As I find myself sprinting across the street I'm thinking to myself, wow these Sidi sliders actually provide pretty darn good traction ! no sooner had that thought left my mind I was aboard my bike kicking it to start the race....kick-kick-kick-kick-kick-kick-kick-kick as I hear my teammate yelling at me... go go go go go go go go.........bbbbraaaap finally !! Drop the clutch and off to turn one I go........cold front tire pushing as I try the inside on three guys, cool !, three gone...turn two I got two more and was able to hold a good spot goin into the next two turns as I'm trying to get a drive on the next two bikes at the beginning of the back straight which is a drag race....up inside I go, pinned laying on the bike trying to get every ounce of speed out of the little 250 which is reving her brains out. As I cross the rough section I loosen up on my grip to try to get the speed wobble out, no sooner had I done this and two of the 450's I passed get by me....DAM ! three deep into the next corner, I managed to eek out ahead but I get out powered down a short chute but I re pass on the inside again going into the slowest corner which leads to the one and only urban jump.....two more corners I stay ahead till the last corner before another long drag race of a straight.....I get passed by the same two riders plus another......curse curse curse....wish I had my 550...grrrrrr......after 15 minutes the white flag waves in front of my bike and just after the guys I was trying to hang with...woo hoo..happy days, so off to the staging area I go in first gear trying to maintain a slower speed which is part of the race rules...up ahead is my partner, who at 15 yrs old happens to be one of the fastest guys in our series.....as we bang boots (have to tag off, his engine was revving ready to go) Jacob takes off like the Tasmanian devil goin sideways into turn one....I can imagine him muttering to himself @@##&&^^%%**!! that dam bike of Brian's was starting in 1 kick before....I tried to watch as much of the track as possible to see how my boy was doing, as always the cold tires didn't slow him down too much and the track temp was warm enough that he was going like a madman.....He was litterly flying...
Two sessions apiece and the race is over......I started, he finished...prolly a good thing as we won quite convincingly......or should I say he won........Won what, you ask ?..... well here's the deal...last weekend we shared an event called the Hub City Grand Prix http://www.hubcitygrandprix.com/hcgp/schedule.php with the karter's and they put up a really cool street track through and around the local college in Centralia WA. Which is located 1.5 hrs south of Seattle. So basically we took over the neighbourhood for two days.....The first race was on Saturday afternoon which was a team race which is what I described above....The idea is there is a "Le man's" start which means your bike is turned off and located across the street with your teammate holding it...You dash across the street, jump on and fire the bike. You race for 15 minutes doing as many laps as you can in that time period, when the time is up a white flag comes out showing you to the staging area where your teammate is waiting with his bike revving...tag off and the new rider tears onto the track for another 15 minutes then comes in tags off again with the starting rider, repeating this process once more, so both riders get two sessions each.....which means one guy starts and the other finishes......Being a street coarse it took awhile for us to get accustomed to man hole covers, cross walks, grass growing between the cracks, not to mention stop signs and speed limit signs....Wooo Hooo, I felt like such a hooligan for the first half day, after that it was heads down racing as usual....I will do this next year but with my big bore, as this race is all about power and speed.......
Here is a "safe" link to one of the heats......http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3931271025710256557&hl=en
It was a blast ! Hope to see some of you there next year......
Ride Safe ! BrianSM
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