Rookie season's all over

[OreoGaborio]

Is it April yet?

This past weekend was the last LRRS race weekend of '06 up at Loudon NH and I gotta say, i'm pretty happy with how I did. Greatly improved my skills, got a win my first weekend out there, bumped up from Novice to Amateur and aquired quite a good number of awards for the wall in just 7 race weekends.

This past weekend wasn't anything spectacular, but it had it's good points. I did 4 races instead of my usual 3 and had fun in all of em. Among many things, I learned that I gotta get in better shape for the 20 minute GTL's or learn pace myself better and I also gotta get over my highside & stop tippie-toeing outta corners... I may have highsided an EX500, but it's still impossible to highside an EX500 if ya know what I mean so GET BACK ON THE GAS, PETE!

Anyway, a quick summary:

This was my first DRY weekend with the yellow plates & I wasn't expecting any spectacular finishes now that I was riding with the "big boys". But I held my own for the most part and although my times were a little slower than I would have hoped, I did ok considering I was still recovering from my "unexptected flight" while exiting turn 12.

Saturday Race 3a - GTL: Started off alright, but it was the first time on the track since my highside a couple weeks ago and I wasn't sure how the bike was gonna handle. The bike felt alright & I picked up the pace quite a bit w/o any signs of anything on the bike being tweaked... unfortunately, as I stated earlier, I picked up the pace a little too much, and w/o any red flags I was absolutely EXHAUSTED by the end of the race and let my times slip 2-3 seconds per lap and in the process got passed by two of my fellow EX500 racers whom I usually dont have much of a problem with if I can manage to get away from them. I started somewhere around 10th and finished 21st out of 26 That's not as bad as it sounds though as I'm vastly outpowered in that class. But based on other people's lap times, I still should have been closer to 18th place.

Saturday Race 12 - Lightweight Sportman: Luckilly there was a red flag shortly after the start of this race, as i wheelied BIGTIME off the line. I did much better on the restart and ran an alright race... finished 7th out of 13, which is about as good as I could have expected based on other people's performances, so I'm happy with that result.


Sunday Race 3 - Ultralight Superbike: I registered for this race at the very last minute, which put me in the back of the starting grid. I was last place going into turn 1 (I didn't get the best of starts and people are much better at starts in the Amateur class than they are in Novice) but picked my way up to 12th place out of 17. Again, based on my lap times, that's about where I belonged in the final standings.

Sunday Race 11 - Production Twins: Ahhh, this is the class my bike is built for. All ex500's, all with the same modifications. I got a pretty decent start and got ahead of the guys I wanted to be in front of. I put my head down as the front runners began to gap out and tried to stay ahead of my competition. Around lap 5 I began seeing a shadow creep up on me in a couple places and on the next lap I caught up to an expert on the same equipment as mine... I was unable to pass for about 1/2 a lap and as I entered a strong braking section the shadow from behind came up along side me as I came up along side the expert. It was my "arch nemesis", Tom. He had been stalking me the whole race and was unable to pass a couple different times. But this time he was determined as I was to make a pass going into turn 3 as we went into it 3 wide..... talk about a CRAZY moment. I got pushed wide as he went up the inside, which allowed the expert to re-pass me. I was able to drive out of the corner and re-pass the expert, but by that time Tom was a good second & 1/2 ahead of me and I was unable to catch him on the last couple of laps. I still finished in 3rd place out of 9 in my class, got my times down another 1/2 a second back into the 1:25 range where I was before and got my first trophy as an Amateur.

That's it... so.... is it April yet?