2008 WMRRA Round 2 Race Report - Slow Eric

Phew, first race finally in the books! Saturday’s practices started out ok. Novices practice first and it was pretty chilly when we headed out there. My plan for the first practice was my plan for the whole weekend, don’t die. I went out and did a few laps and made sure everything felt good and came in. I had a couple hours before my next practice so I got my dbcom set up (after making sure it worked) and made sure everything was tight and ready to go. 11am came around so I threw on the lap timer and headed out for practice #2. After a couple laps I was feeling good but noticed my lap timer wasn’t picking up a beacon, not a big deal since the lap times for practice would be posted shortly after out session. I was feeling pretty good and was pretty sure it was the quickest I had gone on that bike.

An hour after practice I stopped by registration to check my times….. Annnnddd nothing. My transponder didn’t get picked up. I took it and tested it again, worked great. I didn’t really know what to do so I just figured I’d hope it worked. First races started around 1 and by then, rain was falling. I wasn’t worried at that point, figured the track might be damp but the rain would surely stop in a few minutes… it didn’t. So I didn’t race. Oh well. No rain tires means no riding through puddles. Watched a couple more races and saw some pretty creative new ways to crash in 5 and 6. Tons of crashes but everyone seemed ok.

It was tough waking up Sunday morning (I’m not a morning person) but as soon as I realized my alarm was going off for a good reason, I popped out of bed. Forecast for Sunday was good. Arrived to a damp track but the weather looked like it was going to clear off and stay dry, and it did. Practice went well and the track was almost totally dry. I had my lap timer on and was really anxious to see how I was doing but of course there was no beacon out. After practice was over I checked the times and they weren’t able to record the novice race so I had no idea still if my transponder worked or not. I had also left my battery in it all night and heard that they don’t last two whole days. Oh well. I was sick of unhooking it (I didn’t have a proper bag for it so it was a pain.)

I had over 4 hours before my race so I had plenty of time to develop my strategy. I checked my grid position and I was starting dead last, row 10, since the strategy for my weekend was to survive, I figured I would take it easy in 1 and 2 and hang back and let the carnage play out before trying to make my way throught the pack. My goal was to finish in the middle (around 20th out of 40 or so riders.) I expected to get nervous as the race got closer but then I walked around and saw Tokin and remember that was my competition, I relaxed. All of a sudden it was about 2pm and off come the warmers and away I go…

We line up to get ready and roll out for the warm up lap. I take it easy and look at how everyone else looks and try to find the people I know are gridding in front of me. Lap comes to an end and we grid up. Board goes up, I rev the enging, first wave takes off, flag goes, and I’m off. After about 0.2 seconds of seeing how everyone started, I threw my gameplan out the window and hit it the throttle. Dodged a guy who stalled or something in front of me (nice job getting your hand up fast by the way) and dove to the inside of 1. Kept on the gas late into 2 and took it really wide as the inside was a pretty much a clusterfuck. A couple guys on the outside came together and although they didn’t go down it pushed another rider off the track who was trying to pass them (amazing how much you notice around you while you are trying to push it at the same time.) I got past the first little bunch of riders and came down the hill where another bunch of riders were clustering together. Moved up a couple more spots by the end of the lap.

After two laps the clusters were gone and I just tried to chase down anyone in front of me. Looked down at my timer after lap 4 (shhh, bad I know) and saw a 37.xx, a personal best, just made me push harder. I was feeling great until lap 6 (I think) when I came around a slower rider on the outside of the apex of 6 (not where I want to pass.) I had to turn hard into 7 and jammed my peg into the track. Bike didn’t like that much and I was pretty sure it was going to spit me off (”pull a Jared”) but all it did was kick me up a bit. I barely stayed on the track, realized I wasn’t actually going to crash and decided it was kind of fun. By the last lap I was finally catching the group I saw in the distance, I passed the back rider and saw that next was Jim on his 1098. I caught up to him really fast in 5-7 (turned out he hit a false nuetral in 5) and kept the throttle pinned up into 8 trying to catch him before the busstop. I couldn’t quite pass in 9 so I backed off a hair hoping I could get a better drive than him out of the busstop. As I came out I pulled in front of him but then his extraa 500ccs kicked in and he beat me to the chute.

I checked the board a bit later and I finished 12th* which I was very happy about (next time I really need to start somewhere besides last) and saw my final lap was another personal best of 1:36.4xx! Thanks to Jim I think for the extra motivation to push it at the end.

All in a all I had an amazingly fun weekend and racing is even more fun than I hoped. Big thanks to my race team for helping me out so much to this point and to Taylor for keeping me company the whole weekend. Also an extra huge thanks to all the WMRRA volunteers. The more time I spend out there, the more I realize just how much they really do. Good seeing all of you out there!

*Nico note: I realize I didn’t “place” 12th, I merely finished my first heat.

P.S. I think I need to get my suspension looked at, still haven’t touched it since buying the bike….