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Well this was an eventful weekend.
Friday night got there about 8:15 because of traffic. Got unpacked and went to bed at about 1 after talking to Kitt and his teammate.
Saturday morning got my new rear tire put on (thanks Kurtz and Pang). Headed out to practice and felt pretty good, other than the fact that my bike needs steering head bearings.
My first race of the day was AM GTL. This was my first race in Amateur, but surprisingly I was very relaxed. There were tons of bikes lined up for this race, so I knew it was going to be awesome. First start I did pretty horrible and got tied up in the back of the pack. But took the inside and managed to get in front of Dan.
Second start I tried a little harder and took the inside again. This time Dan got ahead of me and I couldn't get around him for crap. I got impatient and tried to make a pass on him on the inside of 3. About half way through the corner, before the transition bumps my rear slid out and I low sided. I wasn't thinking at all when this happened and I accidentally sat up. A ducati that was right behind me caught me on the left side and hit me, tearing my leathers open and leaving a small mark on me. I got very lucky and am going to try to figure out some way to force myself to lay down when I go down. (Either that or work on not going down.)
So upon trying to ride my bike back to the pit, I found out that: my brake lever was broken, my forks were bent and twisted, my right clip on was bent, my front master cylinder reservoir was ground down and leaking out the cover...so basically there was no way I was going to run race 5, which was 3 races away.
I went up to the EX Mafia and BJ offered me his spare bike for the race. I gratefully accepted and threw my number and transponder on it. Didn't know what to expect because there were Dunlops on the bike which I had never ridden on before, and the bike was totally stock except for aftermarket shock dogbones. I got enough time before the race to get the tirewarmers on it and the tires hot, so I was good to go for the race. Having never ridden this bike before I started out on the warm up lap taking it relatively slow, and gradually increasing my speed. It seemed to inspire confidence, so I decided to go all out when the green flag dropped.
I got a crappy start and almost all the motards from the row behind us got by before T1. There was a red flag so we restarted. The second time both me and Don Smith both got a GREAT start. We created what was later to be dubbed "the EX roadblock" as a few of the tards couldn't get by.
I ended up running 30's to start and then worked my way down to a 25.9 by the end. Setting a new pb by a full second! I finished first in that race out of 3
BJ also ended up crashing in P-Twins, so the bike that I was borrowing needed to be raced by him. So I was going to claim mechanical since my bike was not fixable and get my money back. That was until Adam Clark said....hey you can use my motard...how could I say no to that.
So I practiced on it in first practice and laid down 2 good laps, a 1:23.3 and a 1:23.1. Then came LWSM. I had forgotten to practice starts during practice, so I kinda just winged the start on the CRF450. Ended up going into T1 just behind #390. Was on him pretty much all the way around the track. About 5 laps in he apexed T3 on the rumble strip and I got a pass on him on the inside. In the process I almost managed to highside myself off the bike and he passed me back in T6 on the outside. I was on him for the rest of the race, but traffic made it hard to pass. I ended up getting 2nd out of 4 and set a new pb of 1:21.9, which I hit twice in that race.
Video LWSM:
So basically I am now selling my EX and am racing a tard. They are so much more fun to ride...it's not even comprehensible. I also wanted to thank BJ Worsham for the bike on Saturday and for motivating me to race #5 on Saturday. Kid for letting me use her leathers. Adam Clark for letting me use his motard and making me tarded.
Overall it was a good weekend.