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Race Report - LRRS Amateur #434 4/16/11
As always this is to serve as a reminder for myself so you may find it a bit long-winded. Look for bold text if you are only interested in results.
Pre-Race
It has been a long, cold winter and I looked forward to this opening weekend with great anticipation. Erin and I arrived at the track late Thursday night intending to do some last minute prep on the race bike and get in some practice time. There were a ton of modifications made to the bike for this year and I desperately needed the time to shake down any potential bugs in her. Friday morning dawned cold, temps in the upper 30’s, low 40’s during the day but it remained dry and warmed up a little bit during the day.
I managed to finish all the prep to the bike with plenty of time to spare and Fridays practice sessions were uneventful as I took it very easy while trying to acclimate myself to the new feel of the bike. The short version is that it has 10% more power and 50lbs lighter between both rider and bike. I felt good but loose and looked forward to Saturday.
Saturday AM practices
I got very little sleep last night and so I awoke tired and cold. If possible it was even more bitterly cold than the day before with temps in the mid-upper 30’s. I knew that traction was going to be an issue as well as extra fatigue brought on by the cold. I skipped the earliest practice session due to the cold but managed to make my second session, I felt good and easily turned mid 26’s. I did get a fair amount of rear wheel spin which is still a somewhat new sensation for me. The cold coupled with the extra power of the bike made for interesting times.
Amateur LWSB
They arranged the grids based on your total points for the previous year and since I only had 2 race weekends as an amateur racer my points were low. Consequently I was gridded in the 3rd (last) row on the inside. I got a very good start and despite starting far back I managed to take the hole shot into the first turn. I was very sloppy in my riding and felt like I was riding hard rather than smart and my apexes were all over the place. I was passed on the inside of Turn 6 by Sean Byrnes (#111) on the first lap but I was able to keep pace with him until lap 4. Unfortunately one of those new things that had been done to the bike decided to fall apart at that moment; my voltage regulator fell off of my subframe and was bouncing on top of my rear tire. At some point the wiring must have gotten caught in the wheel and it tore half of my wiring harness out as well as catapulting my regulator somewhere into the horizon. I didn’t know what happened at the time of course, only that I was feeling really weird things going on with the rear end of the bike so rather than push too hard during my first race and possibly crash out I opted to pit in and take a DNF (Did Not Finish).
I was comfortably in second place with my best lap of 1.24.015 which was only 2 seconds off of my best time of last year so despite the disappointing DNF I was overall pleased with my time considering that it was 40 degrees and had been six months since I last raced.
Amateur Lightweight Grand Prix
I had spent the last 3 hours making rapid repairs to the bike in order to make it road worthy for the next race. Unfortunately as I was riding out to begin my grid up the bike stopped completely dead. I was forced to return to the pits and accept a DNS (Did Not Show). I was very disappointed and spent the remainder of the day and evening figuring out just what the issue was and correcting it.
Sunday AM practices
Sunday dawned rainy but at least the temps were supposed to be in the mid-50s. Thankfully the rain stopped early and the track was completely dry by 10am. I quickly suited up and went out for a couple of laps to shake down the bike to confirm that the repairs had did the trick. I was determined to finish a race this weekend!
Amateur Lightweight GTL (Endurance)
After a very disappointing Saturday showing I was determined to go out and make the most of this race. My excitement was high but expectations were low, after all I had only managed a best showing of 7th place since bumping to Amateur last year. Once again due to my lack of points I was gridded in the last row on the inside (3A), a pretty crappy place to launch from but I have had very good launches lately and was hoping my luck would hold. I just focused my entire being on watching the flag and the moment it flinched, I was off and ended up with another holeshot from the back row.
My riding was absolute crap. My lines were all over the place, I barely made T3 and T6 of the first lap so I mentally chastised myself and focused on being smooth which helped things immensely. I took a look back from the front straight on my first lap and at the midway point the next closest was coming out of T12…I had a good lead.
Not much excitement for a while, I led the race by a pretty decent margin for 11 laps but my strength was fading fast. A long winter coupled with the fact that I am no spring chicken was taking its toll and at some point I got delayed by expert traffic (it really sounds weird to be saying that) so finally on lap 12 I was passed by young gun Riley Rogers (#324). This pissed me off since I have a long and glorious tradition of losing to Riley and I was going to be damned if I couldn’t do something about it. I followed him closely for the remainder of the race but I just couldn’t make a pass. My legs felt like lead and I could barely feel the shifter so downshifts were becoming problematic; I missed more than one in the last couple of laps. Mental note: cardio and leg/core strength training is now at the top of my list.
I finally resigned myself to the fact that I wasn’t going to win this race and dialed it back enough so that I wasn’t in danger of crashing out. I ended up with a second place finish and a best lap time of 1.22.828 which is only .6 off of my personal best. Considering it had been 6 months since I had been on a bike and the 45 degree temps, I was extremely happy with my times and my first ever podium as an amateur.
In Closing
All in all, I am very pleased with my first round of LRRS. Saturday was a disappointment but considering all of the work that was done to the bike over the off-season it wasn’t entirely unexpected and now that the kinks are worked out I am very much looking forward to Round 2.
Congratulations need to go out to fellow RSP teammate David Kagan (#535) for his outstanding finishes this weekend as well as a shout out to Chuck Bouchier and Bill Coolahan for their finishes in the Novice brackets.
Huge thanks to my RSP teammates for all of their help and support; from words of encouragement and advice offered to helping me out in the pits. You guys are the absolute best and I am proud and honored to be a part of such a great group of people! Thanks also to my stalwart wife Erin who braved snow (no, not kidding) and freezing temps for several days to be there to support me and my team with hot food and good laughs =). Thank you to Boris for coming all the way up to take some video for us (links posted soon!). Also thanks to Tony of Tony’s Track Days for his assistance this weekend, Bill Coolahan and Chris Reulbach for help and good times in the pits, and Chris Nazzaro for showing me a line through 9 that will no doubt have me picking up a ton of much needed time. Finally a huge thank you to our 2011 sponsors without whose assistance this wouldnt be possible.
20’s here I come!
GTL video: For some reason my GoPro decided to stop recording about 6 min in so it isnt very exciting but here it is just the same. You can really see just how badly I was riding :-p
YouTube - LRRS1-GTL.mp4
and some pics from the weekend
and thanks to Annalisa for the "showboat" pic of the year :-p
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Originally Posted by PainfullySlow
