The world pauses. Nothing exists other than you, your bike,
and the riders around you. The sound of your engine as it hums beneath you,
awaiting that moment when the revs are brought up. A “1” board is flashed, and
7,000 RPMs of pure power roar to life. The board goes sideways, and a green
flag comes out. Instantly the world jumps to life as 20 or so motorcycles and
their riders jump off the line in a bid for the front. The rush of a good
launch, finding a spot in the pack and making a clean run into and through the
first corner…then it’s game on!
There’s nothing quite like racing. When I first got on a
motorcycle, I knew there was nothing like riding. Then I moved to California
and realized that there was nothing like carving up a beautiful twisty road.
Eventually I tried track days…it didn’t take long before riding on the street
just wasn’t as appealing as it once was. Then, after 8 years of riding
motorcycles, I finally made it to the race grid and completed my first race.
With each consecutive race this season, the joys and thrills of racing over
shadow all the other parts of riding – and pretty much the rest of life to be
honest. I’m basically a brand new racer with only half of a season under my
belt, but with each consecutive race the thrill of daily riding that I used to
experience has ebbed away. There are still things about street riding I
appreciate – the scenery, friends, food and exploration factor, but it’s still
nothing compared to racing.
Round 7 taking place October 4th and 5th
was the final 2014 AFM round. It was my last chance to make a bid for 3rd
place in the AFemme Novice Championship. Looking forward, I knew my goals for
2015 included racing in the Sunday races, so I decided to go ahead and dip my
toes into Sunday races in the final race of the year – I knew my times were
finally to the point where I wouldn’t be dead last in the class, so figured it
was time to go play with the boys.
I attended the Friday trackday on the 3rd for a
little extra seat time, then went out for a couple Saturday practice sessions.
Saturday afternoon it was finally time to get out to the grid for AFemme! We
had some new racers gridding up with us, in addition to a few regulars. My
start was okay, and off we went. At one point another of the riders managed a
pass on me going into Turn 1 (I’m still a total girl going into that corner),
but I wasn’t about to let her keep that…I managed a repass between 6 and 7 and
held my lead for the remainder of the race, although she kept the heat on J. I set another
recorded personal best that race, finishing 2nd and securing 3rd
place in the Novice AFemme Championship, despite only racing ½ of the season!
Sunday morning dawned bright and looked to be a great day
for racing. My first Sunday race was the 2nd race of the day, Novice
750 Production. It was going to be my first race out “with the boys” and I was
stoked. Up until this weekend I hadn’t had a ton of desire to go challenge the
guys – I knew my times just weren’t quite there and I was content to stick with
AFemme a bit. But things had changed this weekend, and I couldn’t wait for
Sunday’s races to start. Finally, calls started to come for my class, so I put
on my stuff, prepped the bike, and off for a warm up lap we went! Since I
hadn’t raced these classes all year I was at the very back of the grid – which
I knew meant I’d have some traffic on start. The expert wave started and it was
our turn! 2 board. 1 board. Sideways. Green! I had a decent enough start, and
was with the pack going into turn 1. A few of the faster guys moved past pretty
quickly, and I had the opportunity to begin to challenge some of the other
slower riders like myself. The battles started, and I was determined to keep a
few of those boys behind me! I was working on hitting a few of my lines that I
had solidified earlier in the weekend, and making use of the corners I was
confident in. We spread out a bit and I finally crossed the finish line having
set yet another personal best – and I wasn’t last J In fact, I had 3 other riders
behind me, with a 13th place out of 16 riders. And I had a blast
doing it. Now I was really stoked for my next race!
My second race of the day, and final race for 2014 was to be
the Novice 600 Production race. After the 750 race, I knew I was going to be
out there setting another personal best and trying to challenge a few more of
the guys. Again, due to no prior races in this class I was gridded at the very
back. When the green flag flew off we went! After the initial group spread, I
had a couple of the guys in my cross hairs and was determined to keep them
there! I began to plan out how I could make up the slight differences in our
paces, and I had a few ideas in mind. I was keeping them in a reasonable
distance, and was approaching the final turns of our first lap. I saw a yellow
flag and a bike off the outside of turn 14 – okay, no biggie, common place for
people to go down. Then I see the bike in front of me end up with a big slide –
and about the time my brain had a chance to process that something was wrong I
was on the deck and sliding to the outside of the corner! Dammit! SOMETHING had
happened, and that one wasn’t me! So much for my plans of finishing the season
crash free :(
I got up and ran off to the tire wall leaving my bike to
fend for itself – a corner worker managed to grab my bike and roll it over to
the wall (after yet another bike joined the pile). I was thankful my bike was
out of the way, because I knew there had to be something on the track…sure
enough, a little later, the expert wave started to come through and the carnage
started. I watched as one bike after another went down in the exact same spot,
creating a pile that ended up totaling 11 bikes taken out. As it turned out, a
bike earlier in my wave had gone down, and spread oil all over the track. That
oil then took another bike out, me, and then a much larger pile as the expert
wave finally came through that spot. So much for that personal best – but at least
my bike wasn’t in pieces and I was able to ride it back to the pits.
My first impression was that my day was done – my right foot
peg was down to about 1/3 of its normal length, the rear brake lever was bent,
and my right clip on was loose (albeit still attached). The guy pitted next to
me, however, figured I could ride on that foot peg, he had a vacuum for the
piles of dirt, rocks and sand in my belly pan, and I figured that the clip on
was fixable – so I set to it. With help from a tech inspector as well (THANK
YOU!) I managed to get the bike into ride able condition as long as I could
deal with the foot peg. Since I knew I had done worse on my street bike once, I
figured I could manage it…so, just in time for the race restart, I had the bike
re-teched and off to try this again we went!
The race was shortened to only 5 laps – I spent the first 2
laps just figuring out where my foot needed to be for braking and general
positioning. While I wasn’t setting any new records, I managed to finish the
race with times comparable to my times at the previous Thunderhill round…and I
at least finished all the races I had entered that weekend.
I had an amazing time at this final round, and the memories
made will last a lifetime with hopes of many more to come! Now, however, I’m
even more determined to put in a good showing for the 2015 season, and have
already started to sit down and evaluate my goals, what I will need to do to
accomplish them, and put this into writing to create a feasible action plan.
Super stoked for the 2015 AFM season!
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