Warning –> This is SUPER long.
I’m going to have to take most of the blame for this weekend, but I’d like to pawn some of it off onto Troy. After all, he was the one who came up with the idea, he however was smart enough to not actually follow through on it.
Do to scheduling issues we had this year our July races fell on the same weekend as the MRA 4 hour pony express rely endurance race. A number of us from NM went up and had teams to run the race. It was a great weekend, and we all had a blast. I really wanted to run the race again this year, but as secretary for the SMRI I have to be at our races. Troy and I were talking about it earlier in the year and he said, he was thinking about going up and doing the endurance race and then coming back down for our races on Sunday. Crazy, right? I thought it would be fun to but then thought about how hard it would be to pull that off and gave up on it, or so I thought.
I got to talking with Brandon and Poker one day when we’d gone out to the track to make some changes to my suspension to deal with the packing down and bottoming out. I mentioned the Endurance race and how much fun it was. Then like a fool I told them about Troy’s idea.
They were all over that, Poker, being the evil one that he is, worked out the details. The plan: Leave Friday get up there early and set up, Saturday practice, get a nap in at some point and ride the endurance race, drive back that night, and go to Sandia on Sunday for the SMRI sprint races. With the camper and large trailer and 4 of us it would be easy. We would take turns with the driving, and still be able to get some rest. It actually sounded like it would work out great.
Well things started to go awry on Friday, we didn’t leave early, we left Santa Fe about 4:45pm. It’s a 6.5 hour drive, if you have a vehicle that can do 75 most of the way. The RV wouldn’t. We all were giddy on the way up, but after a while Brandon went to sleep and so did Sara. That left Poker driving, since he had no clue where the track was or how to get there. I stayed up and navigated. We rolled into the track at about 2:30 am. We just parked and went to sleep. Mr Baker started up on the Mic about 6 am, so not much sleep there. We got up unloaded, hit registration, recruited Brian to be on our endurance team.
Well things continued to drift from the plan, none of us got a nap that day, I almost missed my NGTU race. I have no idea what I was thinking but I practiced and got out of my gear, went in the camper to eat some breakfast, and just as I was finishing up I heard the first call. WHAT!!! As it turns out I can get into my gear in time to make the grid. Who would have guessed, not me. I made it out there and was at the beginning of the second wave. I had a good start but I don’t really trust those testosterone crazed novices to exercise good judgment. So I held back coming into the first turn. I did make up the places that I lost in the first turn by the fourth. It was a really fun race and I was really getting into it when I had someone come the inside of me. I didn’t hear them coming. I followed for a couple of corners, they were making all kinds of mistakes and I could tell they were really pushing. It was kinda scary to watch, so I waited until they missed the apex at the next corner and got around them, then I put my head down and tried to put some distance between us. It worked. I finished up 18th.
Our team decided to send Brian out for qualifying since he was the fastest of the 4 of us. He did great and we got 18th on the grid. Poker ‘won’ the coin toss and he went out for the start. There was something like 48 teams on the grid, a first for him. I did offer to go out for him. I was to take the second leg, Brandon the third and Brain was to bring it home. Again… things didn’t go to plan.
Poker did fantastic! He got us moved up the order, he finished his hour then it was time for me. We did the transponder swap, I made it to turn 11 and there was a red flag. I came in and waited to go back out. It was decided to restart us all, I went out for the start, we where in the top 15. I’m still not a fan of diving into turn one with all those guys. I did drop back again, but slowly made up some places. It was going great and I was having ball. About 40 minutes in I came up on a guy I had lapped already, I have to say that I really was tired and feeling it at this point. I made the decision to try and get around him, I pulled it off in turn 4 only to blow turn 6 and have him get back by me. Now, that didn’t sit too well with me, he was holding me up. We came up on more lap traffic and he got around them in 10, I knew that I was faster in the next couple of turns, so I figured I get around him here in turn 11. Turn 11 is a rather fast up hill, leaned over turn. I came around the outside of the lap traffic right behind they guy I wanted around and got hard on the gas. Well, it was too much for my tire at that point. I felt the rear spin up, and thought … this isn’t going to end well.
It didn’t.
The rear slide to the left, my right knee hit the ground it then snapped back to the right, I went flying up onto the tank. I hit the windscreen super hard with my right shoulder and my chin. The bike then snapped back left , my left leg/foot was still on the tail section, my right leg is dragging on the ground. And, yes, I’m still hanging onto it at this point. Thinking like a fool, that I might be able to save it. That thought lasted less then a second and I let go of the bike. At that point it was the pavement, sky, pavement tumble.
