Dale's OMRRA Race Report for 8/19/2006
Another Energy Sapping Scorcher Hits PIR.
I'll still take a hot day over a rain day.
I got the bike and leathers fixed in time for the August event with no time to spare.
Often when one improves significantly, they have reached a new performance plateau which get narrower and narrower the faster one gets. I was no exception. I improved by 2 seconds per lap last month to a level that makes the margin of error narrower.
I exceeded that margin and low sided the bike in an attempt to overtake a rider running equal or slightly better than I.
Having started a new job, I don't have the vacation time available to get seat time before the races. I rely on Saturday practice to re-acquaint myself with a 2-wheeled vehicle Therefore I ride my race bike one weekend every month. I feel this is a progress hampering reality, however I still enjoy doing what I can. Thus, after last month's crash, and OMRRA only having the track for one day, the track day scheduled for Friday became the practice day for many racers, myself excluded. I had very little time (20 minutes of warm-up laps first thing in the morning) to shake the cobwebs and get over the crash and be competitive. I felt out of place during the warm up laps and wondered if I really was going to be able to step up and keep up with Jon and Dave. They both managed to improve, and I went backwards. I lost the speed I had found the months before. So, it turned out to be an average day. No phenomenal lap times, but no crashes. I felt a bit gun shy, and didn’t take aggressive lines or push to get passes in some of the places I’m normally strong, so I relegated to getting deep braking passes or draft passes on the straights.
I had time to install the new master cylinder reservoir, and brake pads. I went out on my warm-ups and noted that the forks felt twisted. The bike felt good on power, but felt like the clutch was slipping or was spinning leaving hot pits. With no time to make adjustments or replace the clutch, I chose to pay attention to what the bike was doing and adjust my riding to suit. To make matters worse, the directions on the AMB Transponders say to unplug the charging base after the unit has charged. I did so on Wednesday before work. By Saturday morning, the unit was dead. The transponder had drained even though the instructions said it wouldn’t.
The result was that when I ran my qualifiers, I didn’t show up on the electronic scoring. OMRRA eliminated manual scoring that it had used last year as a backup to an aging electronic scoring system. When I went to contest my qualification results, which had placed me last on the grid for all of my races, they told me that I had to get confirmation from 2 riders who finished behind me.
Not knowing who ran behind me, I settled to run from last, and get aggressive on my starts.
I barely remember which race was which, as they were 20 minutes apart, and it was incredibly hot. I barely had time to get pitted, hydrated and fuel checked before hitting the grid again. I do remember on my last race, the 600SB race, I nailed the start and had 2nd place knowing that Dave was somewhere back there. I watched a rider take a strange line entering the back straight 2 bikes in front of me. Knowing he was going off the track, I concentrated on my line and getting as aerodynamic as possible to keep Dave behind me. I didn’t see him next to me in the entrance for the turn at the end of the straight, so I knew I had a good chance on this lap. Red Flag. I’d already passed the turn that signals whether we go back to grid or pits, so everyone and I with me went to the grid, and shut down our motors. They sent us back to our pits a few minutes later. Not knowing how long, I left my bike with the tires in the sun, while I got some water. I have a clearance problem with my front fender, which makes my front tire warmer difficult to mount. It was so hot, that I knew the sun would do just as well keeping the tires warm and I didn’t want to exert the extra energy to install the warmers while still in my hot leathers. I chose to sit in the shade, in my leathers expecting our grid to be called any minute.
I didn’t get as good of a start on the restart, and got held up by some slower riders on new bikes which meant draft passing was impossible, so I had to out brake them to get by. Not wanting to repeat last month’s off track event, I settled on bringing the bike back in a comfortable third place.
Results:
750 SS Senior: 2nd place
600 SS Senior: 3rd place
600 SB Senior: 4th place
I'll still take a hot day over a rain day.
I got the bike and leathers fixed in time for the August event with no time to spare.
Often when one improves significantly, they have reached a new performance plateau which get narrower and narrower the faster one gets. I was no exception. I improved by 2 seconds per lap last month to a level that makes the margin of error narrower.
I exceeded that margin and low sided the bike in an attempt to overtake a rider running equal or slightly better than I.
Having started a new job, I don't have the vacation time available to get seat time before the races. I rely on Saturday practice to re-acquaint myself with a 2-wheeled vehicle Therefore I ride my race bike one weekend every month. I feel this is a progress hampering reality, however I still enjoy doing what I can. Thus, after last month's crash, and OMRRA only having the track for one day, the track day scheduled for Friday became the practice day for many racers, myself excluded. I had very little time (20 minutes of warm-up laps first thing in the morning) to shake the cobwebs and get over the crash and be competitive. I felt out of place during the warm up laps and wondered if I really was going to be able to step up and keep up with Jon and Dave. They both managed to improve, and I went backwards. I lost the speed I had found the months before. So, it turned out to be an average day. No phenomenal lap times, but no crashes. I felt a bit gun shy, and didn’t take aggressive lines or push to get passes in some of the places I’m normally strong, so I relegated to getting deep braking passes or draft passes on the straights.
I had time to install the new master cylinder reservoir, and brake pads. I went out on my warm-ups and noted that the forks felt twisted. The bike felt good on power, but felt like the clutch was slipping or was spinning leaving hot pits. With no time to make adjustments or replace the clutch, I chose to pay attention to what the bike was doing and adjust my riding to suit. To make matters worse, the directions on the AMB Transponders say to unplug the charging base after the unit has charged. I did so on Wednesday before work. By Saturday morning, the unit was dead. The transponder had drained even though the instructions said it wouldn’t.
The result was that when I ran my qualifiers, I didn’t show up on the electronic scoring. OMRRA eliminated manual scoring that it had used last year as a backup to an aging electronic scoring system. When I went to contest my qualification results, which had placed me last on the grid for all of my races, they told me that I had to get confirmation from 2 riders who finished behind me.
Not knowing who ran behind me, I settled to run from last, and get aggressive on my starts.
I barely remember which race was which, as they were 20 minutes apart, and it was incredibly hot. I barely had time to get pitted, hydrated and fuel checked before hitting the grid again. I do remember on my last race, the 600SB race, I nailed the start and had 2nd place knowing that Dave was somewhere back there. I watched a rider take a strange line entering the back straight 2 bikes in front of me. Knowing he was going off the track, I concentrated on my line and getting as aerodynamic as possible to keep Dave behind me. I didn’t see him next to me in the entrance for the turn at the end of the straight, so I knew I had a good chance on this lap. Red Flag. I’d already passed the turn that signals whether we go back to grid or pits, so everyone and I with me went to the grid, and shut down our motors. They sent us back to our pits a few minutes later. Not knowing how long, I left my bike with the tires in the sun, while I got some water. I have a clearance problem with my front fender, which makes my front tire warmer difficult to mount. It was so hot, that I knew the sun would do just as well keeping the tires warm and I didn’t want to exert the extra energy to install the warmers while still in my hot leathers. I chose to sit in the shade, in my leathers expecting our grid to be called any minute.
I didn’t get as good of a start on the restart, and got held up by some slower riders on new bikes which meant draft passing was impossible, so I had to out brake them to get by. Not wanting to repeat last month’s off track event, I settled on bringing the bike back in a comfortable third place.
Results:
750 SS Senior: 2nd place
600 SS Senior: 3rd place
600 SB Senior: 4th place
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