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Going to try and keep this somewhat concise so...
This has been a long ass week for me and ending it with a great three days filled with sunshine, great friends, and good riding was just what the Doctor ordered.
Monday- fly to Bermuda
Tuesday - Toriano's funeral
Wed - fly back to Boston, pick up motard, work on motard with Matt Stone
Thurs - work on motard (leaking radiator) all day and pack everything for races, drive to track and camp at midnight
Friday - FINALLY TIME TO RIDE and Penguin School.
Friday I was up bright and early for the Penguin School and meeting my college roommate Seth (Seth505) as he was taking the Basic School. He'd never been on the track so I mainly worked with him all day and made sure he was handling everything okay. I also had to check and see if my RMZ was working okay, as it had engine problems in June 07 and April 08 (the last two times I rode it). Bike was working great, Seth didn't fall down, and it was a good day.
Saturday was fun with a 6am wakeup (yay for yelling children!!) and I was roaming around at 7:30am getting my shit ready to ride. Strapped the laptimer on and off we go. Practice one was alright with some sedate 22's and high 21's. Practice two found me behind Jay Holland and Travis 991 (whom has been running well). So I decided to chase Travis around and see what was up. Roll into the pits and find a string of 20's with a new PB of 20.2 (previous was 20.5 set in June). NICE.
Anyway did Lightweight Sportsman on Saturday and finished 6th. Mostly rode around by myself as Travis snuck away a bit at the start and I wasn't able to make much headway. Since I was riding around alone I started trying some new lines into T3 and stuff. Was fun and again ran lots of low 20's and another 20.2. Finished 6th.
Out front the Heavy Hitters in the Motard Class were laying down some serious heat with low 17's and Mike Martiere dropping a stupid fast 16.9 (way to go mike!). The dudes up front in the motard class are no joke with guns like Mike Martiere, Brent Lyskawa, and JayRoot among them. Former class champions, Loudon vets, and Young Guns all of them. Those bastards are riding the WHEELS off those dirtbikes and I basically knew I'd be fighting for 5th or 6th.
Sunday I worked on some new methods in Practice 1 and in Practice 2 dialed them in at racepace. Felt really good and since the laptimer beacon wasn't out on the wall all I had was 'feel' to go by.
First race on Sunday was Supersingles and on lap 1 Travis's (worked) motor popped. We got redflagged on lap 2 and had to sit around the grid for 10 minutes. On the restart I was able to hang with the Front 5 for two laps... juuuuust off the back a bit. Anyhow it was good to be chasing them as I spun a new PB of 19.5 on the 2nd lap (full second faster than previous PB) and a new PB OUT lap of 22.4. WOOHA. Hit some lapped traffic pretty quick thou and I lost sight of the Front 5 and ran another lonely race in 6th (again).
Ultralight Superbike (GO GINO GO) was my last race of the weekend and it was so so. Gino and Jurgen quickly took off but I kept 3rd (Rockwell) and 4th (Hull) close for the first two laps. Actually almost rammed them both in T12 when they parked it. I pumped up pretty bad thou and was really tired after the superlong week and it hit me hard about 3 laps in. Faded back and only managed a 5th place in front of Travis (backup motard) who was a distant 6th. I was hoping for a nice 5th place trophy but they only went back 4 places for wood. Fuckers!Only managed a 20.6 but brought it home and had a great weekend. Know I can/could have challenged for 3rd but all things considered I wasn't about to nitpick. There will be next time.
So ya Overall Awesome weekend with friends, family, and riding. New PB. Tons of low 20's and total comfort at that speed, and lots of room for improvement. Constant learning how to ride this motard quickly and what works and what doesn't.
Thanks for everyone that donated $$ to the Toriano Fund and ran stickers, so awesome. Thanks to everyone that came by and said hi. Super fun riding with everyone and kicking it.
-alex
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Originally Posted by Pookie
