Last Racetown 395 Race and 1st SCminiGP Race!
Well it was another weekend of fun as we headed out for the last race of the 8-race dealer series at Racetown 395. This would also mark the first roadrace ever for Javelin on the RS85 with SCminiGP. We were joined this weekend by mom and little brother Gage. I also had a dear friend of mine Matt show up for the roadrace as well.
We started things off with SCminiGP practice on Saturday morning at the California Speedway Kart track. The whole day went pretty smoothly even though we don't seem to get nearly as much track time as we would like. Javelin got himself back into the 1:10 range where we left off before but was getting a lot smoother around the track. We obviously need to get a lot faster if we are going to be competitive in this class. Javelin runs in what is called ProGP which are the fastest bikes in the club. The guys he is competing against have mountains of experience roadracing so we basically jumped into the deep end on this one. That being said, Javelins dirtbike experience makes it easy to compete but doesn't automatically make him fast and that is what we need to work on more.
We wrapped up practice at around 3pm and immediately headed off to Racetown which is about an hours drive North of Cal Speedway. We got there in pretty good shape and Javelin did get out for practice to get things dialed in. Bike was running well but Jav was having problems. He fell 2 or 3 times during practice. I don't know what was going on to be honest? Maybe he was too tired from roadrace practice but I doubt it. He normally rides much more during a day out than we had done. I think he was under a LOT of pressure. Not only was it the last race of the series but his mom and brother were there also which probably made it hard for him to focus. I knew he wasn't with it but figured we would get through alright. I was just praying that he stayed safe and didn't get hurt. As it turned out, everything was pretty uneventful. Bike ran well and Jav did a decent job. He unfortunately couldn't get a good start on either moto and ended up 5th on the first moto but then moved up to 3rd as the 2 riders in front both fell during the race. I consider this 3rd to be a gift. He did manage to pull off a 3rd in the second race as well and almost took himself out when he blew a corner and then got hit from another rider from behind whom he had just made a pass on.
That was it! The series was over and Javelin got a nice big 2nd place trophy! We are all really proud of him and how hard he fought for this. Vincent was within his grasp on a number of occasions and I think that meant more to him than anything. It really shows how far he has moved up since this all started 3 years ago. This boy knows how to dirtbike..................
Congrats Javelin!
We spent the night back down in Fontana to be close to the track for the next days events. Bright and early we were there setup and ready to go. They were running the track in the clockwise config which is normal but the last weekend that we were there, they were running it reverse. This meant that Javelin had to relearn the track. It was OK morning practice and we were still doing 1:10 - 1:09 laptimes. I knew this wouldn't be enough to be very competitive against this crew of much more experienced pavement riders.
Finally it was time for the one and only heat race. Javelin was on pole due to picking a number from a hat. He was pretty nervous by the time his race was called but was ready to get on with it anyway. He gridded up and the green flag dropped. They made mince meat of him by the third corner....lol. He went around once and looked ok but on lap 2, his bike was extremely loud and I could see as he went by that his expansion chamber (exhaust) had split into two pieces!!!! You could tell that the bike was way down on power but remarkably, he stayed in it and kept racing. I guess he figured he would rather blow it up than quit so I was happy. He did however come in last so he had to grid last for the main.
When he came in, I went over the bike and sure enough, the pipe was cracked in two behind the main chamber. This was Sunday and there wasn't anything that was going to fix this pipe so we knew he would have to run the main with it as is. Some people suggested various bandaids but I declined as I didn't want it falling apart again and potentially getting hooked in his chain or something. The upside was that I could hear everything he was doing all the way around the track...lol
He gridded last for the main and when the flag dropped, they were off!! He surprised the hell out of me when they came through T3 and he had picked up 2 positions! Not a bad start I thought to myself especially with a hurtin' motorcycle. It wasn't to last though as the 2 riders managed to get around him after about 3 laps of the 5 lap race. He did hold them off for awhile though so we were very happy about that! Well, with 2 last place finishes, we have nowhere to go now but up! Looking forward to our next event which will be the 8-hour endurance race at the Grange on May 17th! We don't have any immediate plans for dirtracing as of yet but we do know that we are moving on to a new track. We are hopeful to get to race at Piru Motocross Park again as it is very close to our house.
See ya'll later!!
Bernie & Javelin
Number 814