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Todays race was a surprise success. I got to the track tired and less then motivated. Missed first practice as usual (too much crap to do between the time the gate opens and Group 3's first practice). Second practice I showed up pretty late for, but after 1 lap, it seemed like a fire lit under my ass. I was all over a couple of bikes in front of me, and carefully watched them to see where I know I could stick a good pass. It was pretty cool being stuck in traffic instead of causing it. I passed a couple of guys and then on the last lap, I got stuck behind someone that was really slow in turn 3 and then suddenly 2 motards came up on my inside right when I was about to turn in. I took the escape route and signaled that I was pitting in.
The weather was weird. It was sunny and hot then cloudy and cool and pretty nasty wind (saw a couple of EZups get shreaded). I grilled up some awesome fajitas and waited until my first race. I tried to drink as much water as I could through out the day, but I didn't drink much in the days prior. 2 laps into race 6, I got suited up, took off my tire warmers and made my way to the pit road entrance. When I got there, I learned that race 6 was red flagged and they were going to do a restart. I rode back to my pit area and watched the race restart and they didn't even finish the lap when there was another red flag. Now here I am, still fully suited up, in the sun and my tire warmers have been off for about 15 minutes. Finally race 6 finished and I was doing my warmup lap.
I was gridded in the first row, second position. The number one board is displayed, and I am already tucked in with my nuts to the tank, right foot on the peg, holding 4000 rpms and the clutch right at the friction point. Green flag, and I am off really good until I shift and catch a neutral. Now I find myself going into turn one near the back of the pack. I am working like a dog trying to catch up to everyone and I feel like I am going slow as hell. I didn't make any real mistakes, but I also didn't really feel like I was on my game.
Half way through the race, I was really hurting. My mouth was completely dry and I was cramping up really bad. During the last lap, my front tire started to give up on me in turn 6, and having crashed there before, I still am nervous about going down there again. When I felt the front tire push, I felt like I was going to crap my suit. I carried on, through the last half of the last lap, and I couldn't wait for it to be over. I rounded 11a and 12 in a real half assed way and barely throttled up for the straight.
By then my leg was so cramped that I could barely shift. I still had to make it through the cool down lap. I finally pitted in and went back to my canopy. I then really started to consider if I should continue with race 13. With 5 races in between, that would give me about an hour and 15 minutes to recover. I had to be real with myself, and admit that I was badly dehydrated and also had sun poisoning. Not quite in race shape, I desided to pack up my gear. I felt pretty pissed because I didn't think that I performed very well at all, I felt slow in that race, and after how well practice went, I really thought that I could do better.
After I got all of my stuff packed up and cracked open a beer (and quickly through out as I learned that you couldn't do that until all races were finished, not just yours). I went to see the race results. I looked at the sheet and couldn't find my name because I was looking at the bottom. I was surprised when I found it about 6 up and then even more when I saw that I did a new personal best lap of 1:39:315. To get into the 1:30's was my goal today and I really didn't think that I would reach it until after race 13. My previous best was a 1:42 and I cut a 1:40 in this mornings practice. These are not great times at all, but I am very proud of them because it has taken my a lot of work to get there and I am getting faster and faster every time out.
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Originally Posted by eboos
