Going into this round, I wasn’t
sure what to expect. I knew my leg was feeling better overall, but it was still
weak and stiff, and I was also dealing with this PICC line and the antibiotics
schedule that was throwing a major wrench into my day to day life. Despite all
of that, I was looking forward to getting out to my favorite track and putting
down some laps.
I arrived Thursday evening to set
up and claim some space, and prep for the trackday on Friday. I only had a few
sessions on this bike on this track, so I knew I needed some serious seat time.
Friday dawned cool and nice, and I headed out early on to utilize the time I
had.
Throughout the day, things were
going okay, but as I was riding it was becoming obvious some changes were
needed. I kept thinking “this line worked great on the Daytona, but it does NOT
work on this bike!” The biggest issue, however, is I wasn’t sure what I needed
to change/fix….while I had previously been given some very general information
(“square off the corners more”) I’m a bit thick sometimes and need more
detailed information to actually implement.
Thankfully, Ken Hill had talked to
one of his instructors, Pat Farrand, who was there working with another racer
for the day. Pat ended up with a free session the end of the day and offered it
up to me – which I gladly jumped on. This was invaluable – while it was the
very last session of the day, he pinpointed my issue(s) and I had an action
plan for Saturday on things I could work on implementing.
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| Friday Trackday, photo by gotbluemilk.com |
Saturday looked to be another great
day, and I headed out for early practices knowing I’d be missing most of the
afternoon due to tire changes and med schedules. Implementing the changes
definitely required that I back off my pace a bit, but it seemed to be helping
out. I was having to rethink the track and change how I saw it, so there were
some major mental changes, and some physical inputs I had to change up as well.
It was a lot to take in, and while my pace suffered, I felt like I was starting
to “get” it towards the end of the day.
I had one race on Saturday, and
while my times were still sad, I knew that the AFemme class was my best chance
at a trophy. If I kept myself together, I may even be able to pull a win out of
it. We headed out for our warm up lap and then gridded up. I was going to be
racing against Valentine Welch, who’s racing MotoAmerica, on her GSXR600, and
Jennifer Lauritzen on her ZX10R. I knew neither of them would be willing to
“give away” anything as they are both fierce competitors.
We launched and Valentine got the
hole shot. I was able to keep up with her, and followed her the first couple
laps, noticing a few places where I could out power her and realizing I could
keep her behind me in the areas where the 600 would be a bit stronger. On our 3rd
lap I passed her going up the hill into turn 9, and from there it was a battle
to be sure she and Jen both stayed behind me. We were also hitting lap traffic
about this time, so slicing and dicing through the 250’s became a factor. The
closing speeds on this bike vs my Daytona were proving to be interesting as I
would accelerate a lot faster now. I managed to keep the other two behind and
crossed the finish line in the lead.
 |
| Photo by Oxymoron Photography |
My laptimes weren’t great, but my
best of the weekend and similar to what I was doing at this time last year –
not great, but not terrible all things considered. I also saw a lot of places
where I could make up a lot of time as I get dialed into the bike. This marked
my first win as an expert in the AFemme class, and it was well earned with the
other gals not handing it to me!
Saturday night was fairly laid
back, and I eventually wandered off to bed after my evening meds (seriously
this is a royal PITA). Sunday came upon us a bit warmer and promising to cause
some interesting things in terms of playing games with temperatures and tire
pressures. I had two races, race 4 and race 6. For some reason, however, I just
couldn’t get my head in the game and “go-mode” just couldn’t be drummed up.
Later on I realized I was WAY more exhausted – both physically and mentally –
than I realized. Knowing I wasn’t in go-mode, I decided to take my time and
focus on continuing to hit my marks and making sure I was on the right line,
implementing the changes from Friday’s session with Pat.
 |
| Photo by Oxymoron Photography |
Both races had a pretty similar
outcome. In Open Superstock I completely botched my start – maybe my worst race
start to date. This put me in the back of the pack and a few faster novices
were with me before turn 1. I still couldn’t turn on the fight-mode, so I just
focused on my fundamentals. My times reflected this as I wasn’t breaking any
records for me or the weekend, but at least I felt like I was accomplishing my
goal of hitting most of my marks more often than not. Jennifer was right with
me in both races, but managed to pass me on the last lap in both of them,
getting her revenge for the previous day LOL.
 |
| Photo by Oxymoron Photography |
Once I was done racing I started
puttering around with packing up, although I planned to stay through the end of
my teammates races to ensure everyone could make it home safe n sound. As the
afternoon waned on, I was packed up, and upon the completion of their races and
some goodbyes, I headed home to unload and try to relax. The exhaustion started
to hit pretty hard, and I was glad I was heading out and looked forward to a
good night’s sleep.
Overall, the weekend was
productive. Of course, I still hoped for more out of myself, but that being
said, all things considered, it was still useful and I feel like what I learned
will pay off in dividends as the summer progresses. I now know how I need to
“see” the track for the bigger bike vs the smaller bike, and I also have a
better idea of what I need to do physically to make that happen. Still bummed
I’m having to go through this process now rather than back in Jan/Feb/Mar, but
it is what it is, so dealing with the cards I’ve been dealt.
 |
| Nicky Hayden Memorial Lap: Photo by Oxymoron Photography |
Next round is in late July back at
Thunderhill. I’ll have a couple trackdays on the east course before then, so
hopefully I can be pretty well prepared. My fitness loss is a definite issue
and something I need to be making a priority despite the leg and med schedules.
Looking forward to getting back on the beasty and continuing the process of
getting used to it and figuring out how to ride it!
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