Archive for the ‘Racing’ Category.

I realize this is a post I should’ve written earlier in the season, but I feel like I wanted to get it out there about how awesome people in the track and motorcycle community can be…

When this last season started, I thought I was done with it all. I wasn’t inspired in any way to fix my bike, and I didn’t seem to miss the track one bit, even as I watched folks circle the track through my lens. I had been thinking for a long time: I got my adrenaline rush. I’m done spending so much on this sport and risking it on the pavement.

Man, was I wrong…

At the last OMRRA weekend of the 2010 season, I wadded my bike in the rain. Twice. After the second crash, which did a number on the bike to the point where it was pointless trying to look for parts in the pits, I submitted to defeat and left my ravaged bike out in the open until pack up and go time the next day. That whole weekend, I kept passing by it, glancing at it, and thinking about how much more money in parts I was going to have to put into it, and how much time I was going to have to spend in the garage trying to figure out if it was even still ride-able.

The weekend came to a close, along with race season, and the bike, once I got it home, sat in the corner of the garage for the whole winter. Some boxes even started to crawl up on top of it and managed to cover it by the time the 2011 season came around.

The first track day lay ahead, and people kept asking me where my bike was. I told folks that I wasn’t feeling the pull of the track any more, and I was just going to focus on taking pictures. I got some weird looks, and I was okay with it.

By the time the second track day came around, Rob emailed me and told me to bring my bike to the track. He wanted to take a look at it, and I didn’t see any harm in it, so I did as asked. He took it home that day and it didn’t really cross my mind to question why. Maybe I was just glad to get it out of sight for a while, or maybe I was thankful for the extra space it opened up in the garage.

I didn’t see it for a few months, much less think about it. Out of sight, out of mind, right?

Come mid-season, I started to get the itch again. Friends were racing, I was on the outs with a girl, I needed something to get my mind off of things, and it kept gnawing at me that I needed to get out on the asphalt. It hadn’t helped that I had been getting a fix every week or so doing some warehouse mini bike racing with the Skagit guys, either. I blurted about the angst on Facebook, and the next thing I know, I get a message from Tony telling me I should make sure to show up in Portland at the next track day, because the bike was nearly ready. Oh, yeah. My bike’s with the guys. So south I went with a trailer.

I get there the night before in the dark, help 2Fast set up the pits while working under car headlights, and get ready to turn in. The whole time I was thinking about where I could go on the track the next day to mix up my photos, because Portland’s always been a pain to shoot at, with rules pertaining to photographers needing to be behind barriers. It wasn’t at the front of my mind, but I had also been wondering what the guys had been doing to the bike. It wasn’t until I walked past Rob’s trailer one more time that I noticed he had an extra bike lined up with the others. Even in the dark, I could tell that it was a nicely done ride, and my initial thought was Ha! Rob got another bike to ride on the track. Man, that guy really enjoys — … Wait… Why would he get a CBR…?

… Oh…

That’s when I realized what the guys had been up to. Quickly followed by the revelation of how much I had actually been missing my motorcycle. It was beautiful – more beautiful than I’d seen it in years. Rob, Tony, Jay, and Joe had all pitched in to get the bike looking new again. They redid everything: plastics, controls, swingarm, rotors, fairing stay – the works. Of course the first thing I did at sunrise was to take pictures of it.

That was the only time I picked up the camera that day, because I spent the rest of it riding the crap out of my awesome new motorcycle. I was back where I belonged, and so was Madison: zipping down the track and leaning into turns with a knee on the ground.

I will never be able to thank the guys enough. Without them, I wouldn’t have gotten back into racing, and my year wouldn’t have been anywhere near as awesome as it has been. Hell, they probably saved my sanity.

From the bottom of my heart, a big thanks goes out to Rob, Tony, Jay and Joe for all their kindness and hard work. You guys are some of the greatest people I know, and you’ve helped me come back to doing what I love. Here’s to riding with you for years to come.

So I haven’t been too good about doing my race reports lately, but my first race back this season in WMRRA Round 6 wasn’t anything too exciting to write about other than just trying to get back into the groove of things and getting frustrated at Orhun for beating me on his first race.

Yeah. I’ve got a lot of things to work on.

So by round 7, I managed to cut off more than three seconds from my personal best, and I plan to shave even more at the next round, having been working with Rob and some others about cleaning my lines around the track and learning to get on the gas more and brake later. We’ll see how that turns out for round 8.

Thanks to Jay for coming out and taking pictures of some us and making us look more awesome than we really are.

