April 4-6, 2003 Blackhawk Farms Raceway South Beloit, Illinois
Well The weekend I long anticipated is finally here! After long weekends of preparing my 2001 Honda CBR600F4i and trailer, race day has come. It ended up a little different than I imagined. For instance, I would have never guessed there would be ice on the track! My crew chief Ryan Johnson and I arrived at the track late Wednesday night and woke up pretty early to rain for the Visionsports racing school. It was about 33 degrees and raining. The day went pretty good. I got my license I needed to race (That's a bonus). I then registered for my first races that weekend.
Friday brought more rain for my race practice but I was still clipping at a pretty good pace for the conditions. I woke up very early Saturday stressing about tires and such. Johnson and I ripped off the old tires, dropped off the new tires at the Dunlop dude and we went to work getting ready for the first race. I didn't know what air pressure to run but just experimented with what felt good. The Dunlop Guy and others said to leave the tire warmers on for as long as possible. That wasn't a good idea. I went out very nervous already for my first race which was a GTU 30 Minute Endurance and on the warm up lap got a big two wheel slide. The tires were greasy and overheated. When the flag went green I was off screaming towards turn 1. I had a bad start, but as my tires cooled a little I had more confidence in them. I was in a pack of about 5 bikes just getting used to the whole race thing and ended up with a 9th out of 21 riders. I was really happy with that.
Then came the Middleweight Grand Prix. It was scheduled to be an 8 lap sprint, but due to the cold weather, the sprints were shortened to 6 laps. I was feeling confident and ready to race. I had Ike Anderson in front of me on the grid so I was keyed in on his rear tire, got a great launch and followed Ike through turn 3--then the dicing began in the last laps--it was Joe Riffice, Chris Johnson and Me. It was so much fun! On the white flag I was in 6th. I passed Chris then started to get greedy in turn 5 and tried to pass Joe but got a front wheel slide. I took a deep breath and waited patiently for turn 7--the last turn before the checkered flag! I figured, if I can get a good drive and early on the throttle, I could take him. I was very careful with my lines and took him on the inside and finished 4th! I was pumped. I didn't care if I got last place. I had fun racing in that one. I looked over at my pit crew (Johnson, Heather, and Amber)and they were going nuts. I pulled up the pits and they told me I got 4th! I was so happy!
Joe and Chris came up after and said how fun it was dicing and how fun the season was going to be--I agreed with all smiles. I got wood! If you don't know, wood is a plaque which you get for placing in the top five. I never wood of thought :-). After hugging the crew for a while we decided to get cleaned up and get a hotel room to get a good sleep and a good shower.
Sunday was a great looking day. I went out for my first practice and the bike just quit totally (I'd been having some problems all weekend that we thought were solved) so I pushed it back to the pits and we started ripping apart everything. We ended up taking out the Power Commander (the bike's after-market computer) and getting it started. The bike was way different without it, but at least I got to race.
It was about 40 degrees and sunny. My first race that day was Middleweight SuperBike. That was kind of fast pace race, I started out crankin' a huge wheelie off the start, so I had to chop the throttle and lost about 5 spots. I couldn't get in a groove until about the 3rd lap and, of course, the lead pack had already gotten away. But when I got in a groove I was running 1:24's which were my fastest lap times ever. I couldn't believe my eyes when a 1:24 popped up on my on-board lap timer. I finished 9th in the race, which I was happy with.
The last race was Middleweight Supersport. I was really nervous for this one. It has a very big grid and a lot of crazy Amateurs out for the taste of wood. They call this class the "Meat Grinder" class or the "Helicopter" class because sometimes the Hospital gives participants helicopters rides, but they are pretty expensive and painful. I didn't want to sign on for one! I watched this class last year and there were huge wrecks, so that was in my head for turn 1, again I lost about 5 spots on the first turn. Bikes were banging off each other and guys were running wide and stuff. I kind of fell in the back but started gaining lots of ground and picking off bikes one by one. I got into 7th place when I went into turn 7 way too hot and ran wide. I kept it on the pavement but lost 5 spots so I took a 11th.
All in all, I had a very productive and positive weekend. I learned a lot but still have so much to learn. Super Dave Rosno helped me out huge with suspension setup. Big Johnson, Heather and Amber were a HUGE help in the pits! I couldn't have done it all without them. There is always so much to do and it gets really crazy.
I can't wait for Road America April 27th. I have always dreamed of racing at that track. Hopefully the Power Commander comes back from being serviced, otherwise I will be way down on horsepower on a big horsepower track. Can't wait!!!!
See You At Road America!! Thanks for checking out the Team Stumpy Racing site! Feel free to drop me a line!
