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My first Classic weekend! I was psyched for three days of racing and for all the other events that were supposed to go on this past weekend. As usual, the week+ leading up to the race weekend were jam-freaking-packed with non-racing stuff, so I felt a bit rushed to get up to the track...
Friday - NV LWGP
So the forecast for Friday didn't look good, but the weather held off for the most part. The morning was totally dry; and we only had one, 15-minute, practice (as opposed to the two practices we normally get) - so if I was gonna get 26s I needed to make this count! Went out for the entire session, but just didn't feel it entirely...not sure why.
All week I was thinking LWGP was Race 2...turns out it was Race 8 It was the longest day ever waiting for Race 8 to come around... And as luck would have it, right before Race 7 it started misting. The ground wasn't wet yet, so I figured it would be fine. LRRS called a "rain delay" for 15 minutes to give people time to change to rains if they wanted. I hemmed and hawed for a solid 24 minutes, into Race 7, about whether to switch to rains. I did awesome last round on rains, and hate my DRC's in the rain...but I also didn't want to burn up the soft rubber if the track ended up being dry. So I finally elected to stay on the street tires.
Had a fine warm up lap aside from a slip in T6, and got to the grid probably several seconds before anyone else. That should've been my cue to dial it back just a tad, but I'm smaht. Then it started raining. I got an AWESOME launch (so much so that everyone watching from hot pit was convinced I wasn't going to make T1...but it felt perfectly fine to me!) and the holeshot again, through T1 and T1a fine, then had a little rear end slippage at the apex of T2, but it caught traction again. And then lost it over the transition. In retrospect, I know I wasn't at max dry lean, but I was most likely past the sipes on the tires. Ass end slid out, I quickly flopped from my left side to my right and slid on my hip to the tire wall, the whole time yelling "come on come on come on stop sliding already!" I kept looking back and forth between the bike spinning in front of me (saying "just hit rubber to rubber PLEASE!") and over my left shoulder at the racers coming through T2 (saying "shit! They're all getting past me!"). The whole time thinking I could get back on and still at least finish, if not podium.
The bike DID hit rubber to rubber. Picked it up (pointing back towards T2) but it wouldn't fire. Rolled down to the apron and finally got it started after what seemed like an eternity... Take off like a rocket towards the chute, shift into 2nd, drop the clutch and throttle up, shift into 3rd, drop the clutch and---do a little dance with my rear tire. WTF? Try to shift again, the shifter is moving but nobody's home. FUCK, shifter must be toast. Throw my hand up and roll into the 3-10 split, then limp home after traffic clears.
Turns out the Woodcraft pegs are notorious for getting out of round upon crashing...and the shifter uses the peg as a pivot point.
LWGP Result: DNS
DucatiMichael, Pang, Io, Irish, and others are nice enough to help me fix the peg and offer up some spare parts, feeding my Jewiness
Saturday - NV GTL
All Saturday morning I'm still a little upset about the day before. Practice is fine, I feel pretty good; but notice I can't shift at the end of practice. A quick trip to Street & Comp fixes that. So not only am I upset about the day before, but I'm psyching myself up about getting 26s. I know I can do them, I just don't know how to.
I also have lengthy conversations about tires with many fellow racers. Everyone's trying to convince me to stop cheaping out and put on the set of Diablo Supercorsas I have sitting in the car. I finally take their advice, hoping the tires really do help me find my fast.
Grid up on the pole and take the holeshot again. I'm feeling pretty good...until #226 Brett Larson comes UNDER me on the exit of T2 and checks out. I'm a gear too low so my drive sucks, and he's at the top of T4 before I'm tipping in for T3. So I put my head down and go, I can't lose him or else my carrot is gone. Somehow I keep him in sight, no more than one turn ahead, for many laps. Thanks to KB, DucatiMichael, and anyone else who gave me advice this weekend and I'm now forgetting, I gain juuuuust a little on him each lap. Around lap 12 something clicks, and I'm flying. I can tell I'm making good gains on him. He looks back after T10 and you can almost see the "oh shit" look through his tinted visor (at least I like to tell myself that ). He must've been so focused on keeping me at bay that he mistook the white flag for the checkered - b/c he sat up and pumped his fist briefly after crossing the start/finish. He somehow realized that was not correct, and put his head back down...but I was significantly closer now. And kept inching... We hit some backmarker traffic, threaded our way through, and as the last T12 came upon us it was Brett, some EX500, and me... We ended up splitting the EX at the checkered flag, but Brett took the win by about 3 feet. I was upset about the loss, and EXHAUSTED, but checked the results when I got back to the pits and learned that I had the fastest lap of the race, a 1:23.072!!!!!!! In case anyone's keeping score, that's 5.7 freaking seconds faster than my PB. In fact, the outlap was the only one below a 27xxx. Fuck yeah!
Sunday - LWSB
So now all day Sunday I'm nervous as shit, wondering if I can match Saturday's performance. I've got the pole again, and am trying to breathe on the grid, when the 2 board is shown. I quickly try to position myself, get my RPMs in the right spot, and - shit, is that the 1 board already?! Fuck, try to preload the clutch, can't find a steady 5k RPMS, there's the flag?!? I take off but don't release the clutch fast enough. Brett Larson and 826 Mark Parker come around the outside before the end of the freaking wall Larson checks out, and I'm stuck behind Parker through the chicane. I get around his outside in T2, but Brett is seemingly already tipping in for 3. I keep him in my sights for about a lap, but then lose him. I knew I was messing up in little instances around the track, but kept it out of trackday pace. I take 2nd place, with a best lap of 1:24.888. Aside from the outlap, my slowest lap here is a 26.6, with most in the 25s. I'm upset at the botched launch and that I let Brett get away, but very happy that I ran consistently at/better than 26s.
Thanks SO much to everyone for all the help (physical and mental) and advice this weekend. RSP boys, MTAG (and especially Kurtz for all the tire changes), Palmy and JStu, KB, Tony for the entertainment... you all, and I hate that this is addicting too...
Sooooo now I've just sent a special email to LRRS...
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Originally Posted by CBR929RE
