Race Report: July 16-17, Thunderhill. "But it's a dry heat..."

Dry or not, it was freaking HOT! 106 most of the weekend and blazing sun. It was challenging to drink enough [water] to not get all goofy from the heat.

I arrived at Friday practice after lunch, having been up till past midnight getting the final reassembly done. I wound up only doing a handful of laps to shake down the bike and get a feel for the my new leathers and boots. Turns out that was more of a challenge that I was anticipating -- the bike-rider interface is pretty important, and it took quite a while till I was comfortable. But the bike seemed OK and I got my head back in the game pretty quickly, even at the fateful turn 9.

Saturday dawned hot, and I rode a few practice sessions, getting more and more comfortable on the bike with the new gear. I was able to improve my personal best on a couple laps, which made me optimistic for Sunday's races. Rather than exhaust myself in the heat, I called it a day early and got a new rear tire put on for Sunday.

Sunday morning practice was 1 quick session to scrub in the new tire, then try and stay cool till race #5, Formula 4. The time comes, I take my grid spot, and I'm next to last on the grid. Green flag waves and everyone is off like a shot. I'm DFL (dead last) into turn 1 and stay there for the rest of the race. After the crossed flags (halfway signal -- 3 of 6 laps) I started sneaking glances behind me for the front-runners, since I'm sure I'll be lapped almost immediately. But there was no one in sight. All the way to the end of lap 5, still no one. Then as I'm preparing to take the white flag indicating the last lap, the leaders come thundering past me about 20 feet from the finish line, take the checkers and end my race. I was actually grateful since I didn't have to ride another lap in the heat.

Unofficial results show me 38th out of 41 starters. The other 3 crashed, so I was the last one rolling. Nonetheless, I'm pretty pleased at finishing upright, since that was my goal for the weekend, and not getting lapped till 20 feet to go, which means I'm picking up a little speed relative to the fast guys in my class. There is a little knot of us backmarkers who usually are much closer during the races, but none of the others showed up for the race, I think being scared off by the weather forecast.

My second race wasn't till much later in the day, and after 3 days out there in the 100+ heat, I had enough, so I packed up and took off. All in all, a sucessful weekend. I got the bike back together, shook off the crash demons, broke in my new gear and had a race finish.

A side effect of the crash is that you won't be seeing any action shots from this weekend. My bike is now formally ugly, sporting some old yellow and black bodywork, greenish body filler, a dented blue tank (eBay) and a new tail section in a lovely color of pinkish primer. With Rusty perched on top in shiny new orange black and white leathers, it's a sight too horrible to behold. Projects before the next race weekend include getting some Krylon and making the bike look a little more presentable.

Next event is at Sears Point, August 13 & 14! Friday the 12th is practice day, Saturday the 13th is the annual 4-hour endurace race (I won't be participating), then Sunday the 14th is a normal race schedule. I'll send updates as we get closer to the date.

Cheers...