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This round was not a great one for me, racing-wise, but I had a lot of fun nonetheless.
Arrived later than usual Thursday night, unloaded the trailer, and sacked out for the evening. Friday afternoon was spent finishing work on the SV. Swapping the leaking radiator(thanks Daviid for loaning me his spare for the last two race events), changing the oil, bleeding the brakes, and setting up the controls on the right clip on had me just about ready for the weekend. Next came my bodywork, which if you saw the pictures, you'll know was all but destroyed. Mike W(DucatiMichael) worked absolute magic on the stuff to get it back together, and I fitted it up on Friday evening. At this point, the bike was as ready as it was gonna get, and I hung out for a bit, and went to bed.
Saturday, Race 6 - Lightweight Grand Prix:
Practice on Sat was spent mainly just rolling around making sure the bike worked after the work I had done. Everything seemed fine, lap times were beyond off pace, but I wasn't practicing for lap times. As usual, I had watched all the people I'd be racing GP with from the pit wall during the LWSB race, and I knew they had all stepped their game up once again. There was really nothing exciting to report about this race, as I got a mediocre start, and had dropped back to 7th by lap 3. The highlight of a the race was a late inside pass into T1 on #276 Shane Lewis to take back 6th place, which I held to the checkered. Because of the intersecting lines my inside path had taken us on, I gave Shane a wave on the cooldown and was rewarded with a thumbs up, so I doubt it caused him any grief. A best lap in this race of a 23.7 is a full 1.5 seconds off my best, and a comparison to previous LWGP races shows I was about 1 second off in every lap. Overall, I was not thrilled with 6th but was less thrilled with my times. However, I did finish the race, so my result was infinitely better than my last race.I did find a couple of other issues with the bike, as the steering damper had fallen off, the brake lever was rotated too far upwards, and I had forgotten to wire the grips. None of these things were significant to alter my times, but it was good to catch and correct them.
Saturday night: Special events galore!
There was some pretty cool stuff going on Saturday after our racing. First up was a pitbike race on an improvised course that using the front straight and the hot pit. ECK Racing's Christian Smutnick(csmutty) ran away from the competition and lapped most of the field, winning not only the 1st place pitbike race trophy, but the "You're taking this way too seriously" achievement award.
Next up was the wheelie competition to be held on the Legend's oval over in T1, so a few of us headed up to the grandstands to watch and enjoy some adult beverages. Only three competitors rolled out to show their skills, one on a dirtbike, one on a Ducati Hypermotard, and one on a...scooter? That's right, Dan Kapnis(DDK) brought a spork to a gunfight...and then somehow managed to make it shoot bullets. While both the dirtbike and the Ducati were able to do some long power wheelies, they didn't hold a candle to Dan's seat standing, 12 o'clocking, scooter demolishing antics, and the crowd declared him the winner by overwhelming majority. It would seem second place(if there was one) would have gone to the guy who just rolled out mid competition on his 50, and proceeded to do slow wheelies across the area with no regard to the order of the competition or what others were doing around him. Last motorcycle event of the evening was the flat track race, where the motards got to do some laps around the Legend's car oval. Those guys put on an exciting show as always.
Sunday, Race 8 - Lightweight Supersport
I had only gotten one lap in practice this morning, as I came in with a non-responsive throttle during our only AM session. I discovered the throttle cable had come off the throttle tube inside the housing, so I put everything back together a bit tighter and hoped it would not happen again. A new R6 throttle tube may be in order during the 6 week break before Round 7.
I was able to get a decent start here, going into T1 in 2nd place behind #501 Brian Cooner, but he quickly rode off into the sunset, as he was running 2-3 seconds faster per lap than I was. On lap 2, fellow RSP racer Keith Draghi(769) went by me into T1, and once he had gotten around he also gapped me quite a bit. I knew that Shane Lewis(276) was close behind me, and I could tell I was even further off pace today, so I was basically waiting for him to make a move. On the last lap, I saw a cloud of dust in T3 when I entered the chute, and then saw Keith's bike on the ground with him next to it in the dirt, still down. A combination of expecting a red flag and trying to get a look at Keith to see if he was alright gave Shane the opportunity to get past me exiting 3. I kept on him, and hoped to make a last ditch shot at going around him in T11, but two lapping experts brought their battle into our path in T10, and got between me and Shane. I normally try to stay clear of any other riders running their own race, but in this case I stuck it back in front of one of them in 11, expecting the front most to go around Shane and hoping to follow him. He did not, and I was left side by side and trying to drag race to the line, which didn't work. That put me in 3rd of 5 finishers, and my times were a second more off pace, with a best lap in this race of 24.5. I did most definitely win the cool down lap, as I was eager to see if Keith was alright, so I got back in as quickly as I could.
Overall, my times were off, my performance was off, and I don't feel as if I have a firm grasp on what I'm doing differently, so I'm really looking forward to the Sept 27/28 TTDs at NHMS for a chance to just do some laps. I'm also planning to rent a Qstarz GPS laptimer from Lou (loudog) at Mad Monkey Motorsports so I can take a hard look at what I'm doing. I've seen this data help some of my competitors, so it's time to put it into play for myself.
As always, big thanks to all my friends at LRRS, my RSP teammates, and specifically for this weekend Tony and Pang for helping out with bike repairs, David King for loaning me that radiator, and Mike Weyant for bringing my bodywork back from the dead. Also to both Brian Kelly (crazyirish) and Matt Calhoun (First Lightning) for offering up some parts I may have needed to get the bike going. I'm sure I'm forgetting to thank some people. The entire racing community up there is great, and it was cool to have some of our friends come up to spectate this weekend!
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Originally Posted by darkduc7
