Race reports
April 10-11: VIR
Pat #233
This being the first race weekend of the 2004 season, I was rusty to say the least. I hadn't ridden the bike since late October 2003, and was not up to speed at all. Over the winter the long hours of staring at the bike wishing I was riding it turned into a little confusion on how to get back up to speed from last season. I got out for the first practice session saturday morning and only got 4-5 laps since I got out late in the session. It was still not really warm (45-50 degrees) and the track was pretty slick. Then shortly after that, it started raining. The 2nd practice session was very very wet and since I'm not made of money, I didn't want to buy a set of rains just yet. Luckily the weather cleared up and the rain went away for the afternoon races, which was good. But the track still wasn't as sticky as it normally is in the hot summer sun, which I found out myself the hard way later.
Middleweight GP amateur, saturday April 10 - I was gridded on the 2nd row and got a pretty bad start. As I was the lone 2 stroke on the grid, a bunch of 600's went flying by me on the start. I started to pick through the 600's though and was gaining positions. I ran a few 1:43-44 range laps while in traffic until I got past a guy and had a good bit of open track in front of me. That's when it happened. Cresting the hill in the back section, I tipped into turn 11 at a good clip and the rear let go on me - fast and hard. This is a pretty fast corner, not slow by any means. I was still hanging onto the bike as it slid turning itself around pointing back-track until I let go and knew I was going for a ride (hopefully not a ride in the ambulance). I tumbled a long way, got up and checked myself out, and ran over to the bike. It was in pretty bad shape, dirt and grass and junk all in it. Windscreen was demolished, clipons bent, pipes bent, etc. Well at least I was just banged up and didn't break any bones. I did feel a nice burning sensation in my um, lower ...gluteus ......region... umm yeah. I burned through my leathers and straight into my right ass cheek. This was the worst motorcycle crash I've ever had. Scraped up my brand new boots and gloves, luckily my helmet only had one piece of rash. So I got back to the pits after watching the next race (last race of the day) from the corner station in turn 14 and started to take a closer look at my poor TZ. After staying up late with the help of teammate Andy and fellow racers from OffTheWall racing, the bike was raceable again.
Lightweight GP amateur, sunday April 11 - well after missing the one and only practice session because I was up so late fixing the bike, and not realizing there was only one practice session, I got no laps on the repaired bike before the race. I was on the first or second row in a 2 wave start (experts first wave), and I got a pretty decent start. I was leading for a while on the first lap until a few guys came by me, one of which being a newer model TZ250. I was riding with my skirt hiked up to my neck, and I wasn't pushing it. So the lead group of 3 guys got a little away from me and I just cruised around the track running 1:45-46 times, occasionally checking behind me to see if any SV's were coming up on me (I'm sure I could hear them anyways). I was all alone in 4th most of the race then and I just got myself across the finish line to take 4th place. At least I got beat by a fellow TZ rider!! Looking forward to Summit May 1-2 so I can get going again......
