MoM Round #2
I’m getting to this write up pretty quick. It hasn’t even been a week, but since I have another race this weekend and then my vacation after that. I need to or I might not ever get it done. May is turning out to be just as crazy of a month as I thought it would be. No time to do any of the things other then what I have to get done in order to make it to the next race day. Working for a living is really getting in the way of my fun. Okay, who wants to support me so I don’t have to work? Anyone? Oh well.
I left for Miller on Friday morning after working for a half day. It’s quite exhausting working and then driving 10 hours. But, I was so excited to get there that the exhaustion wouldn’t catch up with me until later. The main reason for this trip was to bring a Birthday present up for Lindsay. Mike contacted me about picking up a bike in AZ when I was over there for a visit and then bringing it up with me. It’s really hard to keep a bike as a birthday present secret. I had to make sure that I didn’t talk to Lindsay much or I might have slipped up. I will say it was great fun, hinting right at it and her not getting it. I got to the track at a decent time, and Mike had someone distract Lindsay so we could unload the bike and hide it without her seeing it. After that we all headed back to SLC to rest up for Sat.
I like that they have practice on Sat. I really needed that time to remember where I was on the track and to find my reference points. I also needed to do some work on my braking techniques, since this is the perfect track for that. If you make a mistake you’ve got run off. It’s not like Sandia where if you run off the track you are in trouble. I managed to steadily drop my lap times down in throughout the day, but I hit a plateau and was getting frustrated the last two sessions. Mid day is when Mike decided to give Lindsay her new bike. It was just perfect. He and everyone else had been toying with her all day and she had gotten some little presents that we all convinced her was the end of it. So when she saw the bike her reaction was priceless. I can’t wait to see pictures of her riding it. It was on the car ride back to town that the exhaustion caught up to me. It was all I could do to stay awake at 7pm.
I had a nice talk with Mike about it Saturday night and he came up with the idea of putting the chatterbox on my helmet so he could follow me around the first session hollering in my ear to see if we could get me past my hang up about the trailing the brake into the corner. I think that the aha moment for me was agony and ecstasy when he told me to stay on the brakes, until the apex and he didn’t care if I was going so slow that I fell over. I was thinking no way, what is he talking about that’s not going to happen. Well I did almost fall over. I couldn’t believe that as fast I was coming in there, that I ended up going that slow, it gave me more confidence to come in there even faster and wait just a lil’ bit longer before I went to the brakes. That one piece let me drop my lap times another second yet, the laps felt more controlled and comfortable then they had when I was going slower. It was another piece of the puzzle for me that I’d started to put together while at the YCRS in December.
With practice going so well I had high hopes for the races going really well. I think they did, even if it wasn’t obvious from my finishing positions. I had three races that day; the first one was right before lunch. The winds were starting to blow about this time, but not too bad. I had a decent start, but I’m not a huge fan of coming into that first off camber turn with a bunch of prov-novices who don’t really understand some of the finer points of racing. So I just let them go, and found a nice safe path through the turn. Then I started to work harder at catching some of the others and keep some behind me. It was uneventful I just concentrated on my braking into the corners. The times came down just a bit more. So I didn’t even bother to look to see where I placed.
The next two races were back to back after lunch. It was about lunch time that the winds really took off and I mean took off. They were somewhere around 35+mph with gusts over 60mph. I had a great start for the AMGTU race, but I hit neutral on the way to the first turn so I dropped way back. I had really wanted to get in front of Mike, and I would have if I’d gotten the gear. He got away from me in that turn, but I kept him in sight for the whole race. Just about ½ way through, I notices I was gaining on him. It just gave me the little nudge that I needed to keep pushing. I’m thinking that I’d have caught him with just one more lap, but that was where the race ended.
I came in got a drink of water from Lindsay, and then I went back out for my next race. I just wanted to work on the braking some more. I had another decent launch, so I wasn’t the last one into the turn. A number of people didn’t go back out for this race, the winds were so bad that they didn’t want to get blown off the track again. I hadn’t noticed the wind so much in the previous race but I sure did this time coming through fast and faster. Kinda scary. I did notice that coming into the attitudes you didn’t really need to brake, you just had to sit up and the wind did all your braking for you. After a lap or two the other women in the race got around me. I wasn’t really concerned about it, but after another lap it bugged me. So I figured that I should just give it up that easy. I really concentrated on markers and braking, in 2 laps I had caught back up to her and was in a position to get back by her. I noticed that she was weaker on the inner parts of the track and figured that was where I’d get around her. I went into agony and late braked her there but she came back across my front tire and I had to stand the bike up to brake harder. Not really the kinda move I’d make, but then again I’ve gotta stop being so nice or so I’m told. It killed my drive but I still almost got her again in at the top of the attitudes. This was my weaker sections, so she pulled on me. I did get back up on her into Toole but wasn’t able to pull off the pass. I did get around her coming out, but she got me back on the brakes in club house. I was really hoping to get around her at release, but I spun up my back tire and lost drive. Funny, how fast the races end when you have someone to play with. Again, if there had just been one more lap….. on the other hand I dropped my lap times down 3 more seconds during this race. I was quite pleased about that. This just makes me more excited to be going back to do another YCRS right after WSBK.