My season came to an end and I'm happy to announce that I'll be running #8 as my competition number for 2010!
It was my personal goal to finish the year as a top 10 expert and I managed to pull it off. I also manged to win two class championships and my teammate took 5th overall Novice.
I'm transplanting a 900 motor for next year and plan to beat up on SVs. It's time to tear the bike down and get busy with some exciting changes. So for now, I'm pasting in my race report below. My website is mostly updated too. We'll be adding my teammates report/results and more pics soon.
www.teamatomicracing.com For those that care to read about my last weekend:
This weekend was probably the toughest race weekend that I’ve ever had. It is also a shining example of the kind of people that I’ve had the great fortune of knowing and receiving support from at the racetrack. I was faced with some serious challenges this weekend and came out on top thanks to the amazing people around me.
It began in Saturday morning practice when I low sided in T8 from tucking the front end. I could not get decent feel from the DOT front that I was running and had a feeling that this was coming. It was during the last practice session and I knew that time would be limited to get the bike back to running order so I had the corner workers help push the bike to the infield so that I could pick it up right away and get busy.
After the truck ride back to the pits with the bike, it was time to get working. The next four hours was a blur of frantic activity to get things as functional as possible. I had incredible support from my teammate, friends, and competitors to come up with spares and fix things that were broken. I got the bike back to a state of “bare minimum”. It was at least good enough to pass Tech. and I was ready to give it a try.
I planned to run 6 sprints on Saturday but missed the first one due to fixing the bike. The rest of the day was a trial and error method of racing, then coming back in and making more adjustments because I messed up so much in the crash that the bike never felt right all day. I was two seconds slower than my normal pace all day but still managed to pull off some podiums.
I ended up with three 2nd place finishes, one 6th, and one 9th. I had some great battles for the 2nd place finishes. If I was running my normal pace, I could have been challenging for wins but it was just not meant to be on this day.
Sunday was the 5 hr. endurance. I had no idea that I was in for another challenging day like the previous. We had an amazing crew that was supporting our bike and two others. I was racing a Ducati 900SS in the GP2 class with three other riders. My teammate was racing his bike in the GP1 class with two other riders, and we were also supporting two others on an R6 in the GP3 class. We ran 50 minute sessions and I decided to give one of my teammates one of my sessions due to my sore body from the crash and I was also not fully recovered from a bad cold that I’ve been fighting off. So that left me with just one session to run.
First session out, the bike started having clutch slippage. Second session, our rider came in early due to total clutch failure. At this point, we were in the lead by two laps, but we had to switch to our backup bike which was a SV650. This put us back in not only time but we had to take a penalty for switching bikes which is a forfeiture of all previous laps. I was up next and it took me a few laps to get comfortable on the bike. I had never ridden it before and luckily the suspension was set up pretty good for me. I took some laps to figure out where the shift points were and I was already running slower than normal all weekend so I was happy to run only one session. I was starting to get into a good groove when the skies opened up and started raining. The rain was accompanied by fierce winds that were strong enough to push the bike wide in several corners. It was like racing in a hurricane! My crew called me in, and it was time to switch to rain tires. We got the rains on and continued the race. The last 2.5 hrs. was absolutely miserable weather as the rain and hard wind never let up. Our crew deserves trophies for their valiant efforts in these conditions. Truly amazing people!
We went from being in the lead to a sobering 5th place finish. Just surviving that race is an accomplishment and I was so happy just to finish. It would have been nice to challenge for the win where we expected that we would be but, that’s racing!
As I type my last race report for 2009, I will reflect a little on the season so far and my general thoughts before I show my overall results for the year.
This was my first year racing expert and not only did I accomplish all of my personal goals, I far exceeded them. I become more addicted to racing all of the time not only because of my club racing success, but mostly because I can’t imagine not being a part of the incredible community of people that this sport draws. I can’t imagine another place that I can go to get help from the very people that I compete with. Not only are these people willing to help, but they are happy to do so and put out a sincere effort to do anything they can for those around them. It’s the atmosphere and camaraderie that keeps me coming back as much as it is winning races. There’s just something about motorcycle racing that attracts an amazing group of people. I could not do what I do without the incredible support from my amazing wife, beautiful children, and awesome sponsors.
As I look to next year and start processing my plans for the season, there is an incredible amount of work that needs to be done. I will be making a lot of bike changes and plan to race Lightweight Superbike and GP. I have already started to set up a very competitive LW machine that I’m very excited about. Lot’s of work to do and my sleeves are rolled up!
SEASON RESULTS:
Overall – 8th I will be running #8 as my competition number for 2010!
ULGP – 1st
ULSB - 2nd
ULSPMN – 1st
Framstad Cup – 9th
A very special thank you to all of those that made 2009 possible:
Kim, Jordan, Madison, Tony, Geoff, Mark, Komodo, Moto Primo, Studio299, Caztek, Panolin, everyone that helped with our endurance crew, CRA corner workers and staff
