May 2007 Race Report
Rain, Rain and more Rain!
That pretty much sums it up. It was raining during the morning qualifier and rained even harder during the afternoon main events.
This was my first time racing in the rain with rain tires on. It seems strange to say that since this is my fifth year racing in the NW. I have raced in the rain before but during my first 3 years, I didn’t have an extra set of wheels to mount up with rain tires. In all my previous rain races, it was dry for some of the races and wet for others. Which means that if I wanted to race with rain tires, I would need enough time to take off my wheels, get new rains mounted and then put my wheels back on. I never had that much time before my races. I would just race with DOT’s dry weather racing tires. Which is slippery as ice, btw. This year, I have an extra set of wheels so I was ready with rain tires mounted and ready to go.
Since this was my first time in the rain with rain tires, I used the day as a learning session. I basically, started off at a slow pace and would get faster each lap. The day was pretty uneventful. Because of the delays caused by the additional crashes in the rain, the races were shortened to 8 laps and then to 6 laps.
In the Open Twin Supersport race, I finished in 3rd place and in the Open Twin Superbike race I finished in 6th place. In both races, I didn’t have the pace to go faster to try to catch the lead group and didn’t have any challengers from behind.
In the end it was a good learning experience. I am sure I will do better in my next rain race but I am hoping for dry conditions for the rest of the year.