In our first race of mini endurance we had a few set backs but did ok for our first go round.  My other rider John got no practice on the bike at all this weekend other than the sighting lap.  In the early laps our shift linkage broke making John have to limp into the pits early.  After 6 minutes of down time I had the bike ready to go and got him back on the track.  By this time we had dropped to 36th place.  John got to work and knocked us down to 30th, doing surprisingly well for having no practice.  Once I got on the bike I was on a mission.  I put my head down and got us to 16th place before it was johns turn to ride again.  John then knocked us down to 14th.  On the pit we refueled which bumped us to 15th but not for very long as I reclaimed 14th and held it until disaster struck.  I was set up to pass a slower rider on the outside when she locked up the rear wheel with a little puff of white smoke then falls directly in front of me.  I hit her and the bike and was thrown a good 6 feet in the air and crashed.  The bike and I were relatively ok unfortunately I can’t say the same for the other rider.  I got the bike back to our pit and fixed it and refueled it and John finished out the race in 17th overall and 15th in out class.  Considering the problems we had I'm just thankful we finished the race and top 20 is just the icing.