“I was looking to stay at the front of the pack this weekend,” said Stumpy. “I wanted to go out and put down some good times and just stay toward the front.”
Unfortunately the weather had a say in his plans, though. “The weather was spotty all weekend. One minute it was raining and the next, sunny and warm. This made tire choice extremely difficult.” Stumpy raced to 5th place in all three of his races on Saturday.
“I’d hoped we’d have consistent weather for Sunday—I was wrong.” Sunday started out with torrential rains and Stumpy had to qualify on a very wet track for the Unlimited GP. “I was going good on my Michelin rain tires and got a few laps down. Then I hydroplaned coming out of turn one and fell.” Stumpy got right back up and got his bike back to the pits. Luckily, there was very little damage and he had the bike good as new for the Middleweight Superbike race.
“Of course, at the start of Middleweight Superbike, the sun comes out, the wind blows and the track starts to dry. I opted for DOT tires rather than the rain tires and that was the best choice, even though the track was so green,” explained Stumpy. He rode to a second place finish.
The track stayed dry for the rest of the day and Stumpy enjoyed more top five finishes, despite some set-up issues.
“The bike usually rides like it’s on rails and it wasn’t doing it for me this weekend so I couldn’t go as fast as I wanted to. I really was fighting with it in the Unlimited GP. I made some changes that seemed to help and was able to go faster for the Heavyweight Superbike, Heavyweight Supersport and Unlimited Supersport races.” He finished in third place for all three of the races.
Stumpy has two weekends off now until he travels to Heartland Park in Topeka, Kansas June 20 for a CCS Midwest and Great Plains combined event.
Race Results—GTU - 5th place, GTO - 5th place, Middleweight GP - 5th place, Middleweight Superbike - 2nd place, Middleweight Supersport - 4th place, Heavyweight Supersport - 3rd place, Heavyweight Superbike - 3rd place, Unlimited GP - 7th place, Unlimited Supersport - 3rd place
