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Saturday
Head out for first practice after a strategy session with the great Gino Berrio, excited to try my new slipper clutch and to work on some new techniques. I do a practice start, as per my habit whenever entering the track, and...the clutch is slipping the whole time. At low throttle, no issue; but once I rev it up, it slips. OK, pit in, Weyant makes a brief adjustment to the cable, back out, try again - same thing. Actually, worse. Roll back in, and we proceed to un- and reinstall various combinations of clutches and fibers/steels and adjust the cable five times. Ended up just putting the stocker back in, and was able to get out for second practice. I can't thank Michael enough for all his help
Race 2 - GTL
Gridded 2B. I've now only had one practice start since all the clutch business, so I end up wheelieing once the lights go out, but still enter T1 in 5th place, where I resided for a few laps. Kris Knopf on a Ducati (which is listed as an SV650 in TrackIntel?) showed me a wheel in T1 and T6, and managed to pass me exiting T6. 2015 ROTY Kris Hopkins 489 passed me somewhere a couple of laps later, and we had a ton of fun battling for several laps through a bunch of traffic. He eventually got away as he set me up to get stuck behind another lapper. Many bitches were passed, and I finished 7th of 25. Outlap 1:23.315, best lap 1:19.521.
Race 9 - ULSB
Gridded 6-freaking-B, between Ricky Doucette and Isaac Maycotte 871. LRRS has, for 2016, come into alignment with the rest of CCS on this class; SV650's used to be excluded from ULSB at LRRS, but now stock bored SV's can enter. I was very excited about this, as typically LWSS is the only event I'm really competitive in. Anyway, I got a "meh" start. There was no way I was getting to the outside for T1, so I stuck my nose in down low and actually got decent placement. Passed many bitches! And didn't get passed once. This race was so, so much fun. Unfortunately I don't remember many of the details, but it was great having to figure out how to deal w/all the traffic. Finished 6th of 19, outlap 01:25.656, but best lap 1:19.260 - six tenths off my PB!
Sunday - Race 9 - LWSS
Rain, rain, rain. And cold. After Saturday's beautiful conditions, today's weather sucked. I had a chill all day that I couldn't get rid of. And I skipped "first" practice, forgetting that there is only one practice on Sunday. Due to weather-related delays and some Legends cars catching fire / blowing motors, I didn't race until 3 or 4 o'clock. Despite many successes early in my racing career, I haven't had a rain race w/o a crash in probably the last two seasons, so I was a bit apprehensive going into this. Combine that with the fact that my rain coat unzipped for the warm up lap, and my visor was fogging as I sat in Grid 1D...I didn't get the greatest start. And many people passed this bitch throughout the race. Sliding over the NASCAR line every time exiting T2 didn't help my confidence, and it felt like the rain tires were sliding in a number of places (probably just in my head). Around the halfway point, I took NASCAR 1-2, as there was no way I was getting the bike pitched into T1 in time, which caused me to lose one position to (I think) 218 John O'Donnell. I eventually got that spot back, as well as an additional one in T3 as 871 Isaac Maycotte forgot which was the brake and which was the shifter, and finished 9th of 14 with a 1:43.322 outlap and a dismal 1:37.9 best lap. Definitely not my best performance, but at least I kept it upright!
Video to come of all.
Summary
In all, this was a fantastic weekend despite today's blah-ness. I got within spitting distance of my PB, matched my best place EX finishes, saw many of my awesome RSP Racing teammates have some successes, had my awesome girlfriend supporting me, and had fantastic times with my friends. And couldn't have done it w/o our great sponsors, below. I say, I have the best teammates ever, and race in the best series in the country. Where else can you battle with a guy, lose to him, flip him off once off the track, and then laugh about it and talk about where you can both improve?! Sadly I will miss Round 2 (happily, it's because I will be watching MotoGP in Mugello), which means I am likely out of the possible running for any championships this year, but that just means I have the whole year to focus on technique and improving, rather than trying to do so while chasing points. Can't wait for The Classic and five days at the track in June!
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