3/27 Race Report

[lrrs313]

First dirty race of the year, first dirty race for me in a few years, and of course it has to be at Southwick.

Got to the track about 8:30, just in time to sign up and watch the first practices head out. Luckily they let the old bastards have last practice. Sand is kind of interesting when I'm used to riding hardpack. Luckily, a couple sections were still frozen pretty solid so I felt a little more at home there. Got a couple of slow laps in to figure out where the track went and try to learn to ride in the sand.

First moto (30+C) was still early. Got a decent launch off the gate, then got bounced around in the first turn. Rode conservatively, battled with a guy on a 250 2-smoke for a bit then went around him on the outside. I was having a blast, feeling a little tired but good on the 3rd lap when I got a little cocky in a turn, knifed the front, and went over the bars. No big deal, sand is soft and the bike's still running. Pick it up, hop on, try to take off and the front wheel pushes and almost throws me off. Stop, get reset on the bike, try to take off, and it throws me on the ground. Turns out I had enough sand in the brake lever to lock the front wheel. Got the sand out finally, got going again and take off, now pretty much exhausted. Got lazy in another turn and went over the bars AGAIN, perfect. Leaders passed me (took me a minute to get the bike going again this time) so I finished the lap and took the checkered flag.

Second moto got a bad start, figured I'd chase a couple guys down. Went into the second turn and HOLY SHIT the whoops got DEEP. Lines that I was flying around in the first moto were now 3 foot deep whoops. Started to get arm pump so backed off and finished all 4 laps. Tired. Holy shit tired.

Ended up not quite DFL, but close. Had a blast, want to go back soon. Amazingly, I'm not feeling too bad today, just a little stiff but nothing too bad.

On a side note, there were some really fast guys there. John Dowd, Mike Treadwell, Robby Marshall, and a few other guys were flying.

[Rambunctous]

Thanks for the RR. Best thing I read all morning. Old bastards? LOL

[lrrs313]

Thanks for the RR. Best thing I read all morning. Old bastards? LOL

Vet classes. By MX standards, 30+ is old. Even if the guy who finished 3rd in the 450 A was in his 40s.

[seth399]

Nice man, ya 2nd moto at southwick always scared me ahaha, just gets brutal. I'm hoping to friggin ride in a week or 2

[lrrs313]

Wirelessly posted (BB Tour: BlackBerry9630/4.7.1.61 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

Sweet. There's an open practice at winchester saturday or racing at middleboro. Not sure where I will end up.

Definitely a thumbs up for the Pirelli mxs rear tire. I didn't think anything could get traction in that sand but it worked really worked well.

[Paul_E_D]

Ah yeah, Southwick delivers! Funny, I just did the over the bars in a tall sandy berm thing here at home. My throttle jammed with so much sand I could barely operate it. When I took the front end apart tonight, I cut the grip off and so much sand came out of the bar/throttle tube I was laughing out loud.

[JustInMass]

Great report - "holy shit tired" is definitely the theme of this place.
Falls don't hurt but man are they exhausting.

[seth399]

Falls In the corners don't hurt but man are they exhausting.

fixed! aha

[lrrs313]

Wirelessly posted (BB Tour: BlackBerry9630/4.7.1.61 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

Good point Seth. There are a couple spots I would prefer to avoid crashing. Right around the finish comes to mind, pretty high speed (not for me, but fast guys are haulin ass through there).

And picking the bike up after crashing always sucks, but the sand at Southwick makes it that much worse.