A huge thanks to Jay, Joe, Rob and Tony. They put my bike back together and I wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t for them. That’s a story for another post, though.

So instead of actually writing out a race report for round 7, I figured the race videos themselves would suffice in showing how slow I really am. So here’s Novice Race 1 Restart and Novice Race 2. But to really express how I felt about the weekend, take a gander at the following clip. Should pretty much summarize the emotional roller coaster that I rode all weekend.

It didn’t start out that way, though. 2Fast picked up the track day before OMRRA‘s final round (Oct 23-24) and, despite the murmurs and forecasts of rain, we didn’t see a single drop all day. The wetness stayed at bay, even with the foreboding cumulonimbus clouds, and we may have even seen temps up in the 70′s. It was a great way to end the track day season. According to team mate Tim (#910), I even got into 1:18′s, which exceeded my goal of breaking 20′s at PIR for next track outing there.

The race weekend, unfortunately, was an all too different story. Stepping out of the hotel, groggy-eyed and slightly hungover, we were greeted with rain, puddles, and chilly winds. Thankfully, I still had Johnny’s (#933) set of rains, and swapping to them was the first thing I went about doing after registering and passing tech. I only missed a few minutes of the first practice session, and with OMRRA’s schedule being gratuitous, two more were to be enjoyed before the Novice race in the afternoon.

Having never really raced in the rain, that first practice didn’t go too bad at all, and I was surprised to see my time get down to 36′s. Especially when I wasn’t even expecting to break 2 minutes on a wet track. The whole time I was focused on being smooth and not being choppy. It kept me up for the whole first session, and everything seemed to be going great. I guess it got into my head during the second session, because three laps into it, I somehow lost the rear mid corner in turn 1. I slid for a good fifty yards, at least, popped back up and was immediately trying to figure out what exactly happened.

Continue reading ‘Race Report #5: Rain Sucks Huge Ass…’ »

With WMRRA ending a month early due to a canceled last round in Spokane, I hadn’t quite been satisfied with my racing for the year. That and Mark at 2Fast provided the opportunity and more of a reason to come checkout OMRRA this last weekend (Sept 25-26) by picking up the track day before that’s normally hosted by Cascade Track Time. Another reason? My teammates of Team DFR convinced me to try out Superteams for the weekend as well – basically, a tag team endurance race lasting for an hour. How could I have said no?

Me holding up Tim (#910) during 2Fast the day before the race. Photo by Matt Eaton.

It was already a long week to start out with, having a 2Fast day at Pacific Raceway the Wednesday prior, then running to Portland the following night to setup for the track day on Friday. By the time the race weekend started I was already pretty close to being tracked out. I didn’t expect the atmosphere at Portland, greatly in part to the OMRRA crowd, to inspire me even more so that I wasn’t anywhere near being tired of the track. If anything, the attitude and excitement of the folks in the pits got me wanting even more by Saturday morning (booze and mean pranks the night before did help, I imagine).

With having been set up already in our pits, thanks to Team DFR (more specifically Donny and Tim), we were ready and revving to go when we got up. We were invited to pit over with Mark for the weekend, which was very generous of him, considering his fancy 2Fast set up with all the flooring and huge tents. The usual Team DFR pit was relegated to an extended storage area, where we kept food and equipment. It worked out pretty well, actually, since we didn’t want to clutter up Mark’s space. That and we were pitted right next to the track entrance, so we didn’t really need to pay attention to the time or horns – just kept an eye out for our groups lining up. Something to note about OMRRA: it was freakin’ beautiful that there wasn’t a specified “novice” practice session – you were grouped into the sessions that were appropriate for the times that you were running. It was heaven. There were no ridiculously gigantic gaps of skill where people would fly by you at twice your speed, and there was no traffic to deal with (unless you count me, the human lap marker). It was pretty freakin’ epic. Take note, WMRRA.

Continue reading ‘Race Report #4: Getting My Feet Wet at OMRRA…’ »

With the last round of WMRRA in Spokane being canceled, the final round of the season ended up being this last race at Pacific Raceway (Sept 11-12)  for everyone, and it turned out to be a great weekend, despite some poor weather on Sunday. The greatness not necessarily being due to the actual racing, but more for the camaraderie that came out of the woodwork throughout the pits, most prominently in Novice Row.

Saturday started out a little chilly. It was cold enough that face shields were fogging on the straight during practice, and I had to come in at least once to see if I couldn’t get the condensation off and the air flowing through my helmet. No luck, and I ended my practice early.

Continue reading ‘Race Report #3: The Last WMRRA Weekend of the Season…’ »