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I'll start this off by saying I'm a dope.
Good news is, I still have a goal to reach by the Classic
Note to self: 11:19.70 total race time != 1:19.70 lap time
As for the rest of the weekend....
Friday evening I arrived at the track and got set up & settled in along side my awesome new teammates in the ECK pitsI track down PK and arranged to have my forks drained & filled with some thinner fork oil to help the extreme rebound damping that i experienced at NJMP earlier in the week.
Saturday morning I put the finishing touches on the SV... Got the numbers & forks on and threw some new sneakers on her as well. Mmmmm... Diablos
Sat Race 2 - GTL: My first Expert race
Due to a lucky computer glitch, I was gridded second row, right behind Babcock and Doucette... I got an AMAZING launch & settled in smack dab in the middle of the lead pack going into turn 1.... this would be the theme of the weekend as I was able to get great launches in all 4 of my races. I settled into a pace that was agressive but managable and kept my head down for a full 20 minutes. I rattled off a whole string of 22's with a couple of 23's mixed in, and finished off the race with a trio of 21's with a best of 21.3 on lap 12 of 14. I finished smack dab in the middle of the pack and took my first Expert top 10 finish (out of 20).
Sat Race 7 - LWSB: Gridded behind Babcock and Doucette again and stuck with them for the first 1/2 a lap after getting another great launch. But by the time we came back around to start lap 2 I had dropped back a few spots. I had a fun battle with #39 Alan Quinn on his Duc 1000 and he pulled me down to a new best lap of a 1:21.1 which would be my best lap of the weekend. He was able to pull away & gap out on me mid race, but towards the end I could tell he was getting drained. He made a few mistakes in the bowl & 9 and I was able to reel him in by the white flag. I lined him up in a couple places but wasn't quite able to take him. I got a much better drive out of 12 than he did and came along side him down the stretch, but he had more motor and beat me to the checkered so I ended up 12th place out of 15.
Sunday morning practice, thanks to a heads up from Jamie & Tim, I concentrated on my drive out of 12. By picking up the throttle sooner & harder I was able to pick up a few mph down the front straight.
Sun Race 7 - LWSS: The 19 that wasn't
After another great start I think I was in 5th place coming out of turn 12 after the 1st lap. I was able to latch onto a couple of others and had a good time battling with John Tansey, #608 and believe it or not, Rick Doucette. He was on someone's MWPTwins bike and it was moving around on him quite a bit.... I could tell he was just riding around smelling the dasies, but it was a trip trying to stick with him none the less. Jersey was glued to my rear tire for the first few laps and tried an outside pass on me in turn 1, but after Doucette got past me I decided to try and stick with him through 1, 1a and 2.... It was on that lap that Jersey tried to get me around the outside but quickly found out that I had more balls than brains & decided to stick with RickHe ended up running wide & ended up in the grass, but kept it up and didn't loose any spots. I ended up finishing 7th out of 11 (not 5th like I was told... Babcock and Mullin checked out) and had a best lap time of 1:21.6. After the races I went over to check the results & when they got posted all I saw was XX.19.7..... not realizing I was looking at the TOTAL RACE time I thought I did a 1:19 and flipped my shit, ran around the pits & told the world
Sun Race 11 - LWGP:
The last race of the weekend, once again gridded behind Babcock & Doucette... once again a great launch... and once again right with the lead pack through lap 1. The lead pack gapped out on me but I kept my head down & ran my race.... by mid race I was just waiting for Oxx & Jersey to pass me but it didn't come for the longest time. Jersey showed me a wheel coming into turn 3 early in the race but wasn't able to make the pass... Shortly after that though he DID get me on the outside of turn 6. I kept with him to turn 12 where he ran 11a wide and took the grassy line in 12. I got him easily on the front straight but around lap 6 or 7 he made another move and got me under braking coming into turn 3. We were both coming in hot and he ran it a little wide so I squared it up & got on the gas hard out of 3. I got a great run into 4 and almost pulled even with him, but he gave me a good ole "WELCOME TO EXPERT" and just SLAMMED the door shut on me at the turn 4 apex cone
It was such a rush holding them off and I soooo wanted to finish in front of them, but just knowing I could keep them at bay for so long felt great.
Huge thanks to Arcy, Jamie, Gene W. & the rest of the ECK crew, BostonMoto Pirelli, all of the ECK sponsors listed in my sig & everyone else from NESR. It was great seeing all you guys again and I'm lookin forward to a GREAT 2009 season
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you. 19's or fake 19's
I thought you were going to hold off those veteran Experts in that race. Keep it up.
Originally Posted by Pookie
