It's January now and I've had some time to reflect on the 2006 riding season. This was my third year of track riding and my second year to enter races. I did 11 trackdays, all with NESBA, and three WERA race weekends.
Trackdays are so much fun. My friend Gill Cutchen was promoted to Control Rider with NESBA so I had the opportunity to ride with him really for the first time (I don't count when you lapped me at Cycle Jam). Anyway, the summer here was brutally hot so I did some weekends with only riding on Saturday and I skipped the August days completely. That, combined with not riding out of state this year, limited me to only eleven days. Not enough if you ask me.
The three race weekends I managed to run were WERA Sportsman rounds at Barber, Talladega and Road Atlanta (Cycle Jam). I ran only Senior Superbike and a couple of solos so the racing was limited for sure in 06 but still fun. I had planned to run another round at Talladega in February but it was just too damn cold. I also skipped out on racing at Nashville Speedway. Racing wise I don't feel like I improved much or accomplished much this past year. I'm hoping to do better in 07 with WERA. At least I'm hoping to score some points. Something I didn't manage to do in 06.
Here are some of the few highlights I had on track in 06:
1. I had a super fun battle with Morris Foor in the Senior Superbike novice race at Barber. Morris had not raced for years and was out of practice. I managed to stay with him and do a last lap pass. Great fun.
2. My brother Tom came to watch me race at Barber. I hope he'll be able to make more events next year. Hopefully my brother Joe will be able to come too.
3. I got a new video camera and bullet cam to record my races.
4. I got to race at Cycle Jam at Road Atlanta. I went out for 600cc novice practice with 86 other bikes. It was the most intense 15 minutes of my life. Road Atlanta is a fast, scary place and being out there with that much traffic really gets your heart pumping. Makes you feel alive for sure.
5. At Barber I got to ride with Gill as my control rider. He got me going through the end of the backstretch section faster than I'd ever gone before.
6. Santa brought me a really professional motorcycle lift so now maintanance will be much easier.
2006 was a safe and fun year on track. Thanks to everyone at WERA and NESBA for a good year and thanks to Michelle for again putting up with all my crap on track weekends.
Jim
