Official. Motorcycle. Racer!

Good day friends, fans, supporters and random internet viewers! I hope your weekend has treated you well. I sit here typing this post basking in the afterglow of an awesome motorbike outing weekend. My big day finally came. On Saturday, July 14th I made my race debut at Round 5 of the Southern California Flat Track Association races at Perris Raceway. It was a day full of adventure and family fun. Let's get to it!

I mentioned in last week's post that I was waiting on my steel shoe to get back from Gary at Lightshoe. I had pretty much burned a hole in it from the hard pack decomposed granite that is the Milestone track. The post office sent my package to some random Southern California post office before finally getting it to my mail box the day of the race. I pulled it out of my mailbox at 11:20 am and left for the track at 12:00. You can see that Gary saw where I was wearing out my shoe and put on a very liberal coating of hard coat for me. Hopefully I won't be eating it up too soon, but if I do, I will give Gary more time to fix it. Again Gary and Kellie got my shoe in and out in a seven day period. Super awesome service and I highly recommend them.

It was a clear day at Perris Raceway. As you can see in this picture there was not a single cloud in the sky. Being the desert of SoCal it was hot. My phone was showing me 100°F when I started to set up my pits. The track prep crew was hard at work getting the race surface ready for us. The wind was whipping up blowing the loose dust off of everything and straight into my eyes. I had just got everything set up and was getting ready to get a snack and take a break when one of the track straff told me that I had pitted in a reserved spot. They found another one for me and I broke down and re-did the whole process all over again. Just faster this time and with more sweating. Next time I'll know what is going on. This turned out to be the only "issue" with the night.

In my new home for the race and finally in some shade. The shade helped keep the heat off of me while the breeze did an OK job of keeping me cool. Eventually we had our rider's meeting and then I got geared up for practice. If I thought I was hot in the pits, being dressed head to toe in leather with my helmet on turned the temps up a few notches. While waiting for my practice group I was sweating! Once I got out on the track, the air did its job cooling me down when combined with my perforated race leathers. I got two nervous practice sessions in. One 6 lap run and one 4 lap one. The track was liberally watered to keep up with the hot, dry, windy weather. Despite the heat, the track was holding moisture and felt fast. I made it through practice without things getting out of hand. I didn't get much of a chance to feel out the traction in those 10 laps. I did feel that traction getting out of the corner was great, but didn't get a good read on how well the rear would break loose through the corners. 

After practice was complete they posted the race list. I was in heat 27A of a 32 or so sets of heats. My class was going to have 9 total people in it. I would be starting on the outside of the row which suited me just fine. I wasn't planning on trying to get out in front into the first set of turns for this first race ever. Races started around 5 o'clock with the junior classes. The SCFTA has a class for everyone and everyone gets their own class. While they put on a well organized race, having that large number of classes means that my heat wasn't until well after 6 pm. I think they could reduce the number of classes and either give the racers more heats or have longer races. Classes are broken up by bike size, rider age and rider skill. Some classes are combined, but there were some two-rider heats. Next time I'll enter the Vet 35+ Novice class in addition to the Open Beginner class to get more seat time.

I was lucky enough to have a good support team in the form of my wife and two daughters as well as my brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew. My good riding buddy, and part time blog contributor, Torque Wrench, was also in attendance. I really appreciated having an extra set of eyes and ears to help with my race related organizational duties. My oldest daughter made the sign above. They all sat in the front row of the stands right at the start/finish line. I was able to give them a little wave while at the start line. Once the light went off, I was all concentration to make sure I made it through the first two turns and couldn't hear them. I caught up with some of my Milestone Flat Track practice buddies at this race. It was good to recognize and chat with other racers. This is a closely knit group of people and you can see it in the pit area. Lots of large groups and friendly chats going on. It feels more like a camp full of motorcycle nuts than a pit area for racing. I love it!

My lovely wife was able to grab some cell phone videos of my heat and my main even while juggling a rapidly tiring two-year old. My heat race was fun and once I was on the track my nerves stilled. I got a slow start off the line, but by turn 3 of my second lap I started to feel like I could catch up and pass the rider ahead of me. I was too tentative going into turns 1 and 2, but had good closing speed into 3 and 4. I think if I went a little outside into the turns, I might have been able to square off the corner and get him on the inside down the straight. For my main, I would be starting on the inside of the second row. I got a faster start, but then so did everyone else. After the sun went down, the moisture came out a bit and the track got faster. I had more confidence ripping out of the corners, but again, so did eveyone else. By turn three of the first lap I knew that I didn't have the courage to go fast enough to catch up to the 6th place rider. I settled into trying to feel the track and not get lapped. The main was a four lap sprint so I wanted to get the best laps I could do and try to be smooth with good form. I was riding too tightly and not holding my body or the bars the right way. On my final lap I was able to give my fan section a thumbs up and went back to my pits to celebrate reaching my goal of racing motorcycles.

If you haven't been following along with the blog, I started it almost 3 years ago after I decided earlier in 2015 that I wanted to go motorcycle racing. I started with a Ninja 250 on a go-kart track and finally made it as far as doing dirt track laps in the desert. It has been an adventure in every way. I can't wait to get back out on the track. I want to do more racing and just have to find the money to do so. There is plenty of ways to go race. From mini racing to full asphalt road courses. This summer promises to be fun. Stay tuned to the blog for much more content as I take advantage of all of the Motorbike related activities that are to be had here in SoCal. As always friends, ride safe and come back soon!

Blue