0
Well, I must say I am absolutely thrilled to be making this race report.
Scroll to bottom for the cliff notes, I honestly can't believe how much I just wrote. A lot happened this weekend for me.
In my rookie weekend, I came in not knowing much, in freezing temperatures on a bike I had never ridden and managed to set my PB of 1:29, take second in the rookie race, win both ultra lightweight races I entered, and pulled out of a third due to a mechanical.
This weekend, my one and only goal was to bump to AM, which required a sub 1:27. Because I pretty much took the lead into one, and then ran alone for the rest of the time my first weekend, I decided to run up a class and do all the lightweight races I could, so I registered novice 3, rookie 3, starter 3, and was able to squeeze in a novice 4 to get a fourth race under my belt.
This weekend I came into it with a better idea of the logistics of everything, an AWESOME group of guys to garage with (Adam, Lou, and Dave) and 80 degree bright sunny weather. I also had an unreasonable cold/sinus thing I've been battling and 2 hours of sleep the night before due to it, but I digress.
Showed up 7am Saturday morning not feeling too hot, went through tech, and got in both practices. Took it easy first practice, no idea what I was doing for times, but slow, and second practice I turned it up a notch, looked at the board and realized I posted the second fastest lap times with a 1:26.406 behind my garage mate Lou, and needless to say, I was pumped.
First race was Novice formula 3. I was gridded dead last (as in all of my races) and the guy in front of me had an unreasonably slow start. I tried to go around him next to the wall, but he shifted over, and I really did not want to crash, so I backed off as everyone else zipped by him to the left. After the first lap or 2, I made it through almost everyone until I finally caught up to 2 guys going at a reasonable pace. I knew Lou was off somewhere in front, and there seemed to be another guy up there a bit behind, but they were long gone from me. After watching a lot of awesome back and forth between the 2 guys in front of me battling for 4th place, I finally sized up my opportunities and took one guy in on the inside of 8, and immediately after took up the next on the outside of 9. I was very happy with that. I never did catch up to Lou and the other guy, and took 3rd not beating my PB but with a best lap of 1:26.462.
Next race was Novice formula 4. I took the lead into one and saw a huge cushion behind me after like 2 laps, setting my PB in lap 2 of a 1:26.226 I backed it off, just a tad, and ended up paying the price. After a couple laps of a waving yellow, I eventually got passed by someone on a Ducati on the last lap. Not big deal I said to myself, he's on a big ducati, he's gotta be running with middleweight formula 2 guys that was the wave before me, so I never even thought of challenging him, especially since there was less than a lap to go. Come to realize he was not in the formula 2, but that a Ducati 800ss can run ultra lightweight. So I took a second place, and learned an extremely valuable lesson: race until the end of the damn race.
Grabbed some pizza with the ECK guys, got a lot of valuable tips, and then went to spend the night at my friends place in Laconia, because I was absolutely exhausted, my sinus stuff had gotten even worse, and I needed a bed. Got probably like 12 hours of sleep, and showed up the next day at 8am feeling a lot better.
I was a couple minutes late to the first practice, so I went out, had a good time and made sure everything Worked. I tried a few pointers from the guys, one of the most important was not using the clutch, at all. Slamming down 2 gears into one without the clutch, goes against pretty much everything I knew about motorcycles, but thankfully with the STM slipper it was extremely smooth and really let me get off the bike before I got on the brakes and get on the them hard.
After that we realized I made a huge mistake and never checked the size of the front sprocket when I bought the bike. I was told it was a 15, it wasn't, Christian took a look and found out it was a 13....So we swapped that out real fast since I had a 15 in the box of spares and I was off for second practice. Because the bigger sprocket needed a bigger chain I had to trade out my block sliders for the my stock blocks, and this will come up later. After that nifty little swap and losing all of my reference points I went out and did second practice and set a PB of 1:25.758.
I had a spare longer chain that Christian gave me so after that race I decided to put that on to be able to run my block sliders. Thought I had plenty of time had to remove a link from the chain and then realized I needed to remove another which didn't go as well. My harbor freight tool didn't work well, I used Pete's RK tool and broke the damn bit, but it at the same time popped the rivet loose so I was able to go back at it with my harbor freight one and get it done. I also swapped to a set of pirelli slicks I bought from CEO and through those on there. Because of all of this, I ended up barely making it out to race three due in part to HUGE help from my garage mates and Christian. Huge thanks for that, I would have been so bummed to miss that race.
Gridded for race three, Novice Starter 3 dead last again. Lou was off the front, 2 guys behind him, then me into turn 1. Lou broke away and by the time I made it past the 2 guys inbetween us, he was gone. I saw him entering 3 as I exited 2, and I didn't see him much after that. Good 1-2 finish for the garage, I ran another PB of 1:25.672. The pirellis were sliding in the rear on me a lot, which we found was due to the rear being 5 pounds over pressure and the front being 2 pounds over.
Fixed the pressures and went out for race 10, Novice Rookie 3, again gridded dead last. I ended up taking the holeshot barely squeezing by Lou into 1. Kept the lead all through the first lap, then Lou got me on the front straight. I saw his tire into 1, but couldn't make the pass. He pulled for a bit that lap then I had enough and was determined to not let him get out of sight. I slowly but surely reeled him in, with the lappers helping me out. I eventually got close but it was too late at the point. Another 1-2 for garage number 2, and I broke into the 24s in a big way with 1:24.293!
Super awesome weekend, huge thanks to Lou, Adam and family, Dave, Christian, Pete, Chuck, and everyone else who helped me out. I had an absolute blast and cannot wait until the Classic!
Cliff notes:
Novice Formula 3: 3rd place, best lap: 1:26.462
Novice Formula 4: 2nd place, best lap: 1:26.226
Novice Starter 3: 2rd place, best lap: 1:25.672
Novice Rookie 3: 2nd place, best lap: 1:24.293
If you read this novel, I applaud you.