After long layoff I finally got to race again at the little Talladega Grand Prix Raceway during the WERA regionals on June 15th.
My last track outing was a NESBA day at Barber in early March so I was really looking forward to getting back out there. My old black YZF600R was not running well so far this year. I cleaned the carburetors really well but couldn't get it to run. I'm not really sure what is going on with that old bike but I finally just gave up and moved all the race bits and bodywork over to my 02YZF which I knew would run just fine.
Originally, I had planned to not race the 02 since it is street legal with a title and I thought I might just put it back into street trim and sell it this summer. But for now at least I'm going to have to use it on the track until I have a chance to rebuild the old bike from the ground up.
Anyway, race weekend finally arrived and Michelle and I went over to Tally on Saturday night to setup pits then we went to Lincoln to visit with her aunt Boots and uncle Andy. We had a wonderful time visiting with them. They are such fun people who love to travel and had many stories to tell us about their latest adventures. Andy's health has not been the best lately so their travel has been curbed somewhat but it was fun to just sit outside by their pool and have a visit. I sure hope Andy's health will improve soon so they can get back on the road.
Raceday was hot and humid. I went out for both my morning practice sessions and everything seemed fine so I parked the bike and settled in to watch the afternoon's races. Senior Superbike wasn't until race 14 so I knew I had time to just relax and enjoy the other races. My friend Gill was there with his SV and his 1000 so he was in 4 races that I got to watch and that was fun. In one of the SV races he ran up front with Ricky Ford which was exciting but afterward he said that Ricky was just taking it easy on him.
Finally time for Senior Superbike came so I suited up and made the long trip from out pits to the new pit out at Tally which is on the new front stretch (we were pitted way up past the trees at the end of the old front stretch).
Senior Superbike is a combined expert/novice race with two waves. The middleweight novices are at the very back of the second wave so I don't have to worry about traffic behind me at the start. My started inside the second row in 4th position with Adam Schmidt and Dawn Holgate right in front of me in second and third.
I had been watching Chuck, the starter, and he was waving the green really quickly so when the first wave got the two board I really watched closely and sure enough when the one board went sideways he immediately went to green. So I knew I could get a good start if I just nailed it when the one board went sideways. I didn't have long to wait as Chuck stared at us the two board went to one then sideways and when it did I nailed the gas and got the best launch I ever have gotten in any race.
Even on my underpowered 600 I felt shot out of a cannon. I found myself splitting the front row and even catching the back of the heavyweight novices that were ahead of us. By the time I got to the first turn I wasn't even sure what position I was in because I was mixed in with the tail end of the heavyweights. I do remember that Dr. Schmidt passed me on the outside going through one and then Dawn Holgate got by on the inside coming out of one and they pulled away from me by a good second or two by the time we got to the bowl.
Headed into the bowl a couple of more riders outbraked me. I didn't know if these were some of the heavyweight guys getting by or maybe middleweight guys in my race who got by so I just settled in and ran my pace and hoped I wasn't dead last.
By lap three going into the 90's I could see the leaders of the Heavyweight expert class coming up the run to the bowl so I knew I was going to start getting lapped soon. Sure enough about two corners later Tim Hunt came by like I was out of gas. That guy is just fearless. By lap 5 I figured most of the experts had lapped me so I took a look behing coming out of the 90's and I saw a couple of bikes but couldn't tell if they were experts or novices. Then on lap 7 a novice bike went by me and I just figured I was getting lapped by the heavyweight novice leaders now but he didn't pull away from me. I realized that it must be someone in my race who had been following me so I picked up the pace a little and tried to catch him.
When we got the white flag I was only about a second behind him and by the 90's I had gotten close enough that I thought I could pass him at the end of the new backstretch. So I carried as much speed as I could through the final carousel turn, got on the gas as early as I dared and tried to get a run on him down the back stretch. If I could catch him by the end of the back stretch I was going to try to outbrake and if I couldn't I was going to take a wide entrance to the final corner and try to sneak under him on exit.
All those plans went out the window about halfway down the back stretch when one of the experts drafted past me and got between us going into the final turn. I took the widest entrance I could and got on the gas as quickly as I could but couldn't make up the ground and finished 0.6 behind at the line.
All in all a really fun race.
