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Armand

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  • Have you attended a California Superbike School school?
    oct 20/21 2012

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  1. Is the Busa the best choice ? I don't think so, that said tho, I had the pleasure of seeing a good rider drag his plastics on a Busa as he was running circles around most of the other riders on the track in advanced group
  2. I know everything will get easier from here that whole day just seemed to be a comedy of errors. Just wish we had more than one track day before next race. I'll write a follow up next month about how the 2nd race weekend went.
  3. early warning: some whining involved It's quite interesting how things change over time, but for the sake of getting to the more entertaining (and giving everyone something to laugh about), I'll just shorten the whole story and say after being hassled by a friend since Nov of last year, I finally did novice school last friday (4/19) at portland int. raceway. My novice class is the first time I've touched a bike since Oct of last year, running GPA's and it was raining the whole day. I went sideways a few times but nothing crazy since speeds were slow and I'm sure the instructors cut me some slack especially after seeing me go sideways at anything more than about 10'ish degrees of lean, and so I passed and got my novice license. Sunday I missed my first practice due to not having bike ready in time. I forgot my key at home, didnt have kickstand off the bike yet, didnt have my #'s, etc. Second practice comes around and I'm ready to go. Practice: so we all take off from the hot pits in the same time and I'm in the middle of the group. I hit about 110'ish, hit breaks where I think would be a good place, and everyone behind me goes right past. As I'm riding, I start noticing I'm having a LOT of problems. I cant keep track of what gear I'm in (no gear indicator either), I'm very tense, I cant relax, and I often completely forget to change gears. Not changing gears was really nice slowing down from near top of 6th gear going into turn one, on the breaks and not downshifting. Somehow I survive without crashing my practice session tho and head back to the pits. I take a look and my best lap was 1:32. Race: About an hour later my race is called. I get everything ready, pull warmers off, take stands off, throw a leg over bike and start falling down on the left. barely caught bike, and with someone's help I'm officially on two wheels and ready to go (aparently my r1 is too tall for me haha. now I'll know to use a step). we do our first lap and get ready on the grid. Green flag drops, I have a decent start, but again I break too early and everyone behind me passes. two laps in and someone crashes on the back strait (later found out he looked behind him and with the turn being off camber it pulls you out especially when you're doing over 120mph). As I pass turn 9 (last turn at pir), I see the red flag with the letter G for grid. so I hold my left hand up and get back on the grid with two other bikes. At this point everyone starts screaming at us to go. A bit confused, but the 3 of us take off. As we're going around turn 7 the flag now says P to head to the pits. Announcer gives a short lecture about how if it's P to head to pits, tho this was their mistake, so the three of us pretty much shrugged it off. Five minutes later we get called back. We're told we get 8 laps (omrra now only runs 10 laps instead of their previous 12). We get green flag from the hot pits this time and all take off in same time. This time I make a conscious decision to keep track of my gears. Most of the guys take off, but there's someone that seems to be running a similar speed as me. I put my sites on him and decide at the very least I'm going to pass him. First two laps go good enough, and that rider cant get away from me so I decide it's time to set him up for a pass. Third lap comes and I'm right on his tail, take turn 4, shift into 2nd and all I hear is engine revs, yup, I got neutral instead of 2nd gear. Well that didnt work, next lap I set him up again to pass him at turn 4, again I shift into 2nd gear only to bounce off the rev limiter. Obviously not my day, but still I'm determined, so next lap I again reel him in, but this time I set him up for the last turn. I get a much better line and drive out of 9 and pass him. That lap I started noticing I'm having problems again. It felt like I was pushing a 50lb weight with my fingers just to get to the clutch, much less pull it to downshift for turn 1. I noticed I became much stiffer and no longer leading the corners with my head, I couldnt even get off the bike to turn properly and became crossed up. needless to say he passed me in turn 8, I got a lousy drive out of 9, and I see the checkered flag up ahead. As I'm getting closer to the checkered flag I get passed by 2 bikes, one on either side of me. I do the parade lap and see another bike crashed in turn 3 getting picked up. Yay I SURVIVED my first race. So I put bike back on stands, take gear off and head to look at times. Best lap was 1:28, first place guys were both 1:15s. than I noticed something interesting. next to my name it says DNF. I head to the tower to question it and it turns out the checkered flag was for the guys that passed me, not for me. DOH. so we had a short talk about the rules where it says you have to at least complete 80% of the race and sure enough they look at times and laps, than change my DNF to 5th place. Still the slowest and LAST person that didn't crash. Somehow for next month I need to get to at least 1:17's so I can at least pretend to be somewhat competitive and have a chance at graduating out of novice. Moral of the story ? 1. I type way too much. 2. your first race is filled with egos and emotions so make sure you have EVERYTHING ready to go the day before. 3. I need to pull a rabbit out of a hat and get back into the swing of things, keep calm, relaxed, remember to breathe, remember what I learned at the schooling and start putting things in practice especially at track days so by race time I have my markers ready to go
  4. rather late on replying to this lol. just now dropped by in this section of the forum. I've been using a older version of the bionic sp vest. It doesn't have tail bone protection sadly, but my main motivation on getting it was that there's no reason to touch the velcro, just adjust it once, and from then on just zip it up, zip up your jacket, and go.
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