May 12-13 Loudon Results:

GTL 12th

LW GP 13th

LW Superbike 7th

Ultralite Superbike 4th

First weekend for my “new born”, an Aprilia RS250 aka “B bike”.

The weekend started with me making it just a little too late for Friday practice, which was a shame because I wanted to test the B bike before Saturday.

Sat. May 12

First practice: B bike on a brand new DOT‘s , the power band is different from the A bike and very narrow due to gearing (F-15 R-42) and the shifter is too low and hard to up shift so I get too many miss shifts.

Second practice: B bike, I have more confidents in the tires and in myself, I was actually surprised at how well the tires worked, but shifting is still a problem and I get too many miss shifts that throw me way off the narrow power band.

GTL: 12th place.

Set up- A bike slick tires Front- soft 29psi hot Rear- medium 27psi hot.

Good start put me in the middle of the pack going into T1 outside line into T2 and inside line into T3 my best place to pass, only this is not novice any more so i’m not the only one who know about this line and it was closed when I got there, I guess I need to find a new best place to pass. Over all I kept in the middle of the pack and felt good all the way to the end of the race.

LW GP: 13th place

Set up- A bike slick tires Front- soft 30psi hot Rear- medium 28psi hot.

Thank God for Joel Taylor # 719 I wasn’t dead last!!!  Even though the bike and the setup was working good I was way off my times and just didn’t feel right, In Novice I used to love this class and was very competitive in it but in amateurs it’s a different story.

Sun. May 13

Practice: B bike DOT tires Front- soft 30psi hot Rear- medium 28psi hot.

Adjusted the left rear set and the shifter, this eliminated most of the shifting problem which left me dealing only with gearing problem and narrow power band.

The idea was run four laps on B bike and four laps on A bike, It didn’t work out due to mechanical problem with the A bike (throttle cable pulled out of the connection box and kept idle very high).  

LW Superbike: 7th place

Set up- B bike DOT tires Front- soft 30psi hot Rear- medium 28psi hot.

Very bad start  bad position and bad lap times, but I consider this to be maybe the most fun I had all weekend just a great battle  from beginning to end with John Dorans #109.

Ultra Light Superbike: 4th place

Set up- B bike DOT tires Front- soft 30psi hot Rear- medium 28psi hot.

Bike feels good tires are great not a bad start but now I find out that my friend Tony Soucier # 433 on a RVF 400 has the exact same line in most turns and that makes it very hard to pass him, I keep on his tail for a few lap until he make a mistake coming out of T11 but manage to save it, I take  advantage of the situation and pass him then we go back and forth fighting over third place at the end he pass me in ( T3 of all places) and carry it to the checkered flag.

What a race! what a weekend!