It takes me awhile to get around to writing these.\u00a0 In part this time because I didn’t have a computer at home, and because I want to let things kinda settle before I started to write.\u00a0 This was probably one of my top 3 least fun race days ever.\u00a0 But, it still beat being at work!!!\u00a0 \ud83d\ude09\u00a0 Just to warn you up front this is another really, really, long post.<\/p>\n
Doing the club secretary duties and trying to get myself set up to race is wicked stressful.\u00a0\u00a0 It was made harder this time by the fact that my computer died on Friday.\u00a0 I had to re create a number of things that I had already done and there were things that I was missing that would have made my day smoother.\u00a0 It just set a tone for the whole day, which was less then ideal for racing.<\/p>\n
Since the past two years, I’ve been given the choice of moving up to the expert ranks and I’ve declined moving up to the expert ranks.\u00a0 This year I was going to stay out of all the novice classes and only run AM.\u00a0 There are pros and cons with it both ways, the main driving force behind my decision is that I know from racing with other clubs that I’m no where near fast enough to run with experts any where but Abq.\u00a0 Most of the guys who insist on moving up when they don’t run the fast lap times are doing do more outta ego then anything else.\u00a0 There are few who’ve chosen to move up that can’t get below 59 second lap times.\u00a0 I’ve managed 58s and a few 57.9s and I still don’t think that’s fast enough to justify moving up, but that’s not here or there and I don’t have a say in it for anyone but myself.\u00a0 Where I was going with that rant …. I ended up in 6 races for the day.\u00a0 I had only wanted to do 4, but the two Novice classes needed more people to make them fill.\u00a0 There wasn’t anyone else that I could con into it so I did it.\u00a0\u00a0 I’m pretty sure that I won’t be needed in the Nov O class again, since it filled up nicely, but the Nov U class is another story.\u00a0 I’m going to have to stick with that one for the rest of the year.<\/p>\n
Let’s just say that with the track conditions on Sunday, no one was running record lap times.\u00a0 It remains to be seen if this is going to be an ongoing issue or if its just due this being the windy season, but the track was filthy!!!\u00a0 Not quite as bad as it was the week before, when the club officers had to get out there and shovel the sand off the track, but far from being in good condition.<\/p>\n
So I’m on the fence with the track days being on different weekends from the races.\u00a0 I like the fact that I’m not so tired on Sunday, but it’s like not having any practice before you go racing.\u00a0\u00a0 I know that we got 2 practice sessions that were quite long, instead of the 3 \u00a0 10 minute sessions we were supposed to have.\u00a0 It was nice to have the longer practice sessions.<\/p>\n
The first up of the six was the Novice GTO, it was one of the classes I just there be a warm body.\u00a0 I figured I’d practice my launches, as they always need work, and see how it played out.\u00a0\u00a0 It seems to go for me, the launch was horrible and I entered the first turn at the mid to back of the group.\u00a0 I did about 2 laps, I just couldn’t get my head wrapped around racing. Lack of concentration is a bad thing on a race track, so I pulled off, figuring that I’d keep my focus on the AM races.\u00a0 I’m not sure it was the best way to set the tone for the day, but it’s what I did.<\/p>\n
Next up was the AM Super Twins,\u00a0funny but yes, the d675 is legal.\u00a0\u00a0 I had yet another awful launch.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0I\u2019ve got to practice those, and get some coaching.\u00a0 They are either great or the awful, there\u2019s no middle ground.\u00a0 I lost ground in the first turn when one of the guys drifted wide and I had to roll off to avoid running into him, otherwise I\u2019d have gotten a great drive out and been able to get around 3 of them.\u00a0 That would have put me into 2nd<\/sup> place.\u00a0 Oh well, instead I had to fight my way around a Buell 1125r, it took me like 3 laps but I finally got around him and other guy.\u00a0 We came up on the second guy, the guy on the Buell chose to go high and around the outside, I went under both of them.\u00a0 Which landed me into 6th<\/sup>, not the finish I had in mind, but it was a fun race.<\/p>\n Next up was the AM GTU, this one is back to back with the AM ST.\u00a0 That actually works to my advantage; I\u2019m fastest at the end of 30 minute endurance races, go figure.\u00a0 However, there was a hold up on pit out and my bike started to over heat.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t happy about that.\u00a0 It kinda threw me off, and I was too busy watching the temp gauge at the start and had another less then stellar start.\u00a0 I ended up in 3rd<\/sup> on exit of the first turn.