probably the best start on the grid. I went into turn 1 in 2nd place right behind Brett Guyer... Holy shit. My teammate Gino said after the race that the announcer commented on my start, so that was pretty awesome. As we approached turn 1 I apparently squeezed Babcock almost into the tires at the end of pit wall a little bit... I felt my rear tire squirm around a bit as I downshifted, but Oxx said Babcock damn near hit me, so there may have been a little contact there. By the time we came around again I was still in 2nd place & trippin. The whole time I just kept wondering where the hell the rest of the field was, cuz Guyer was gapping out on me pretty quickly. Finally Babcock got by me, as did Oxx (man, I suck in the bowl) and #808, Ryan Oosterman, putting me in 5th place.
Ryan ended up crashing out at some point, think it was the turn 11 area, and Oxx ended up with a mechanical.... When I took the checkered I had no idea that Ryan had DNF'ed and I had taken 3rd place. I got the good news after I got to the pits & needless to say I was pretty effin stoked to hear I got my first expert hardware
A big thanks to my ECK teammates for all their help and everyone that came up to watch; JerseyGirl, aka KerrY (NOEL
) Alex B. & Carla, TJ & Steph, Jim, everyone that came up on DucDave's ride, etc etc etc (way too many to list)... You guys are a big part of what make racing fun. Thanks so much for your support!
And of course thanks to our sponsors TonysTrackDays.com, Pine Motorparts/PBE Specialists, Phoenix Graphics, Woodcraft, Moon Performance, RJ's Motorsport, Motorcycles of Manchester, and BostonMoto-Pirelli.
Oh, and a special thank you to #110's Mechanic, Brian Oxx. Keep up the good work!
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Originally Posted by SVRACER01
