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First weekend as an Amateur and I had two goals that I'm sure everyone has when they bump: don't finish last and set a new PB.
Saturday
1st Practice - Nervous as hell but went out and putted around. Got a nice welcome to Amateur after the checkers by someone on a Corse-inspired Ducati chopping off my front in 7. haha.
2nd practice - Was trying a new line from 10 through 12 and went into 11 way faster and way wider than normal. Rather than stand it up and go through the grass, I tried to hero it. I ended up trailing, knee down and hit the apex marker (and curb) on the right side of the entrance to 11. The front instantly gave and next thing I know, I was sliding on the ground. I put my feet down to stand and just ended up sending myself into a tumble. There was a bike coming at me (thank you for not hitting me).
Rode back into the pits and a trip to Miles and some zip ties later I was ready for GTU.
AM GTU - I was literally gridded in the back. Got a decent start and ended up middle of the pack out of T2 but was passed by a bunch of people by turn 6. Finished lap 1 in 10th. 2 laps later, I parked it inside Brendin Tanner going into 3. I held onto this for a few laps but he returned the favor a couple of laps later. Got passed a few laps later by one other.
During this race, I went into 3 a little hot on one lap and was braking extra hard and had the back end all over the place trying to swap places with the front. I was crapping myself. Then I see csmutty going in much, much hotter with the back end about 2 feet out of line with the bike and all I could think was: "What a nut." He gathered it up somewhere next to the gator strip and got it turned in. Late, but he did get it turned in.
Finished 11 of 13 finishers
Sunday
AM MWSB - Gridded way in the back in 9C. Got an OK start that put me behind a train of 4 other bikes. I started to pick them off one by one going into 3. Made another pass going low into 1. Can't really remember much about this race but I did set a new PB of 1:20.626.
Finished 5 of 11 finishers
AM MWSS - I was really amped about this race because the grid looked like it was relatively large. Gridded 9C again, literally in the back, again. My plan for this race was to park myself in front of baby Jesus and really screw up his race. The highlight of this race was right after the start going into 1A and I realized that there was the rear wheel of a Ducati about a foot from my head. It just kind of struck home how absolutely nuts this sport is. I love it. I made a few passes in this race and was passed once.
Finished 8 of 15 finishers
Thanks to my buddy Alex for working the pits for me, my brothers, the T1A hooligans, Dan Martin for the plug and PK for taking a quick look to make sure my wheels were still in line after my incident.
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Originally Posted by PainfullySlow
