FZR Girl - August 19-20, 2000



Before I start whining, I'd like to thank Dane again for his generosity
in allowing me to continue to abuse a number of his vehicles. I'm still
getting to race his FZR, and I've put a number of miles on his BMW cage
(to the amusement of the salvage yard guys who stuffed my CB-1 motor in
the back seat of it), and I'm hoping to put a couple thousand on his YZF
600 street bike soon, too. :)

Alright, now I can whine. I want. My freaking. CB-1. Back. NOW.

Okay. Better. 

Sigh.


...


First Practice, Saturday. 

A good practice, the way practices should be. The most comfortable on this
bike that I'd been so far. I forgot to turn on the pseudo-tach (again),
though, until the second lap. I can never really find a good time to turn
it on, either. Chris Leach, our visitor from California, followed me
around the track a few times, and made me nervous about my lines. When he
finally passed me, though, I noticed he's a lot better rider than anyone
else who passed me in that practice. The bike felt a little weird to me
this time, I seemed to lose power every now and then, but not when I was
doing anything specific. (Later I determined that I might just be hitting
redline, but the seemed strangely silent when I would lose power this
way.) Susanna passed me, seemingly without effort. She's getting faster.
In the back of my mind, I was thinking, "Heavens, please don't let me
succumb to the Aprilia urge." I bailed out of practice a lap early; I was
beginning to cramp up and my wrists were hurting a lot. Even if I didn't
seem to be getting in shape at all, the constant gym visits really were
making a difference in terms of ability to do basic things. Sigh. Time to
go back.

Second Practice. Goal: Shift correctly at all points on the track. 

So much for goals. When I was leaving my turn (Turn 1) to go get ready for
second practice, I dropped the FZR, while trying to get out of the grassy
area of 1A. The situation exemplified all the discomfort I have on this
bike. I can't really touch the ground in leathers, and it's very hard for
me to get my body in the right position on this bike until I'm moving at
speed with feet on the pegs. All my reactions are for a slightly heavier
bike whose handlebars actually *turn*, so nothing I did was right and I
just toppled over while twisting the throttle, clutch in, trying to yank
on the bars. A bunch of guys pitting in the area helped me back up, but I
was unsteady on the bike for the rest of the morning. I rushed to practice
early, and as a result got stuck in packs of riders and passed sloppily a
lot. I never felt good in this practice. Ann passed me like I was standing
still, and for all intents and purposes, I was. My first lap I did almost
Now I probably have a better feel for the bike than I'd had before, but
it's too bad I didn't get to use it. I never got a good shot at Turn 1
during this practice at all, because there were too many people in my way.
I also kept wondering what was going to happen every time I wanted to
downshift, so sometimes I wouldn't, for fear of repercussions. Rob said
later that nobody was catching me in 1-1A-2, into 3, so that at least was
good. The practice was red flagged before I got free of the crowds,
though.

This practice made me realize I want a whole lot of money for bikes.

I raced in Race 8, LWSS, on Saturday, so I could run against Ann. I didn't
feel ready, and it was the sloppiest race I've ever done. I was out of
control almost the whole time. I was in last place, and following some
heinous rider, and I kept on his tail, dogging him for the entire race.
Every time he'd do something dumb, he'd get in my way and I'd have to
compensate. Poorly. I crossed the grass in the chicane once to avoid him,
and another time I almost did the same thing in the same place but gritted
my teeth and rode it through, doing a crappy job of getting around and
shot out of Turn 12. The guy cluelessly breezed into my line over and over
again in Turn 1, and I shot through the south pole once as a result. I
also hit the power band in third gear on the exit of T3 once and kept
going wider and wider and wider into T4, thinking, "I do not want to be
going here." I was yelling in my helmet, yelling at the guy ahead of me,
yelling at myself, yelling at the bike. Ugh. Finally, I passed the guy on
the front straight at the checker, but he still beat me by a wheel. Suck.
I did get my fastest time on this bike, though, which was a 1:43, I think.
I also figured out that there's a lap timer on that pseudo-tach, and if I
look at it at the right place and at the right time, it will tell me my
latest lap time. That was neat, if somewhat demoralizing.

Sunday, Sandy asked me and Ann to stay in our leathers and at our turns
between practices. I guess this makes more sense from a corner working
standpoint, but it really kind of put me off my game as far as getting a
comfortable practice. :/  Anyway, both my practices were just steady go-
around-the-track practices. Nothing too good, nothing too bad. Just track
time. Woo woo.

LWGP was a scary race for me. I was by myself and not riding well, and
feeling really slow. When the heavy weight guys lapped me, it just sucked,
and I wished I hadn't registered for that race. Even the other FZR guys
were lapping me in this one. It felt like a waste of time and money. #560
passed me on the outside at T1, after the checker, really really really
close. That boy is gonna hurt someone sometime. 3 people said they got
buzzed by him on Sunday. Not good. Ann looked good out there, and I think
racing more is going to get her going a lot faster a lot sooner.


Saturday Times:					Sunday Times:

Ann		Kit				Kit
--------	--------			--------

1:52.988	1:55.025			2:23.535
1:47.910	1:51.751			1:55.483
1:45.571	1:50.997			1:57.154
1:45.417	1:50.002			1:59.887
1:48.048					1:57.462
						2:01.388
--------	--------			--------
1:47.987	1:51.944			2:02.485



2:00.877	2:05.655			1:52.950
1:42.030	1:55.035			1:51.172
1:43.215	1:50.611			1:49.468
1:42.428	1:52.503			1:47.477
1:40.995					1:45.915
						1:48.050
--------	--------			--------
1:45.909	1:55.951			1:49.172



Since this entire race report has been negative, I'd like to take this
opportunity to vent about people who run off with the race times. You guys
suck. Thank you.


...


All the crashes in T2 on Sunday happened while I was in the pits, so I
missed the fun. I think Annette had a good time without me, though. ;) 

I packed up the van early, with help from Kevin and Chris. I was taking
Kevin's bike home with me, and was very surprised to have it start while I
was moving slowly through the pits. Now *that* is an experience I'd like
to never have again. Going less than 10mph, and hearing a bike engine
revving hard 3 feet behind my head. OMG!!!! It took a bit to figure out
what that could possibly be (familiar sound, unfamiliar location). Turns
out the canyon dancer on the handlebars had flicked the engine cut-off
switch (which has the ignition wired to it), and when I hit a bump, it
then jammed itself firmly onto the starter button. Yikes. Pretty funny,
though, in retrospect. I fixed by taking the damned canyon dancer off and
re-tying the bike down with soft ties. The rest of the trip home was
uneventful.