WERA – Talladega Gran Prix – April 13-14, 2024 It’s been a hot minute since I’ve been on a grid. Between life “shitake,” trying to get my business going, essential gear backorders, and the puppy, I hadn’t been able to get on an actual grid for a couple years. Sure, a few trackdays in there, and plenty of miles in the north Georgia mountains, but actually gridding up, going on green, and battling to the checkered was an experience that was growing a bit dim. Racing makes the rest of life boring. Seriously. That first flag this weekend for A Superstock, as we all launched into turn 1, “oh, ya, THIS IS RACING!!!!” was the thought that ran through my head. I had no delusions of being a “front runner” unless the grid in a race was small. Other than the previous weekend with Precision, I hadn’t been to Tally in over 2 years, and have never had brag worthy laptimes. My goals were to drop a little more time off my times there, and I had a “reasonable stretch” goal in mind. With Tally being so
Crashes, Bike Bits, and Confidence Backstory In early 2019 I thought I had finally turned a corner on my current bike, a 2017 ZX10R. The first AFM round of that year I went out and started dropping time like crazy, finally down to my previous personal best times at that track. The next round I showed up with high hopes, only to end up with an epic highside that launched me to the moon and over 50' before coming for a landing. For a very long time, I couldn't figure out what caused that to happen, and while I could come up with things that might have contributed, it didn't quite add up. After that, however, a series of cross-country moves started taking place in my life, as did learning new tracks, new riders, new race organizations, new track providers - plus everything "normal" people deal with on major moves like that. I made some progress over the remainder of 2019, slow, but saw improvements. 2020 saw ANOTHER cross country move to ANOTHER region of the US,