Racing is either something you really feel the need to do,
or it’s not. There may be a few out there who will consistently show up here
and there, but they are few and far between. This particular weekend ended with
me sobbing big, giant, dragon tears in my truck on the way home. And there was
no physical damage involved….
As the 2019 season approached, I was finally feeling like I
was ready. I knew the bike was
functioning mechanically. I had a great suspension tuner (Mike Canfield with
MCTech) who had agreed to work with me. My busted up leg was at least
consistent and muscle memory had finally developed to mask the worst of the
ongoing issues it gives me. The bike was set up and ready to run, and mentally,
I was coming around as well.
I was still hesitant to set my sights too high, as the last
two years have been one struggle after another as I simply wanted to get within
striking distance of what I had been doing on my old 2007 Triumph 675. As I
drove down to Buttonwillow for the opening weekend races, I decided to keep my
expectations low – all I expected out of myself was a new personal best on this bike. Not overall as that seemed
pretty out of reach still.
I arrived and got set up in our garage, and prepared for
Friday’s practice. I had signed up for 4 Sunday races with plans to scratch one
of those no matter what. If a miracle was presenting itself on Friday, I would
attempt a run at Formula Pacific and scratch Open GP or Open Superbike. If
things went as I expected they would, I’d scratch F.P.
Friday was slow. My first session out I was crawling along
at a slow 250 pace. By the end of the day, we were making progress on the
setup, but I was still a good 5 seconds off my previous race pace on this bike.
Saturday practice wasn’t much better, and while I creeped closer I was still
going pretty slow, so I went ahead and scratched F.P.
First race was Saturday’s AFemme race. I was stoked to have
Valentine out there on her 450 again, as I knew I’d at least have someone to
race with. Shelina was out there on her R1, but I had no delusions of keeping
up with the way practice had gone – I know it’s in me, somewhere, but that part
of me still seemed firmly buried.
As has been the case for this race, being a wave behind the
Clubman Mid grid means we hit traffic very early on – Valentine and I ran into
traffic by the time we were coming into the Sweeper on our first lap. I wasn’t
sure if I had simply motored distance between us until she showed me a wheel
going into Sunset using those amazing entries of hers, which was the motivation
I needed to start pushing my brake markers in a bit as I had been being very
ginger on corner entry all weekend. I managed to hold her off across the finish
line though, and took home 2nd place, with a lap time of 2:01.131,
just a hundredth of a second off my previous PB on this bike.
We made some more adjustments to the bike as it felt like
the front end was really vague on corner exit, making me very nervous to get on
the gas any harder as I was just praying it wouldn’t let go. Once that was
done, it was once more time to hang out with everyone, watch the slow races,
and enjoy an evening catching up after the winter.
My first race on Sunday was Open Superbike. Since we were
gridded by last year’s points, and I had ran the entire season, I was (much to
my dismay) on the second row. This normally might seem great, but we had a
number of national teams plus a stacked grid of local and Southern racers all
piled up behind me – there were 56 bikes on the grid….I am a long ways from
being the 8th fastest rider out there. I just wanted to survive,
which proved to be a good goal as there were crashes, contacts, exploding bike
parts flying over my head and a restart with several more crashes all in that
race. Despite all of that, I survived, and set a new PB for this bike of
2:00.693, still over that 2 minute mark, but making progress.
There’s not much down time between that race and Open GP, so
I just tried to gather myself and make sure I didn’t let the last race’s
craziness affect me this race. Again my grid was towards the front, but at
least this grid was a bit smaller overall, and I was one row further back. I
had a pretty decent start, and settled into chasing down a few friends. Jay
made his way up behind me along with Gabe and Daniel and a few others and I was
determined to do my best to keep them back there. The front end of the bike was
working, but now the back end felt like it wasn’t squatting like it should and
I was spinning up the rear way earlier than I should be, kicking in the TC on a
couple occasions when it would step out on me. I managed to hold Jay off across
the line, but just barely, coming in to find I had taken another hunk out of my
lap times, getting down to a 1:58.453.
We swapped the rear tire and Canfield helped me make some adjustments
to see if we could wrangle the beasty into something more controllable. A
couple turns and clicks later it was time to wait for my final race. In the
meantime, we relaxed, chatted, watched a stacked Formula Pacific race, and did
a little pre-packing as well.
Finally it was time to head out for Open Superstock. There
wasn’t a way to test the changes we made, so it was a bit of an unknown if we
had done the right things. I had an okay start, finally getting used to my new
clutch, and we were off. My fellow PTT staff member, Dave, passed me, and I
decided that I couldn’t let that go, so decided to put my head down and give
him chase. I know Dave, I know how he rides, and I trusted being close to him,
so it was a great battle. The bike was feeling GREAT, and I was able to start
confidently pushing things that had been scaring me before. I managed to motor
past on the front straight, and held him off for a bit, but then he passed me
back going into Phil Hill. I was hanging with him, and figured I could get him
back on the straight again, but the white flag was out – so I decided to go for
broke and tried to out brake him going into Sunset rather than racing to the
checkered. My gamble failed as I messed up my line and hence my exit trying to
make that happen, and he crossed the line in front of me – but not by much!
I came in from my final race to see I had worked down to a
1:56.581, only 0.3 seconds off my best lap EVER at Buttonwillow. It was a comfortable pace, too - yes, I was working for it, but no where near the ragged edge.
And this was only the first round of the season.
After winding down, loading up, and saying some goodbyes, I
was on the road and headed home. As I was driving I realized just how amazing
it felt to finally be back where I
had left off prior to the leg mess and the new bike. Then the emotions behind
two years of struggling, two years of seeing little to no progress, two years
and tens of thousands of dollars spent and finally
getting back to where I had been striving to return to, hit me. It hit me hard.
The tears came.
They were happy tears. VERY happy tears.
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