\u00a0 I actually thought for a minute (actually a couple of laps) that I was going to be able to catch Brian, who was struggling with the switch to GP shifting. I would have too, if I\u2019d paid better attention and ridden more defensively so that Dave couldn\u2019t have gotten in front of me, when I mis-shifted coming into the hairpin. Once that happened he slowed me down, enough that there was no time to catch Brian.\u00a0 \u00a0I stayed behind Dave for a couple of laps, seeing where he was strong, and was going to return the favor, but he brake checked in an odd place coming out of turn 2 and I almost ran into him.\u00a0 It killed my drive and I couldn\u2019t get around him.\u00a0 Then we came up on lap traffic, and he held up for 2 corners so I wasn\u2019t able to get around Dave. My fastest lap of the day was once I got around the traffic and was running Dave down to get around him.\u00a0 I just needed one more lap.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how I missed the white flag but, I did so had to settle for 4th<\/sup>.\u00a0 I\u2019m going to blame it on the dust that was coating everything and the wind creating small lil\u2019 brown outs in places on the track.<\/p>\n Next up was the Nov GTU race, it was the other one that I hadn\u2019t really wanted to do, but I wanted to make sure there was at least 6 riders.\u00a0 It just so happened that I had one of my rare good launches.\u00a0 I found myself out in front coming into and out of the first turn.\u00a0 First hole shot of the year.\u00a0 So I just kept going.\u00a0 I could hear the other d675 behind me for a couple of laps. Now since I was the one who\u2019d dragged him around the track his very first time out there and since he\u2019d talked a lil\u2019 bit of smack in the paddock.\u00a0 I thought I\u2019d see if he could get around me. I just kept a steady pace, that wasn\u2019t as fast as I could go, but I wanted to give him some thing to chase.\u00a0 After about 4 laps he fell back and just kept falling back every lap after that.\u00a0 It ended up being my first win of the season.<\/p>\n AM GTO was the next race, now this is one that I\u2019m torn on running.\u00a0 There are some very fast experts who do this race instead of running in the ULGP.\u00a0 I\u2019m usually at the back of the pack.\u00a0 I do learn something every time I\u2019m out there but I really hate being in the midst of the pack at the start slowing anyone down, anyone but Doug. Actually I love getting in his way.\u00a0 LOL.\u00a0 However, I was quite tired by this point, I had another bad launch and I just didn\u2019t have a good feeling about it.\u00a0 The wind was really starting to kick up and there were times when the dust was so thick that you couldn\u2019t see the next turn.\u00a0 After I made 3 mistakes, with turn in braking and missed a shift all within 2 laps.\u00a0 I knew that I needed to just give it up and head back to the pit.\u00a0 I\u2019m glad I did, just about the time I got out of my gear in the pit, they red flagged the race.\u00a0 Doug went down at the entrance of turn 7 and it was pretty bad.\u00a0 There was a large amount of oil and he wasn\u2019t look too good either.\u00a0 Turns out he had to get stitches in his hand, had some broken bones in his hand and his bike is a disaster.\u00a0 After a \u00bd hour clean up effort they restarted the race, I didn\u2019t go back out for the restart.<\/p>\n Last race of the day for me was the Formula Femme, which we combined with the Super Vintage right after they finished the AM GTO, (see why I didn\u2019t go back out?)\u00a0 The FF was gridded up in front of the vintage bikes.\u00a0 Edda got the hole shot, but I was right behind her right into turn 3, from there out she started pulling on me and then I had Dennis go flying by me on a vintage bike\u2026 oh the shame.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude00\u00a0 I tried to catch back up but wasn\u2019t able to. The winds were getting really bad by this time, much worst then in the previous race, I didn\u2019t feel comfortable pushing, not when the track is so dusty that you see clouds of dust coming off the bike in front of you.\u00a0 So I settled for running the last half of the race by myself.\u00a0 It got more interesting as we started into lap traffic.\u00a0 I finished in a very comfortable 2nd<\/sup>.<\/p>\n In all it was a nice day, I could have done without the wind and the wind wouldn\u2019t have been so bad without all the dust.\u00a0 I\u2019m beginning to question why Sandia moved the motocross track down closer to the road track\u2019s turn 7.\u00a0 There\u2019s a huge pile of dirt and sand that\u2019s been blown there.\u00a0 Not to mention all the dirt that\u2019s blowing onto the track.\u00a0 If this is a trend that continues, for the whole year, I may not go back there to race again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It takes me awhile to get around to writing these.\u00a0 In part this time because I didn’t have a computer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":476,"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469\/revisions\/476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}