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April
17-18 WSMC Sometimes all the
harbingers of doom are just tests of your determination. Let's
count all of the foretokens that were telling me me to crawl back
into bed for the weekend: 1. You will recall, my
faithful readers, that I badly needed new fork springs for my 250.
Suffice it to say that they had not yet been replaced. 2. I never ordered my 125
rear shock spring. It is a mystery to me why I can't get around
to doing that. 3. I had no generator for
the weekend. My thieving punk
neighbors decided they'd liberate us of both of our generators, as well
as a SikkBike scooter and an Aprilia
Electric bike. (The Sikk Bike and one generator were broken and
needed to be thrown away, so I guess they saved us some hauling costs.
We have a lot of broken useless crap in our garage) 4. We were up until 2:30am
building a freakin' trailer. 5. I packed shorts and
flip-flops for the weekend and it rained on the drive up to Rosamond
and half the day on Saturday. 6. Practice: My first session out, the
125 was running very rich. Of course I didn't bring the tuner chart
telling me
which jet to use at 50 degrees Farenheit. 7. I discovered an oil leak on my 250 as
I
was about to leave for middleweight practice session. 8. JM had to work Saturday and had the
good toolbox with him. So how in the world did this turn
around? First of all, club racers are the best
folks there are. Our buddy's Rich and Oz let me leach power off
of them. Rob let me borrow his tools to fix (yes fix!) my 250.
Second, sometimes you just need another set of eyes because you are not
lookijng for the obvious. Quentin
Wilson from Apex
Predator Racing, the sponsor of the 125 class noticed my choke was on
and asked if I taken the 125 out in practice with it like that. Doh!
Third, those bikes vibrate and rattle a lot when you are flogging them,
and things come loose. The 250 lower cylinder bolts that held the part
where the header enters the cylinder were loose. I tightend those down
and voila! No leak. |
 Oz likes our team shirts  Setting up to head down the Omega hill |
| Saturday seemed to turn completely around
and things were rather rosy. JM made it in time for dinner
and we ate with 20 other races at Ramon's mexican restaurant, got
to know a couple people a bit better. We discovered Mark Watts, the
veteren 250 racer and darn quick chap, had raced the Isle of
Man Manx GP seven times! He even
placed 7th once. |
|
The sun came out for us on Sunday. We were sporting our new Little,Big Team T-shirts, we were sapping power off Rich, and Josh Hayes made it out to race a few races and entertain the WSMC crowd. First race for me was the Aprilia Cup Challenge. I was 9th on the grid and got a good start, not the fantastic start I got last month but pretty decent. I think I was in fourth place into turn one. I passed a rider on the entrance to two and then caught up to Reuben Archillia. I went around him on the outside and he pushed it to not let me get past, but now have a super-secret turn two strategy that put me ahead of him at the exit. I then had Patrick Tracy and Mike Pastore ahead of me. I could close the gap a bit through 3-4-5 but turn 8 and the straightway killed me. I need to change the gearing on this bike since now I am pinned in sixth for all of turn 7-8 and the front straight. My forks were a bit better this month but I'm ordering springs because I very nearly crashed again in turn four: right on that bastard little seam in the pavement that chucked me in February. My front end bounced off it while leaned all the way over and thankfully the tire caught instead of tucking and I finished the race in third place. According to those watching I had a big lead on fourth place although I certainly need to close the gap between second and first. The 125GP race was the next race. I was on the pole with 11 starters in the race. I got a great start and lead into turn one. Then, like a bad re-run of last month, Kevin Murray shot past me at the entrance to turn three. I was right on his tail all the way through turn 8 when a colossal gust of win just about blew all the 125's off the track. The riders behind us said it was eerie watching everyone shift three feet to the outside in an instant and then feeling it hit them a fraction of a second later. This lone wind gust was the talk of the weekend for the 125GP racers. I passed Kevin on the straight since I not only have a super secret strategy for turn two, but for turn nine as well! I hear later he pulled off but give me some glory here, I passed him, ok? Anyhow, I saw no other 125 bikes but did pass quite a few 250 racers and even a couple of twins racers who were in the first wave. I crossed the finish line quite excited: my first win at Willow! Roadracing World even mentioned it in their article. (Ok, so it isn't as exciting as Jeremy Toye beating Josh Hayes twicethat weekend but for me it was a moment to remember). I don't have lap times but I'm SURE I dropped at least a second and a half off my times, thanks to my ultra-coveted, classified, enigmatical turn 2 and 9 strategies, putting me in the 1:30's. Thanks to Rich and Oz for letting us mooch power all weekend and eat your string cheese. Thanks Brienne Thompson for the use of your canopy again! |
 I cornered
Josh Hayes
and snapped a pic before he could run.
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