Nov. 06 race report

[warmseth]

i skipped last month. i had no chance of winning tre and i felt like crap so i took the opportunity to flake for the first time in over a year. sept had marked my first time aboard the built sv that i got from kelly baker. that month i pulled off a high 1:35. later i found out the fork legs were bent and not compressing. also the rear shock was sprung for somebody weighing FAR less than me. the result was a machine that LOVED tank slappers. i was getting them over t6 every time. i knew if i gotthe suspension sorted, that i could do really well on this bike. so after getting the suspension worked on in oct, i was really looking forward to seeing what i could doo on this machine.

i went out on sat morning and ran a bunch of 38's and one 36. man i was disappointed. next practiced session i got a few 36's and that's as good as it got all day. 36's.

sunday morning i woke up fresh and hit the first practice. again 36's were as good as it got for me. i was feeling a bit bummed. i figured it would be better once i was actually in a race.

race #6, 550sb and i'm at the back of the most packed grid i've ever been on (#38). i get a great launch but as i head into t1, i've got shandra crawford in front of me, dan debri on my right and two lightning fast mofos (angel and wiwi?) zipping up the inside. bottom line is i was forced to slam on the stoppers to avoid sodomizing shandra. i passed her and dan debri at the exit of 1 and outbraked amy going into 2. i was then in front of one pack of riders and started to give chase to the lead pack which had about a 50yard gap on me.

andy palmer was at the last rider in the front group and i slowly closed the gap on him for the next couple laps until i became winded around lap 4. then i started to drift back again, and finished the race by myself. so other than the first couple laps it was pretty uneventful. i felt pretty F-ING 36's AGAIN!!! damn it i was really frustrated now.

my next race was to be #14 f-twins lw and i had a long long time to think about the last couple days. every time i had felt screaming fast i had been slow....really slow. every time i thought i had relaxed and gone slow i was in fact going faster. (relatively...still only 36's). i decided to think about motorcycle 101; look far ahead. look as far down the track as you can. i began to think of that chapter in keith code's book where he discusses how preoccupied novices get with the minutia. concentrating on every detail slows you down. that pros are not concentrating on whats in front of them but like chess players are thinking several moves ahead. i decided that's the approach i'd take. i know this is nothing revolutionary but it really was an epiphany for me however elementary it may seem...i'm a bit of a slow learner i guess.

Race #14 f-twins lightweight. this time i'm gridded #10 so i only have a couple rows in front of me. i got about four feet off my grid # and brant wiwi shot past me at about 30 mph!! wiwi was gridded at the very back and pas me withing 4 feet of my gunning it AND he did it at HIGH SPEED!!! dude amazed me with that. he is gooooooooood. i passed a few people into t1 and dusted off another couple through 2 and braking into 3. then once again, it was me by myself, looking to catch andy palmer. this time close the gap i did. while i was alone i was really practicing the look ahead, look to the next corner thing. i finally caught him at the exit of 9 in lap 5 and staved off any potential retaliation through my last lap by turing my best time ever by over 2.5 seconds!!!! and better time than i had done all weekend by over 3.5 seconds!!! now i know andy was on a stock motored sv but he is a much better rider than i and it felt good to get him cheater bike or not.

i later checked mylaps and found out i did consistent times on this race and that EVERY LAP was faster than i'd ever gone before!! i am stoked. maybe i'll be fast enough to play with the fast guys some day.

lap 2=1:34.673
lap 3=1:34.855
lap 4=1:34.819
lap 5=1:34.663
lap 6=1:33.073

[codzilla70]

Constant progress isn't allways a lower lap time. Congrats on the personal best Seth, sounds like everyone had a GREAT weekend and really stepped up the pace.

[morbidelli17]

i did consistent times on this race and that EVERY LAP was faster than i'd ever gone before!!

That, my friend, always makes me feel good. Very nice job. And there's nothing wrong with having horsepower; for christ sakes, it's Big Willow, the Fastest Road In The West ...

[Kurt'sSV]

So Andy was running a stock motor? No wonder he was so damn slow (or no wonder his bike actually ran for the entire weekend ).

Nice job on getting down to that 1:33 flat.

[warmseth]

yeah i was super proud of myself and then martinez says, "yeah well he had to swap in a stock motor on friday" and my balloon deflated just a little. lol

[Angel]

Congrats on the fast laptimes! You are in the video I shot of 550 SBK. Check out my post in Kurt's race report for the link.

[warmseth]

nice yeah you see me stuck in the middle of everbody there and then finnally im able to break free about halfway down the straight to t2. by then you had already gotten wayyyy up the track. nice video before it dropped out at the climax of the race.