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I'll try to keep it somewhat short but it was a rather fun weekend with lots of details.
I had Friday off from work and was planning on leaving early Friday morning to head up to the track. Well, I got done packing all my stuff up kinda early Thursday evening so I decided to leave for the track that night. I left at 8pm and was at the track and settled in by 11pm. I made my bed, put the race bike outside and kept the R1 and Nitro in just in case it rained, I could hear thunder and see a light show off in the distance.
I woke up about 7:30 or so and things were heating up quick... It was going to be a hot one for sure. I was entering the afternoon practice so I had some time to kill that day. I got the can of wax out and put a fresh coat of wax on the R1, that only killed an hour or so though. I also saw Gary (trackdog) and Chris (Nazo) and Chris's friend, sorry I forgot his name, getting set up for the day as well.
Shortly after Bob M showed and we got our pit area fully set up. His Ducati was broken so he had to go to BCM to get parts and I wanted to get my quad registered so I went into Concord. Turns out they were out of stickers and they wouldn't have any until next week.. Oh well
I entered the practice and got 2 full sessions in before the thunderstorms moved in and they called it a day. Kinda sucked but it was still hot out and I was tired so it was really no big deal. Later that evening a good sized group of us went out to eat at Applebees and had a pretty good time
Saturday morning the sun was somewhat out and things were again warming up quick. I made both practices that morning. The track was still a bit wet in the 8:15 session but was fully dry by my second one at 9:45 which was cool.
I had entered race # 3 and # 5. Race 3 was a GT race (1/2 hour) and due to a late start caused by media problems and with the heat, they cut 10 minutes from that race. It was very hot when this race started, someone said it was 96... Bob measured the road surface temp in front of our pit and it was 121..
Anyway, 5 minutes into the race there was a red flag. I came into 10 to see 2 bikes together just about at the edge of the inside of the Nascar part. There was a brake resivour in the middle of the track leaking brake fluid onto the track, I'm guessing that's why it was red flagged..
We sat on pregrid for a good 5 minutes baking in the sun. Thanks to Bob for bringing me a bottle of water, that was pretty cool. The second start and the rest of the race was pretty uneventfull. I ended up in 8th place to earn my first 5 points as a Amateur.
I only had about a 10 minute rest before I went out for race 5. Thanks to Bob and whoever else helped (sorry I forgot who was there at that time) gas the bike up and get it ready with the warmers while I sat down trying to rehydrate.
I "thought" I had a good grid position for this race but I guess it changed and I didn't catch the announcement. The race was also supposed to start in 2 waves and that changed as well so I kinda screwed up on the start. This was a pretty fun race for me even though I looked a little out of place with those little bikes?? haha
I ended up in 5th place in this race scoring another 8 points
After I settled down a bit, I figured I'd walk around and get a few pictures of the NESR members pit areas and bikes..
Obviously this is Bob M and my area, don't mind the big guy hogging the chairs... haha
This is Heath (gixxer6), Dan (legalspeed), Jay (hessogood), Jim (JimF), and Chad
This is Derek (Degsy), John (needforspeed), Bryan (bentbryan), Erin (darkchild), and i thought I got Gary (trackdog) in there as well but I guess not. Sorry Gary, next time I'll get ya in there. Nice clean bike BTW, good luck with it.
Chris (Nazo) and his friend
By the end of the day something very strange happened in the sky above the track, there were thunder heads popping up all around the place and the sky above the track was clear. It was quite a site for sure... I only took 1 picture but it looked like this in all the surrounding sky's.
We only ended up getting a quick shower later on just before we went to eat. A good sized group of us had a pretty good time hanging around and drinking a few cold ones that evening. How come whenever we start drinking the topic always goes to fart stories... haha to funny.
Sunday I had no races and just did both morning practices as usual. Again it was getting hot quick. I watched some races and stuck it out in the heat until about 2:30 and decided it was time to pack up and head for home. I got 6 miles from the track and the sky's opened up in a huge way, rain, thunder, lighting and hail. It pretty much rained on and off for the whole drive home.
Despite the heat it was still a great weekend. Thanks a bunch for those that made the trip up to help out and show some support, it's always great to see that.
Hope to see everyone again July 23/24