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Back on that horse



Updates have been few and far between here. I showed up to the Sonoma Superbike Shootout/AFM round 2 but had a get off early on in practice where I messed up my braking sequence. While overall damages were fairly minimal, it was enough to keep me from riding the rest of the weekend. I stuck around to watch the races and had a great time with friends, hanging out and watching the really fast folks do their thing!

Upon heading home, I set out on a mission to repair the bike and myself. Hunting around for deals on parts, making use of some of my sponsorships and with the help of some friends found everything I needed. I was back on my street bike a little over a week after the crash, albeit a bit painfully. I built back up slowly, and worked on building the bike back up as well.
Approximately 6 weeks later, everything was back in running condition and I headed out for a double header weekend at Thunderhill Raceway to check out the full new track and get back out on the bike. The bodywork on the bike wasn’t painted yet, but it was mountable, so I tossed it on for the weekend with primer gray. I still had a finger wrapped as well, but it’s one I could ride without, so off we went!

The plan for the weekend was to take my time. I needed to build back up and work through my demons on that bike. Since I crashed on my second ride on it ever, I had managed to spook myself in regards to the braking/downshifting sequence. Being that I didn’t want to repeat bad decisions, we headed out nice and slow. Most of Saturday I was just taking my time and was in no rush to build up speed too quickly. I spent the day just working on making sure the bike was running well, I was running well and we spent the time just getting to know each other while learning the new track.

At the (totally awesome) finish line party that night, one of the instructors asked me about what was going on, so I explained my demons to him. He volunteered to help me out on Sunday, so I grabbed him for the second session and we started working together. He broke down the braking sequence for me in such a way to show that I had been doing it incorrectly, putting it in a way I needed to hear it. Additionally, he had some suggestions on how to slowly improve what I was doing without putting myself into a situation of feeling overwhelmed. 


Most of Sunday afternoon was spent working on what he had suggested. While overall weekend progress was slow, it was steady, and by the end of the day Sunday I felt like I was back to running my old pace on that track. I would have been very comfortable going into A group at the pace I was running by the end of it all. While there was still plenty of room for improvement with a number of corners where I knew I could quickly gain a significant amount of time, I had accomplished what I came for (and then some) and felt really good about where I was at by the end of the weekend!

Bike is now off finishing up its paint job, and I am prepping for Round 4 :)

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