May 12-13 Loudon Results:
GTL 6th
LW Supersport 9th
Ultra Lite Superbike 2nd
Formula 40 Lights 3rd


Pretty good start to the season. I missed the first races because I was held up on the west coast. So I did not get to do my usual Wednesday track day followed by a Thursday race practice. The track day is a controlled riding session on the race track. Being thrown right into race speed made me realize how incredibly fast and dangerous this feels when you get on a race track for the first time in 6 or so months.

I had a terrible event in turn 9 that sent me off and back on my bike and somehow ended me up in the gravel right side up and still rolling. I rejoined the track and took one more lap to assault that turn again so it would not seem like a "black hole." Another racer made a peculiarly bad pass that cut me off, resulting in my having to hit the front brake (to avoid his rear tire) which sent me from full lean to straight up and off the track. But at 80mph, I needed to hit the front brake really hard and the violence of that caused the rear end to snap around, rehook with traction and off into the air I went. Holding onto the bars and releasing the front brake gradually let me float back down. The second hard braking felt like I was on a nervous bike, with the clip-on slapping the tank.Ugh. Welcome back to Loudon!

My nerves before this had been jittery. And if this seemed to settle me down, finding oil in turn 11, which sent me crashing down on the pavement and off into the infield grass made me feel perfectly at home again. By the end of my first practice day I was ready for racing.

On Sunday I used my production bike in the modified classes (instead of the superbike) and finished 2nd and 3rd. In my last race on Sunday, I got a terrible start. I was wheelieing like a pogo-stick down the main straight. Coming into turn 3, I was back in the pack following behind fellow racer Stephen Schmidt. Several racers tried to enter turn 3 at the same time ahead of us, resulting in bikes down everywhere. I had no clean line to take and had to thread through fallen riders and bikes. Grabbing my brake would have dropped me to the pavement too and I did not know how close Stephen and I were to each other. I also wanted to stay in control rather than let my bike loose as it would have slid into the riders. On Saturday, Scott Bosworth was killed in this same turn after being hit by another bike in a similar incidence. This was a tragic race weekend for losing one of our long time road racers. Like bull fighting, the track does have an advantage at time to take one of us who are trying to conquer it. Loudon has taken one life each of the past four years I have been involved there. It is the most dangerous road coarse in America.