0
CLIFF NOTES: 4th, 2nd, 1st places, 1.5 seconds dropped, and my 15 minutes of fame
Friday
Spent FIVE HOURS for my 3.5 hour drive to get to the track. Thanks traffic.
Saturday
Felt awful in 1st practice, nothing was going right. Second practice felt GREAT, and I got back into the 23sI also realized the awesomeness of fresh HH brake pads courtesy of Sportbike Track Gear…WOW my old pads were junk! Even though they weren’t yet to the wear indicators, they must’ve been seriously glazed over.
AM LWGP – 2nd wave, 16 bikes
Gridded 2nd row, 2nd spot…and got my doors blown off on the start, settling into 8th place. I put my head down and tried to apply some of the stuff I was doing during practice, and it paid off. I was able to get past a bunch of bikes and eventually took fourth place. If I had another two laps, I’m fairly certain I would’ve taken third. New PB! 1:22.285
Sunday
Practices felt good…nothing notable.
AM LWSS – 1st wave, 8 bikes
I was again gridded 2nd row, 2nd spot…but this time I wasn’t messing around. I got a much better start and took the holeshot…and led for 2 laps! This was the longest time I’ve led a race w/more than 4 competitors since being a NV, so I was pretty psyched. Eventually we caught up to the last wave of novices, and 388 Justin Harcourt got past me as I parked it behind traffic. I snuck past the NV and stalked Justin through some more traffic, until 820 Adam Butler passed me on lap 5 (freakin’ fast for an old guy!). I stalked him for two laps, and finally was able to pass him on the brakes right before the apex of T3. In doing so, I had to check up bigtime to make the turn, so he was able to show me a wheel entering T4…and again in T6…but I held him off successfully for the rest of the race despite his best efforts. According to everyone watching, it was an awesome race to spectate…and it was damn fun! I consider this my first “real” AM podium, as the others have been (rain) races with very low grids. This was a hard-fought victory! 2nd place, ANOTHER new PB of 1:21.512!!!
AM Thunderbike – 2nd wave, 2 bikes
We were supposed to have a whopping three bikes, but my teammate 559 Kevin Russell had mechanical issues that didn’t allow him to race…so I lined up on the pole one spot away from 900 Jane Kennedy. I took the holeshot, and stayed in first the whole race, with a full front straight lead by the end (I believe that’s what I was told). I wasn’t pushing it 110%, but clicked off some 22s so at least I was consistent there – and I caught the back of the Unlimited Superbike pack in the 1st wave, which was my 2nd goal after “finish this race.”
MONDAY – 15 seconds of fame
Gorgeous day for Tony’s Track Days…though I was spent from the get-go after this weekend’s racing! In the afternoon I was asked to do a body position seminar that would be filmed. “OK,” I thought, “Ken’s gonna roll some video for the Tony’s Track Days website.” Wrong. There was a film crew at NHMS shooting for a show highlighting fun things to do around New England. So I instructed the red group on body position while the very lovely hostess of the show demonstrated. She’d never been on a motorcycle before, so I offered to take her around the pits…which was also summarily filmed, as was my brief lesson (in which I stumbled mightily over my words with the camera 18” from my face) on some of the gear we wear on the track.
All in all, a very successful weekend – thanks in no small part to my RSP Racing teammates and my sponsors Tony's Track Days, MTAG-Pirelli, Northern New England Appraisal Services, Dyno Solutions (hey John, your shirt is in the video!), Sport Bike Track Gear (wicked quick turnaround on a new windscreen for Round 2), Brunetto T-Shirts (lots of green and orange shirts around the paddock this weekend!), 434 Racer Parts, Mad Monkey Motorsports (awesome customer service for my Qstarz data recorder!), and MOTUL (also wicked quick turnaround on fork oil to get me rolling).
Now let’s hope the rain holds off for tomorrow’s Tony’s Track Days!
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by 388
