Just thought I would post a (hopefully) brief story about my first WERA weekend at Summit Point: I've been racing with CCS, and decided to sign up with WERA as well to get all the track time I possibly could. It turned out to be a great experience (barring certain events with which everyone is already familiar). The folks in registration were bright and cheery, cheerier, in fact, than anyone has a right to be at 7am! They answered all my questions in detail and with great patience. I whizzed through tech after having been especially anal-retentive about my bike prepping. I even got a, "Hey, you actually ran your safety wire THROUGH the exhaust springs! Cool!" from the inspector. Then I got a fairly distressing phone call regarding a project at work, and went out into the first practice session with the conversation replaying in my head. BIG MISTAKE GUYS! After two laps (which were 4 seconds slower than my previous best with CCS), I nearly highsided myself out in the carousel. After practice I said to myself, "ok man, get your head out of your A$$ and focus or go home!" It worked, and I dropped back down to my previous times in the second session. (Keep in mind, however, that these were just 28's -- not supa fast on a 600!) The Solo 20 became a Solo 12, as everyone knows, but I had a blast scrapping with a few guys. I had been informed that the competition in WERA is just a bit harder than in CCS, and of this I now have no doubt. Some of you dudes are WAY fast! Nevertheless, I dropped another second and went away stoked. Saturday night consisted of hanging with the SoSueMeRacing crew (yo Brent & Sean!), Dave, Novice #230, and my girlfriend Julie. We had an absolute blast! But Brent, next time please don't try to knock out your competitors with margaritas!!! Sunday practice went pretty well. I dropped about a 1/4 sec off my previous best and went in the C SS race ready to roll. Got a bad start but made it up in turn 1 after running the elbow gauntlet. Turned consistent 27's through the race. After the second lap things thinned out so much that I ran a pretty lonely race until the red flag, which came out JUST as I was entering turn 5. Completely focused on my setup for the carousel, I thought to myself, "Hey, why is there a frigging bike right in front of me?" SWERVE!!!!!! Glad to see that the guy in question was up and waving the traffic away... I got a much better start in C SBK and started feeling much more confident in my suspension (after a little visit to the great guys at the Traxxion truck). By the end of that race I was into the 25's, which was my goal for the weekend. Success! I'd like to thank the folks at WERA for being such a help (and you know who you are), my sponsors (1888Fastlap, EBC, Dunlop, Sharkskinz), SoSueMeRacing and Roger Shelton for being such fun lunatics, and -- most of all -- my number one pit person and best friend Julie. Also, I'd like to say that I've been so impressed with the way everyone has pulled together in support of Papa and Richard. That's one of the reasons I'm hooked on WERA! Cheers.
Amazing what modern medication can do. Dammit, I can't seem to get the wire through there. I have them wired on the outside for what damn good that does.
