Triumphrat

First race, ever, and I was as slow as a post! Novice practice was first, at 9:00 and we got a second practice at about 11:30. Then the race went on at 4:30 or so. The only exact time was 9:00, since things happen.

Loading up was no problem, since Paul and I have gotten it down to a bit of a science. It can certainly be improved upon, but it was uneventful. We got to the track before the gates opened at 7:00, since it was going to rain, or not rain depending on what forecast you looked at. He had rains on his bike and I had DOT race tires on mine. One of us was going to have to swap wheels. It was me. We got settled in just in time to get on the track, and it didn't just rain. It hailed. This is becoming a bit of a tradition, since it has hailed on the novices the first weekend for the past three years. My racing mentor followed me around the track during the practice session and told me I was carrying very good speed in the corners, considering the conditions, but I should actually use the throttle and should consider braking later. Because I couldn't see anything to speak of, I thought it might be a bad idea.

The second session started a whole lot better, but the hail hit after a lap or so, and it got so thick a couple turns turned pretty much white. I was feeling a whole lot more confident and was passing a lot of people, even in the slippery stuff. I even buried the throttle a few times, but didn't carry speed around the first turn like I do during track days. It was still plenty wet, and the hail was bad news. The back part of the track seemed dry, and I was having a great time there, until I managed to lose the front end coming out of turn 7. I asked the corner workers what happened, so I could avoid doing it again. They just shrugged and said turn 7 gets really greasy when it gets wet. Gosh. Nice to know, I guess.

It was a nice soft crash, as low side crashes tend to be, but the bike slid in front of me and caught the gravel as it left the track. It made on very graceful barrel roll, sliding on its left side and then landing on its right side. That broke the fairing stay and crunched the bodywork pretty well. The right side clip-on broke off, the brake lever bent, and there were other little busted up bits.

So, I had until 4:00 to get the bike back together. Duct tape fixed the fairing well enough, and where a tab broke off the tail section, some safety wire kept it all together. Vortex clip-ons have a replaceable bar, and I had a spare, so that was no problem at all. The fairing stay was a bit more of a challenge, but I found one for sale and bought it. The man I bought it from makes them, and it is a beautiful piece of work. The pegs came through unscathed, somehow, as did most of the bodywork in the front. The tank has a huge dent in it, but I don't plan to do much about it. It doesn't cause any problems except less fuel capacity. You don't need much fuel capacity for a sprint race anyway. Bleeding the brakes turned out to be the biggest challenge. When the clip-on broke, it pulled the bar in the perfect direction to loosen the banjo bolt at the master cylinder. So Paul and I bled and bled the brakes, but nothing happened. It took a while to find the loosened bolt, but once it was tightened back down, we got most of the air out. I went back through tech, and passed somehow. The kill switch was broken. The red plastic part had broken clear off, but the switch still worked. I was a little concerned about it, because it was hardly water tight any more, but since tech thought it was OK, I didn't worry about it.

The race was in some more mist, but no more hail and no downpour. I got my usual awful start, but that was OK, since going into turn one, somebody fell off. I don't know how you fall off there, but I could see him sliding down the escape road, followed buy a bunch of other bikes who didn't make the turn. Several riders threw up their hands and slowed, but there was no flag, so I picked my way through them into turn two. Things settled down a bit and I started picking people off and getting into a rhythm of sorts, but it was short lived. A rider fell off in turn five and managed to cover the track with mud. The people I was lining up to pass all slowed dramatically, and I got hung out to dry coming into the corner, a blind corner and finding them all nearly stopped, with a bike on the track, mud everywhere, and the rider dancing back and forth on the track. I nearly hit him, but managed to get through somehow. Then the red flag came out. We didn't even manage to make a full lap. So, we all gridded up again, but we were only going to get four laps. I got yet another terrible start but got around a bunch of people right away. Then I got behind a couple riders on slower bikes who were taking erratic lines through corners and braking in funny places. Not to mention my brakes were not quite right, so I didn't fully trust them. I decided enough fun was enough fun and finishing was important. So, I just hung behind them and let them do what they were going to do and followed them to the finish.

Paul got a great start the second time and got way ahead of me. I suspect the crash lessened my confidence a bit, too, especially in the turn I fell off in. He was already back in the paddock and had his bike on its stand when I got back. Tomorrow, I signed on to corner work, so I can't take a full inventory of things I still have to fix. That's what next weekend is for. The kill switch assembly needs replacement for sure, and I think the rear subframe is a bit bent. It doesn't bother me, so I might not do anything with it. I don't want to break it and then be left scrambling for a replacement. I have to get a fiberglass repair kit for the bodywork. Without doing a lot of work, there isn't much to do about the tank, so I will clean it up, mask it off and paint the dent where the paint is gone. It will look terrible, but that's fine. Maybe I will hunt down another tank someday, but it isn't very important just now. There are a whole lot of other things to spend money and time on, like the next track day, and the next race weekend and all those other ways to break things and have a whole lot of fun doing it.

As long as there is no hail next time out, I will be pretty happy. This year's novices have been initiated, and enough is enough!

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Will
It's a squid thing. You wouldn't understand.
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Go soothingly on the grease mud, as there lurks the skid demon.