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This was by far the WORST race I have ever finished. I'm not going to complain too much because I didn't crash and that is always a good thing. My day started out well enough after having about 3 hours of sleep due to a noisy room mate.
I got to the track and brought my bike over to tech for the mandatory inspection. The guy that teched my bike was *new* or at least someone who I have never seen there before in 3 seasons of racing at NHIS. He checked the rear brake (which on older mille's are USELESS) and said that it was too soft to pass. He then tore apart my saftey wire efforts on the front end. Now keep in mind this bike passed tech with no problems 6 days earlier for a LRRS event. 2 of the other guys said the bike was fine but this jack hole would not let me race until I re-wired the front of the bike to his specs and bled the rear brake. So back to the pit I go.
Fortunately Scott Emerton tackled the front end while I bled the rear brake. (yes I removed the caliper and held it right side up to get all the air out) So because of this I missed my only practice session of the day. PISS ME OFF!
Ok.. so I have race 1. Supertwins AM. Wave 4, last row 15 slot A. Fine. I got a teriffic start and was part of the 6 wide cluster going into 1 until a guy on an RC-51 cut across my front tire real close. I let off so I wouldn't take us both out and ran out a little wider than I wanted to letting 2 bikes under me.
Ok this is where I got pissed. I was waaaay faster in the corners than either of these two I know for a fact 1 guy had a BCM superbike spec engine with a hell of a lot more HP than I do. The other guy I dunno.. He was just fast enough to stay infront of this 996. They were both pulling the *hacking* and riding elbows out and making very difficult to pass. Every lap I would show the 996 a tire to the inside or outside of 12 and he would just pull me down the straight. I would again show him a tire to the inside or outside of 1,1A or 2 and again blast outta the corner. He finally ran wide in 9 I got by only to be passed again down the straight.
At this point we were being over taken by the leaders from HWSB. Jeff wood went passed us in 3 and was a freaking rocket! In and out of the corner like I have never seen before. Aaron Clark went by me in 12 with Eric Wood a way behind and Jesse Sandoz not so far behind him. So my best lap was a slooooooow 27.9 which frustrated the heck outta me. I was posting low 25s last week and because it was cooler the track was not as greasy so I am confident I coulda matched if not beaten those times from last week. Oh well I guess I need to get more agressive in order to pass people. Or maybe some more power. Either way I am sure the next race weekend will be better due to less people on track. There musta been 50 bikes out there. It was very crowded.
I have to say huge thanks to Gary for letting me pit with him for the day. It was a great time and I'd be happy to do it again if he is up for it. As always it was great to see and help out the rest of the gang. Heath, Jay, Dan, Ben, Degs.. the rest!