Barber Motorsports 5/24/2009
Saturday night we camped in the trailer as usual. We woke up Sunday at 6am to the sound of my brand new canopy crashing to the ground because it was full of water from all the rain. I laid in bed until 7 just knowing what kind of day it was gonna be. So after eating breakfast and temporarily fixing the canopy I checked the weather to find out we had a 70% chance of thunderstorms all day, so we got the rain tires put on the bike. By then, I was already late for registration. It opened at 8am, tech opened at 8:15am, and the first practice session was my group at 8:30am. Not much time!! I didn't make it in time for my practice session, so they let me go out with the 750's. Didn't really matter though. It was still raining, and there was standing water on the track. On my second lap, I crashed in turn 5. It was my first road racing crash, and lemme tell ya, its nothing like crashing in motocross!! As I'm sliding across the pavement, I could feel my butt getting very warm!! It was the best crash I could ask for though. It didn't hurt the bodywork at all. It ground down my footpeg, handlebar end, engine guard, and swingarm spool. Very minor fixes. Didn't even touch my Arai helmet!! So I got teched back in, and went out for second practice. Right after the riders meeting, it quit raining and the sun came out, so I had to keep an eye on the track to see if I should change back to the DOT tires instead of the rains. Well, by the time I decided I needed the DOT's, it was too late. My race was up for C Superstock, and I didn't have a clue of what rain tires would handle like in the dry because they are SO soft. I had to start on row 13 anyway, so I ended up just taking it easy during the race, and slowly picking up my times. I managed to pick up about 5 positions on the last 2 laps, but finished 14th with 31 in the class. After that race, I went to Pirelli and got some fresh DOT's, got them on the bike and on the warmers, but was worried they wouldn't be on the warmers long enough before my next race. It ended up perfect timing though. My second race was in C Superbike, and I was on row 3 on the grid with 22 in the class. I got a good start and on the first lap I was in 3rd place, but fell back to 6th. With one lap to go, I knew I could pick up at least one position, possibly two, so I put my head down and really pushed. It was a great battle on the last lap, and I managed to pickup 5th place, only 1 second behind 4th place. My last lap time was on par with 1st and 2nd place, but they had already pulled a good lead and were out of reach. It turned out to be a good race considering my very limited practice time on the track plus a crash in practice. Overall, even though it started out rough, it turned out to be a great weekend. Once again I met some really nice people and had a great time. My goal is to podium the next race. Special thanks to B&R Machine and Gear, Panolin Oils, Safety First Racing, Pirelli, and Vortex!!!