When you are setting up your pit at 7am and you are already hot and sweating you know it’s going to be one really HOT day. I’m not a fan of racing on days with 100 degree temps, but ya gotta do what cha gotta do. Next year, the club may want to rethink running the new config during the hottest months of the year. It’s so much work to ride, and doing it when it’s so hot, is really not ideal.
I had planned on running in 5 races, but the last one of the day was the Formula Femme was a no go since I was the only female. Bummer. As it turns out I only did 3 races, decided that if I did the 4th one that I might not make it home. I don’t like racing when it’s that hot out, I still believe that we should only do 6 races and take off at least one month during the summer. Down to business, racing recap.
Race #1 for me was the Am Super Twins. It’s my first year running this class and it has the most number of bikes in it. Normally, Daryl runs my ‘B’ bike and I ride the ‘A’ bike. However I didn’t get the forks back in time for the B bike to be ride able. So Daryl rode is street SV in the race. I was back to less the awesome launches for this one. I ended up into the first turn in 7th but by the time we completed the first lap I’d moved back up to fifth and that’s where I stayed. I wasn’t able to get around Daryl. Which was just sad, since he was riding that acient SV of his that had half the horse power of mine, but he’s got some great defensive lines and is really hard to pass.
Race #2 was the Am GTU race, this one is back to back with the ST race. Not the best scheduling on such a hot day. I did at least remember to take a bottle of water to pit out so that I could down it between the races. Not sure I would have finished the second one if I hadn’t done that. As it was it was a hard race for me, I managed a decent launch, and I knew that I had someone right behind me for most of the laps. He kept trying to put a wheel up the inside and I worked very hard to keep him behind me. But, as the pace picked up I started to bottom out the forks coming through the new first turn. Finally, it bottomed out so hard that I thought I might end up going off the track. So that’s when I lost third place and had to settle for fourth.
Race # 3 was Novice GTU, I had the pole position and I got the hole shot, however with the forks now bottoming out every lap. I fell into second and then on the next lap I fell back to third in the same spot. With the guy in first now far enough gone I knew I wasn’t going to catch him. So I just hung out behind second watching and planning were to go around him. One the last lap I got around him in the third turn, I put my head down and left him about 3 seconds behind when we crossed the start/finish line, he had no idea that I was back there that close.