With /actual/ racing as opposed to constant whinging about trying to get a race bike running.
After the fairly successful test and tune a couple of weeks back, I figured the bike was in good enough shape to go to the races. This past weekend (15th-16th) was out local race club’s first ever double-header weekend. The weather was supposed to be cooler (down to the mid-90s!), they’ve ‘patched’ some of the areas on the track, and the southern NM crew from Arroyo Seco were invited up. Looked like a good opportunity to do a track day with some competition as I tried to learn to ride a supersport with GP shift. What could possibly go wrong??
I entered 4 classes on each day. I /meant/ to enter the same 4 classes, just for consistency but my clicking skills are about as good as my racing skills so I didn’t even manage this. The plan was to run Superstreet, where I had a chance to be competitive but no points for the season (having missing the first two races, that didn’t seem a HUGE concern to me), Novice and Amateur middleweight superbike (our 600 class, with Amateur being the experts and novices together), and amateur thunderbike. I managed the first and last, but entered open superbike (novice and amateur) on Sunday. That opens the racing up to the 1000s, and the amateur class was all expert racers except me (and the one guy who goy a mid-season bump on Saturday). I had definitely opened myself up to some competition.
Saturday didn’t start quite as well. Our local tech guy is a really good friend, and his father passed away unexpectedly and suddently on Friday night. I was already going to help with the airfence, but he asked if I could step in and be the tech helper (something I’ve been doing unofficially) as well as assist with crash. This set the stage for a busy weekend, including a fair amount of running around and picking up bikes in full leathers and a set of race boots.
Fun times were about to start…