??? - June 10-11, 2000



Peter Kates worked on my suspension last week. OMG, it's a different bike.
Rebuilt the Fox shock and fixed the front forks and gave me new springs
and stuff. I have to admit, I'm much more accustomed to a bike going boing
B O I N G boing over bumps than I am to that tight *wham* feeling it has
now. Whoa.

"Cate, My Anthropologist" is coming up this weekend to spend some time
with women racers. This ought to be great. I'll be dragging her around to
meet all the women who race or who have raced, and perhaps she can get
some clue as to why we do what we do. I think we're a little different
than the average Harley riding woman that gets featured so often. ;) Of
course, she's riding her K75 up from Philly to do this, so it's not like
she hasn't got a clue or two already. Heh.

Time to go load the van... oy...

I must remember to put up Ann's new pictures, too. Great shots for the web
site.

...

Okay, I put up Ann's pictures, and the weekend is already over. It's kind
of a blur... it all happened so fast.

Cate, My Anthropologist, met me at work about two hours earlier than I
expected to see her, in a cage instead of on the bike. A shame, but given
the weather, this probably worked out better anyway.  We left for the
track at 3:30, and got there around 5. Traffic was already pretty nuts.
Dane called me in the van from Boston; he'd gotten stuck on the pike and
sat around for over an hour not moving at all. Not a good way to start his
weekend. I think it took him about 3.5 hours to get to the track, maybe
longer. 

Even though I had lots to set up and deal with, I managed to get camp set
up, get my transponder, get registered, and then get the bike almost
entirely ready before dinner. Forgot the sidestand, though. Dane showed up
earlier than he thought he would, and I ran into Ann and Rob in the
registration line. I applied peer pressure, and convinced Ann to register
for a race so we could be gridded together. I shouldn't strong-arm people
so much. =)

Cate and Dane and I had dinner with a couple of the Team Daemon guys at
Veano's, after making Paul starve to death while we worked on bikes. Then
we split off into the Home Depot group and the WalMart group (guess which
one I was in, doh!). Worked on bikes some more, and got to bed after
midnight. 

Got up at 5 am, and it was already 60 degrees, not what I expect from New
Hampshire. Figured it was gonna be a hot one, and I was right. (At least
it wasn't miserable. ;) Ann was race control Saturday, since Sandy was out
for the day, so I signed up to work early. Turn 1, with Cindy sometimes
and Kevin sometimes, and Ava on flags until we switched her into Turn 12
to be captain there. Got Luis on flags for the rest of the day, and he was
really good. Not too many incidents in Turn 1, although I got one kind of
hairy scene where two bikes went down off the track, but one needed an
ambulance. We were right in the direct blind crash zone of Turn 1, during
a fast expert race, two bikes and two riders down, track full of [exploded
pieces of those kevlar things to protect bodywork] shrapnel, and I was the
only corner worker at the time. We had some blockage from the ambulance,
but it was still scary. Those experts were moving fast, despite a waving
yellow and ambulance flag at the end of the front straight.

Ann did a phenomenal job of being race control, keeping the day sane for
all of us, staying calm and in control of some incredibly difficult
incidents, and all in all being as much like Sandy as anyone not actually
Sandy could be. She was awesome. In one particularly scary incident, she
got a standing ovation from the three corner captains in Turn 1, who could
see the entire ambulance+traffic scene she was directing from the tower.

My first practice in the morning was very awkward. As much as I love the
new suspension, I had no clue what to do in any turn, since the bike
responds so differently. I'd downshift hard, and the bike wouldn't *do*
anything. Except keep going. No jarring, no bouncing, none of the things I
expected to happen when I changed gears, speed, position on the bike, etc.
Afterward, I sat under my canopy, feeling puzzled and trying to process
all the wrong-feeling information from practice. In a while, I gave up and
asked Kevin to come watch me during my next practice, to give me some
pointers. Meanwhile, Dane had pulled in during the first practice, because
the EX500 he just bought wouldn't rev past 7K. He wound up spending the
rest of the day working on it, with help from the Team Daemon guys (no
small amount of mechanical clue there), to no avail.

Second practice I was trying hard again to figure out what was going on. I
got out this time before they started (ahem), but there were so many bikes
that by the time I got off of pit lane, the people first out were already
coming down the front straight again. That is a *lot* of bikes, and I
wasn't even last in line. Oy. Second lap, I was feeling a little better,
and like if I really concentrated, I could get it together in this
practice a little bit. At the beginning of the third lap, I was coming in
a lot faster from the front straight, and as I turned into Turn 1, I saw a
red flag at the corner of my eye. Thinking SHIT!IwasjustgettingthisandOhMy
GodIdon'twannabegoingthisfastinaredflagsituation, I threw my left hand up
in 1A and saw the waving yellow in Turn 2. At the exit of 2, there were
two bikes and riders lying far to the right of the track, close to the
wall, way down almost to Turn 3. When I saw the first rider beginning to
sit up, I thought Holy Mother that's bizarre, and then said it again, out
loud in my helmet, when I got to the second bike/rider even further down.
What could they possibly have been doing to get down there? Wild. The
worst thing about this was that they sent us in, and didn't let us
complete the practice, even though most folks only got 3 laps. I think
they didn't realize just how little time had passed in that practice, but
given the oddness of that crash situation, I don't really blame them.
Okay, maybe I blame them a little. I really wanted the track time. ;)

Saturday night, ran into Sean Levatino, and roped him into coming to
dinner with the folks taking Ann out. Sandy showed up at dinner, and a few
beers and many conversations were had. The best thing about Saturday
nights at Brookside Pizza is that it's almost all crew eating there, and
it's a very relaxed and fun atmosphere. A great evening. When we got back,
Nancy Cole lent Sean a tent for the night, and we rolled his bike under
the canopy to rest.

