My weekend was pretty great. My goals for the weekend were:
1. Have a shitload of fun
2. start and finish clubman lightweight on saturday
3. qualify for 250 production on sunday.
4. start and finish 250 production.
5. not come in dead last in either race.
I achieved all my goals and ended up placing 20th out of 23 in 250 prod.
I had a glorious plan for my start of 250 production. I was starting from row 9 and I knew I could probably beat both the people gridded directly in front of me in row 8. I knew the guy in front of me in row 7 was faster than me but not by much, and I was hoping to get directly on his tail before turn 2 and let him tow me for a few laps, if not the entire race.
So the 1 board starts to turn sideways and 22 ninja 250s and 1 honda begin to scream. The green flag waves and I let out the clutch and launch with all the fury 34-ish hp can unleash. I'm doing well and I'm about to split between the 2 riders in front of me and start making progress on the rider in front of them.
Then I hit the rev limiter and drop an anchor. DAMN IT! A quick up shift and I'm back in the race but now I have some making up to do. Then i hit the rev limiter AGAIN in 2nd. ARRRRG! Now I'm in last place and the guy that was supposed to tow me is well out of sight.
So I up shift again and go into turn1 at full throttle in 3rd gear. Then make another up shift into 4 fourth as I pass a rider going into turn 2. I caught up to another rider going into turn 3 and pass him just before diving into turn 4.
At this point the next few riders are already dipping into turn 5. They've got a pretty good gap on me but if I really get on it I can catch them. I go through 5 and see that I'm slowly closing the gap on the next group. I barrel through 5a and dive into 6 just as they are exiting 6. I exit turn 6 and upshift into 5th gear. Just as I'm about to lean into turn 7 I take another upshift into 6th. The engine screams but I'm not accelerating. UHG! I'm in neutral!! I quickly kick the lever up again and get it into 6th, but now I'm out of the power band and my poor ninja is chugging along at a leisurely pace. As I make my way to turn 8 I see the riders ahead of me quickly getting further and further away.
The rest of the race was pretty uneventful. I could always see the riders ahead of me but could never make up any ground on them.
Here's a photo of me looking lonely but still having a blast:
SOOOOOO much fun. Already can't wait to get back on the track.
