WMRRA Round 4
After my debacle in round 3, I was determined to complete some heats and get one step closer to graduation to the expert ranks.
My wife Anne, who has been super supportive of my racing this year, had her own track day itch to scratch, so we headed over from Spokane on Wednesday night so that she could attend the Mike Sullivan track day on Thursday. Her previous track day she had been turning 2:20 lap times at PR. She spent the day getting faster and faster eventually posting a best time of 2:07. She plans on continuing to get track time this fall and will be joining the new WMRRA novices next season. I am incredibly proud of her and can't wait to see her race!
We took the day off on Friday and took the kids to the zoo while spending time in the pits with friends and fellow racers and prepared the bike for racing on Saturday and Sunday.
It rained hard Friday night and we awoke to dreary, rainy skies and tons of standing water. In a rare case of my better judgement taking hold, I skipped mounting rain tires and watched the forecast intently hoping the promised afternoon clearing would show up. By the time the second novice practice session kicked off at 11 AM, there was a dry race line and only a few places with standing water on the track. I headed out and did 6 laps to get my brain warmed up for our 2:15 PM heat.
As race time approached for Saturday there was a serious crash in turn 8 that necessitated an airlift of the injured rider. This pushed everything out over an hour. We would find out later that night that the rider was feeling better and had no life threatening injuries.
As the massive novice field went out to grid,