Sunday morning was standard NHIS cold, and I'd spent most of the night
sort of drifting with that not-really-asleep feeling. I woke up a bit sore
from Saturday's Turn 1 sprinting, and not very awake. Everyone said it was
going to rain, and I gambled that it wouldn't rain until at least after my
practices. Thankfully, I won that gamble. Ann wasn't feeling in the right
headspace to race, so we didn't get to share the grid row after all.
Awwwww.

First practice felt better. I started getting the hang of things a bit
again. Kevin had given me some hanging off pointers, and I tried a few of
those, but I was back in that space from last year of tring to remember
and learn too many things at once, and getting none of them right. So I
stopped trying to hang off, and focused again on shifting and
accelerating, and getting a better clue what the bike would do in those
situations. I got held up a little in this practice, but not too much,
since I was still learning what to expect. A very good practice, though,
and I felt like it was worth the time being out there. I like that
feeling.

Dane's bike was still not working, and although he'd borrowed Rob's EX for
Saturday's race, Rob had gone home that night, so I offered him mine. I
wanted to give him the bike for practice as well, but since we were in the
same practice, and I really really needed to get familiar with the bike's
new capabilities, I took the bike out for second practice myself. :/

Second practice was much better, and I really started feeling more like I
had at the end of the season last year. Some guy crashed behind me in Turn
1A, which was really bizarre. I heard the crash, then saw his bike coming
up behind me on the left. Uh oh. I really really REALLY didn't want to be
a part of whatever was happening, so I just whacked the throttle wide open
and hoped to high heaven he wouldn't get me, and that I wouldn't enter
Turn 2 too fast. It seems to have worked, which was nice. Of course, as my
speed went up, so did my confidence, and I found that I felt the guys were
parking in Turn 3 a lot. How annoying. Too bad I can't ride as fast as
they do on the rest of the track. Like, they immediately lose me in Turn
4. Harrumph. However, mostly there were too many people in the Amateur Red
practice for me to ever get to stretch out. No matter where I was, there
was always a huge crowd of bikes in front of me and behind me. Just no
room. 

...

Other things to write about:

	- over 1200 entries by Saturday lunch (oy), 18 races on
	  Saturday after splits

	- Canopy blowing down and breaking Saturday, Reto "fixing"

	- corner working in 10 Sunday

	- "Men are born knowing" - Captain Mike

	- rain on sunday dousing expert blue practice, lunch,
	  and then letting up and drying during first race

	- rider demanding apologies for screwups at riders mtg

	- cramps in race, off in turn 10, pulling back out in 
	  front of leaders of HW class (oopsie)

	- my race, even skipping at least a lap, was ~13 miles

	- noticing losing ground in T6

	- me scraping peg in Turn 7, passing someone while
	  both of us being passed by lots of other someones

	- getting to the point where maybe talking about
	  scraping pegs is gonna be really redundant

	- talking to jeff wood about pro school

	- Mondo double-bike endo in gravel with fire, ambulances, and 
	  trucks crash Turn 3 on Sunday (literally caught with pants
	  down, in pit, changing back into corner working clothes - 
	  I think every corner worker/racer not on the track at the 
	  time sprinted out to Turn 3 instantly when seeing the bikes
	  flying like that - ugh)

	- #7 Lester and #259 (junior) having an altercation in 3/10

	- dane racing on my bike and scraping not only pegs
	  but sidestand mount (!!!) - he also hit 1:32, or 
	  maybe 1:30. w00

	- dane running out of gas after I had mentioned to the 
	  people in turn 10 that I hoped he checked the gas or 
	  at least switched the petcock to reserve.

	- my bike sounds like an fzr 400 when someone else is 
	  racing it. rob dages says "gee, it doesn't sound like
	  that when *you* race it." *thwap*

	- it might not be a great idea to let someone borrow your
	  bike to race while corner working. especially in a turn
	  where you get to see them go by twice. especially in a 
	  30 minute race. *laugh*

	- tear down and lashing of canopies together for 
	  coming nationals week

	- dinner with barry & ava, sean, dane, kevin, paul, bruce
	  at Beefside Seahouse. (Nice name.)

	- Find lap times left at track and document, as
	  disappointing as they were. I am still 3 seconds
	  off my best, which doesn't seem right. But I guess
	  I don't feel like I'm going that fast. It's not a major
	  stretch to do what I'm doing. And in the past that has
	  indicated that things are about to change, speedwise.

	- More stuff on what Cate was doing!