Monday Ride with oober and Tracy. Lot's of pics (56k beware)

[oober]

What's up SBN, Well I got me a new camera and well, went for a ride, so that usually equals pics. So here we go.

11:00am - Wake up and call Tracy - Girl that oober met.
11:15am - Tracy shows up, we gear up and hit the road 2up.
Taking the hwy to Fredrick, we stop at the "Senic Overlook" and take a few pics.
11:45am
12:55am (as I write this) Quick out of order insert:
oober is pissed at himself for not making a backup of the images before screwing up the batch process on photoshop and resizing all the pics from 2592x1944 to 800x600 for nice web viewing.... DAMNIT MOTHER @#)$*@#$()#@$%)(_#@$%_(*@#) )
11:46am

Another of her

Hey - look oobers hiding his face in a helmet.


So we get back on the highway, and ride for a while. I get confused and ask for directions to the track when we are in Charlestown, WV. I don't know why I got confused, it's only been 7-8 years since I raced the gokart at that track last.

12:21pm - Don't ask why I know that it was exactly 12:21, but I remember thinking, man, they are prolly gonna be breaking for lunch soon.
So we arrive at the track a www.teampromotion.com event (If you sign up with them, please use my name as the referer, Matt Lewis). So we sit in the grandstands and watch for a bit while the Blue group (expert) group is on the track, man I love watching motorcycles on tracks.

12:35am Grab some lunch from "Summit Chez" and I run in to Kevin, a fellow SBN'er that's a control rider for TPM. We quickly catch up, I'm prolly riding down with him to go to VIR for a two day event in Nov.

12:48 This is just an estimate on the time. I eat chilli and laugh because she is gonna be sitting behind me all afternoon on the bike. I get slapped.

[oober]

~1:00pm the "TPM Race" starts. It's a full out race that is scored, and they earn points thoughout the season of trackdays. Wow, That was my first Sportbike race that I have seen in person, AWESOME!

Pic's from Staging and warm up laps. (these pics are why I'm pretty pissed about resizing them. Also all these pics were shot by Tracy. I was shooting the DV camera.





Starting to stage before the start here.



Fully Staged and awaiting the Green Flag.

[oober]

It has begun!!!!




After turn one - man that's a lot of bikes that want to get up front.



Not sure if this was the first place person or not, but he was flying none the less after the first lap.

[oober]

More from the first lap.







Sadly during the second lap, a rider went off track, I don't think that he was injured, so they had to come in and regrid. Here is the second start.

[oober]

More track shots

[oober]

More track shots

[oober]

img]http://media.oobersworld.com/stills/sp_small/DSCN0342.JPG[/img]


Guess the bike was tooo fast for the camera or the operator. (hope she doesn't read this... )


Damn, she missed two. Oh well... it happens to the best of us. Err I mean here's the start finish line.



Ok, well you can see the tail section of the bike that won (I think) Man those guys were flying. [

[oober]

Here are more random pics from a different point on the track.

[oober]

3:10pm oober infront of the sign.



ok, and this one has a bike in the backround.



3:15pm realize that in the process of taking out the cameras from the backpak, I put the gloves on the ground to watch the race near the paddock. We're a 1/2 mile away at the granstand with out the gloves that we left on the ground.

3:18pm Get the gloves and breath a sigh of relief. I love the fact that most people are honest at events like this.

3:20pm Get back to Tracy, and she is now talking to a lady who was driving by the track while heading back to Boston after visiting her son. He wants to get a liter bike. (I tried to explain the start small, hopefully she will pass on the message.) We talked about TPM and riding and what not, for a while.

[LiViN's Easy]

Awsome, I can't wait till I get to the point where I want to go to a track day... Maybe in a year or so.... Looks like you had fun...

[oober]

3:45ish finally we head out. I explain that we are going to take a few other roads and stop by a few places on the way back to take some pics and just relax. She said that's cool.

4:15pm Don't think that I need to say much more.



A very close friend of mine has a house on the Potomac River in WV, that I can use whenever I want to. We went there for a little break. Here are some pics from the his dock.







For those of you that are in to Rope Swings - You can kinda see the rope in this pic, MAN you get high on that one. Weeeeeeeee!!!!

[oober]

These are photo's as to why it's not good to be around oober with a camera.







Few more pics infront of the River - I'm sitting in West Virgina, Across the River is Maryland. There is also this really great place about a half mile down the river where, you can see MD, WV and VA. It's also really romantic takin your woman out there at night to uhm look at the stars. (Thanks Eric!!!!)

[oober]

4:05 - We head out to historic Harpers Ferry. Catch a little air on one of the hills leaving Eric's Place (it's one of those hills where your stomach goes in your chest, but with enough speed, it just levels off and then falls, and you get a little air, better than cresting, cause that scares me. )

4:15 The first of several photo op's at Historic Downtown Harpers Ferry.

[oober]

4:20pm Leave Harpers Ferry, and head towards home, taking backroads and staying off the hwy. Take a brief trip through Burkittsville, MD (remember the "Blair Witch Project" ? ) Dickersonville, MD (DICK HER SON, not famous, but I thought that I would mention it for it's name.)

[oober]

5:10pmTaking a short break.



For good documention's sake, I requested that she turn around.



I then proceeded to explain "Lawson's Law" She liked the idea, and well...

That's All Folks!