WMRRA - May 5 & 6

After franticly checking the weather all week the night before our WMRRA weekend Accuweather reported no chance of rain! I arrived at the track early Saturday waiting in line for 20-30 minutes since they weren’t letting us in the track until after 7:00AM. Next time, I’m going to sleep in a little and leave a little later, or maybe camp out the night before.

I spent the the morning getting my bike ready, sorting out my gear, and playing with my new TraqMate (more on this later)! The weather was clear but the track was a little damp, and I was up for my first novice race at 9:00AM. Everything went off without a hitch, I took it easy and came back in one piece. When I came back, I noticed I was a little sore…need to loosen up on the bike still. I proceeded to download data from the TraqMate, my new GPS Data Acquisition unit, after booting up my computer and downloading my lap data I realized I had only recorded my travel through the hot pits…it turns out you need to tape all your connectors so they don’t rattle out
The second session, the track was looking nice, I was able to run a 1:46, my quickest lap this year…only :05 off from the 1:40-41s I was running last year before my crash! My TraqMate was able to record data this time, man this thing is GREAT; look for another blog post on its functionality…coming soon!

Our actual race was in the afternoon with clear weather, after our warmup lap everything felt fine. I went out and had a go at it…maybe it was the nice weather or everybody just got excited, but people were crashing left and right…bikes in T2, T3, T4, T9…there may have been some in T6 too? I believe our last lap was red flagged.

Sunday was interesting, I showed up to find T9, T2, and the area between T3 and T4 covered in oil and transmission fluid…AND we are out on the track at 9:00AM! Sweet! After massive cleaning, the only real nuisance is the oil on the inside race line on T2, but even that wasn’t too bad. I took our first practice easy, and relaxed for the rest of the day. When the afternoon rolled by, it was go time…I gridded up with the other 11tybillion other novices, and we waited for 15-20 mins as they cleared up the accident that occurred the race before us. When the race started, as with most novice races…it started to rain! Luckily it only lasted a little while, and half way through the race the track was dry. A few guys went down, one being my friend Ken, but all were okay. I finished the race, pitted, and enjoyed the rest of my weekend!

Three races down, three more to go!