Thanks for the warm welcome! I don't know if this is the appropriate forum but below follows a short story of my recent pathetic effort to apply my newly gotten CSS skills in a race in Poland.
Although I wasn't expecting to race any more this year, an opportunity presented itself to take part in a race in Poznan, round V of Polish championship (I am racing in Rookie 600). I'm sure this is typical, but the first impression that I got after the first practise, was that, combined with 3 months off racing, CSS made me a very confident, but veerrry slow rider. I managed to get on my earlier races' pace in later stages of the practise, but, as the locals weren't resting throughout the season upping the pace by whole 5 seconds (don't forget it's a Rookie class), my times that used to be good for the upper middle of the time sheets before, now were firmly at the bottom. I was lacking corner speed badly - braking into my comfort zone before every corner and being slow as a result, not remotely using the available lean angle and traction. Probably the crash in previous round in March (lost the front) left a dent in my confidence as well, although that was in the rain and shouldn't have had any connection to the actual conditions at all. The goal to improve my lap time from the previous round by 2 seconds was looking a bit remote.
I ended up qualifying 29th out of 32 and being a little bit depressed to say the least. I knew I was capable of more, but, not-crashing being the first concern, I felt just couldn't get over it. Anyway, for the Sunday's warm-up I set a goal for myself to relax on the bike as much as possible, stop concentrating on every precise detail that was taking away so much of my brain power, and try to get a rhythm instead. I did not check the times of the session (in order to not to fall into depression again), but it certainly felt quicker, both in terms of corner speed and the number of opponents I was catching. My plan for the race was keep myself calm, get a good start and try to fight back as many positions as possible, it's the guys in front of me that are under pressure, not me.
It all worked out pretty well, I managed to overtake a couple of opponents right off the line and during the first lap, then settling behind a group of riders and fighting with them until the end of the race. It felt better and better as the race progressed, I regained courage getting into turns faster and carrying more corner speed. I managed to overtake all but two of the group I was sticking to and finished 18th, improving my previous round's best lap by.. yes, two seconds! And it didn't remotely feel like being on the limit, like the previous races.
Although the result surely isn't something to brag about and my lap time was still seconds off the best times in the class, I am satisfied that I have reached my goals. And even though at the start it felt like it was getting nowhere, I still ended up being faster than before on that circuit, while feeling confident at the same time, credit for that must be given to CSS.