I came to a stop on my hands and knees about two feet from the inner edge of the track. Once I figured that out, I crawled to the dirt and took a couple of seconds to figure out if everything was intact. I heard the corner worker yelling at me to keep moving, so crawled a bit farther in the dirt, she kept yelling, so I got up and walked over to the bike. Realized at this point that I was not feeling so hot. I decided it would be best to just lay in the dirt until they came to get the bike, after all was I already dirty. While I was waiting one of the guys came to get my transponder to take back to the pit. I was barely able to point him to where it was. After laying down in the dirt and taking off my leathers after a bit, I felt much better. I think I was a bit over heated and dehydrated. Might explain the bad judgment, I felt like an idiot. It shouldn’t have happened.
Brandon went out, but his bike just hadn’t been riding right since his wreck at Sandia, so he only lasted about 30 minutes. Come to find out his forks were bent and not working at all so to have ridden at all was amazing. Then Brian went out, well he being the goof ball that he is, he didn’t eat or drink anything all day and when he came in after 30 minutes, he couldn’t stand up. So Poker went back out for another hour, now if we’d been thinking I should have gone back out for a while on Brian’s bike. I’ve raced it before and after drinking some and sitting down again, I was feeling pretty decent. By the time Poker finished, we were back to 12th. Now, if I hadn’t wreck we’d have likely finished in the top 10, since we were in 8th when I went down.
After it all ended, it was time to pack up and hit the road. As you can imagine we were all just exhausted. I was really starting to get stiff from being assaulted by my bike. We showered, ate, and drove off. It was a long night, most of which I was useless for, since the longer we were in the RV the more sore I got. About 11 I took some pain killers and climbed the bed over the drivers and fell asleep. I’m told that I should be glad that I sleep through the scary moments that happened from then until they decided to stop and sleep rather then keep trying to kill us all.
I woke up about 4:40 am. Realized that we were weren’t moving and that we were no were near Santa Fe and that I wasn’t going to make it to the track for registration at 7am. I then woke the boys up in a panic trying to find keys so I could start driving. They just remember being assaulted with me going on about the ‘keys, where are the keys???!!’ ;-D I got us to Santa Fe about 6:30am, they got 2 more hours of sleep which they needed. I grabbed my truck and trailer, and we all headed to Sandia. Turns out that it was raining at the track and things were going to be delayed. I don’t think I’ve ever been so relieved by rain before. I REALLY hate being late.
Funny how things work out, I made it down there and got registration open with plenty of time to get things done, except practice. Or do anything other then clean up my bike. So my first race was the shake down on my bike after accessing the crash damage and adjusting and cleaning things up so it would pass tech. My leathers and I were not in as good a shape as the bike. My stunning NEW leathers had 4 holes in them, my new gloves were scrapped up and I had three really spectacular bruises. They were so pretty that I had a couple of people tell me that looking at them made them feel like throwing up. Two+ weeks later, I still have them, but they are fading.
Which brings us to race # 1 at Sandia; Am Super Twins, since it was the shake down ride for the bike I just crashed the day before, I wasn’t planning anything but last. As it turns out that I made a few passes once I knew the brakes were working as they should be. I knew something was up with the front end, but didn’t at the time have the presence of mind to make sure the front end was straight. I should’ve thought of that, when I realized the front tire wasn’t spinning like it was supposed to, but I did think about that at the end of the day… I passed about three guys and was working my way back up when the race got red flagged. I wasn’t thrilled with the handling, but it was rideable.
Next up was the AmGTU race; I knew that it was going to be a tough one. Poker was in this one and I really wanted to stay in front of him. That didn’t happen, I just wasn’t able to move on the bike and my lap times were about 5 seconds down so he got a way from me. From that point on I just had to keep the others behind me, that was a lil’ tricky then normal and I had work much harder then I wanted to. Half way in my right hand went numb, and I struggling with the brakes. I got passed twice, but they then ran wide and I got it back so ended up having to settle for 4th.
Race #3 was Novice GTU, now normally I’m up front trying to win this one, but not today. I was still struggling and off pace. I did however, get the hole shot, it was short lived, Poker got by me in the second turn, then I had Kyle get by me on the next lap. It was killing me, to not be able to trail the braked into the turns, the bike wasn’t turning, it was running wide and my right arm was now going numb… in short it just flat sucked. I had another guy get by me with only 3 laps to go and I stayed on his tail til the end but wasn’t able to get back around him. So I had to settle for fourth.
Race #4 was the Formula Femme race, it was down to me and Franny for this one. She’s relatively new to racing and is still learning. She and I were talking before the race and her boyfriend ask me to help her out and show her some lines while we were out there. It meant not pushing for me, so I loved the idea. Since we are out there with the vintage guys we just needed to have the girls start at the back of the grids. No one minded when we all asked, so it gave us time to work on things. Since we all played around out there, it was uneventful, but I did make sure that I always crossed the s/f in front of the others on each lap, just in case… I’d have hated to not win it because I was goofing off.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy for a day at the track to end. I was so stinking tired, and it took me about a week to recover. I’m not the least bit sorry that I did it, but I don’t think I would ever do some thing like that again. I’m not as young as I’d like to think I am.