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Gino Race report Sept 2 EX ULSB
Have got to thank everyone in T1 this weekend. Especially
Lauren, Rachel, Ryan, Chris, Mitchell, Matt, Bob, Doc, Brian, Tony
Great weekend and some cool nights with all nestled around the fire and keeping our bellies warm with gram crackers, toasted marshmallows and chocolate. Sorry you all missed out.
Sunday Race 8 Ultra Light Superbike. Head out to the pre-grid. I have Matt Stone to the right of me and Ryan (cough, cough, cheater) Hobbs to my left. Cool. Have a good race buds. I think their plan was to squeeze me out in 1. Nice easy warm up lap to get some heat into the breaks. Get into position 3C and start to look up for the flagger. I did not have a good sightline to see either the boards or the flag. I back up a little and move slightly to the left. AHHHH this is better. Then I noticed the idle felt a little slow so I turned it up about 1 rotation. O.K this feels a bit much. I then noticed the 2 board. Crap, no time to worry about that now. The one board is up and I am still thinking about the slightly high throttle and how am I going to adjust letting the clutch slip out on the launch. Tilting one board, flag and I am well off my mark. I launch pretty even with the third row. Usually I am even with the second row before they are starting to roll. O.K. time to make up some ground.there goes Hobbs on the right side of me into 1. To be expected,You Bastard. Coming into 1 I am behind Hobbs for 5th. Turn 3 I end up taking Hobbs
under braking and end up behind Nick Rockwell. T6 He takes the left line and stabs the breaks. I end up doing the same
as this was much unexpected. Come to find out later on Hobbs did the same thing to keep from hitting me. Strike one. I get back on Rocks tail coming into 9 and the same thing happens.
Strike 2. Third strike and I am out of here. All right, I think I know what you are going to do ahead. I nail my marks coming out off 10 and now we are heading into 11. I am hard on the throttle and he did it again.
Strike 3. With my plan formulated in T9 I took advantage of the situation and stayed on the throttle and took the left line to the apex of 11 like he was standing still. Cool. Now I have some open track to catch Jurgen Frasch. We head out onto the straightaway RED flag. Damm, that just screwed up a great pass. Back to Pre-grid. Hobbs pulls next to me and is jumping up and down excitedly like he has to pee his leathers.
"Holly shit that was the coolest thing; I have never seen anyone do that before." Frankly, I have never done that before. We are all sitting on pre-grid and I see KB walking around with a jug off water and asks if anyone needs some, sure. BIG THANKS to KB, you calmed my nerves.
We head back out to the grid and I am searching for Neutral. (I never did adjust the idle in the pre-grid. I just turned off the engine right when I got there and forgot all about it.) It's a pain trying to find it on the HAWK with the heavier detent spring. Ahhhh, here it is. I adjust the idle, perfect. I adjust myself on the seat. The boards start dropping, the one board is up and turning and green flag. I let the clutch out and nothing happens. Heyremember when you were in neutral. Yea
. The whole field screams by. Shit. I smack it into 1st and start pounding the gears. Coming into 1 I leave it in 3rd knowing I am going to need to get drives to get around people. I start passing groups of people on the outside of 1, pass an Aprilia 250 on the inside of 1A, the outside of 2 and I end up behind Matt Stone starting to come into 3. Cool I made up a good chunk of the pack. I am now 9th. I had planned on Matt moving to the inside of the chute and overtake the rider in front and I was going to follow him right thru. I notice Matt starting to raise his head. No, he's not, all righty then. Matt had checked up on the rider and was going to follow him thru T3. I can't wait, I continue to throttle to just past my breaking marker and pass 3 riders to the apex. Now I'm in 6th behind Hobbs. I can't pull on him for shit. I wonder why, You bastard
. We come into 11 Ryan is being checked up by the rider in front of him and leaving the left hand side into 11 wide open. Hell i'll do it again.
WOW, what a work out. I still need to clean up my lines as I got a little sloppy at least a couple of times during each lap. I have met my goal for the year and plan to continue hitting the 19's. New goal for next year I think is well within my grasp. 18's Baby.
I have to think my coach Hobbs for scaring me to my fastest laps ever 1:19.6, 1:19.7, 1:19.8 and a series of 1:19.9's for 4th place during the Fall roundup in Expert Ultra Light Superbike.
I will see a bunch of you on the track in a couple of weeks at the next 2 day event with Tony Track Days on the 18&19. Have fun and watch out for the cages.
Till next time, Later
Gino
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