As of today I am a proud new owner of this 2007 Yamaha TZ 125, an ex Royce McLean B bike, code named “Shorty”.

Hugging the last corner before the front straight

Practice all day Friday and Sat morning. I wasn’t feeling good on the bike. Couldn’t get a better time then 1:28 which I was very unhappy with.  We moved the handle bars closer on Friday which made a world of difference for me.  Didn’t feel like I was climbing over an elephant at every turn and made a big difference in how much effort it took on my part to turn the bike.

Look Ma! One wheel!

Qualifying race at the end of the day on Sat landed me in second place behind a seasoned pro rider, Shauna “Gecko” Aaron. I was happy with my start, even though it started off with a wheelie, got tangled some where within the 1st group of riders from a race that was ran together with ours. I knew Shauna was in front of me and the other girls were behind me.  A couple laps in I came up on a slower rider and figured I should play it safe. No being a hot head like last time, it’s only qualifying and I’m not racing with this guy.  I figured I will  hold my spot and finish the qualifying.  I kept telling myself it’s only qualifying, and I will be on front row of our group regardless since there were only 4 of us.

The running order in the qualifying race

More practice on Sunday morning, I got a bit more aggressive.  A guy on a vintage bike tried to stuff me in the hairpin and I nearly hit him, which really pissed me off and gave me some motivation to try to run some faster laps.  After that I felt better about how I was riding. Did not check the times, didn’t want to know.

Race was after lunch and this time, unlike in the qualifying our group got a seperate start on the grid so we had some space between us and the other race in front of us. I had a great start. Got going the second the flag came down and didn’t have that “oh ok we can go now” thought while watching the other riders like I had the last time. Shauna was a little ahead of me but about half way to corner 1 I was right behind her and ready for the first turn. I expected Shauna to fly through turn 1 and continue to move further and further away but instead she seemed to have let off and we went through corner 1 much slower then I expected. At one point I hesitated if I should continue with my pace and pass her, or just fall back knowing I wasn’t much of a competition to her. I could just picture Johnny throwing his hands up over a crashed bike and decided to play safe and just follow her through to corner 2. We came up on corner 2 and at that point cought up to the last rider of the fist race, a rather slower moving Ninja 250. Planing to stay behind Shauna once again I matched her speed and figured regardless of what she was doing I was going to pass that 250 coming out of 3.

Hind sight being 20-20 I should have held my line and speed and made the pass instead of hesitating.  We were just coming out of corner 2 and at that point going rather slow, I touched the brakes, just like I have done many times before when coming up on slower traffic through that exact section, although obviously some of the factors were not the same because what resulted was not what had resulted the many times before.  The combination of speed, lean angle, and break pressure I applied wasn’t a winning combination. I lost my front end and went sliding and tumbling off to the grass to the outside of the track pretty much half way between corners 2 and 3.

The familiar feeling of the body hitting the ground, short jabs of pain, followed by thoughts of is it over? Ok, I’m stopped, where’s the bike and how is it. I got to the bike, left side looked fine, right side a little banged up. Handle bars still there although the right one bent and pointing down like a floppy ear, key bent, kill switch missing… but looks good to go. I grabbed the handle bars, braced myself on the bike and picked it up. I turned the ignition on, every thing lights up like it should, I get on the bike being careful not to loose my balance and drop the bike. It’s in 3rd gear still, I get it back into neutral and start it. All is good, I look up on to the track and see Sunny ride by, I only lost one lap.

I ride back onto the track carefully, all seems good other then the weird feeling downward pointing right handle bar. I continue on my way testing the brakes before the next corner before getting back on the gas. I ride by the wall and see people cheering me on and I get on the gas harder. I test the brakes a little early coming into the fast corner 1, but all seems good other then the fact the brake leaver is in a really weird downward position. I come around 2, 3, and something makes me think of the brakes again.. they feel mushy. Left and right follow and lead into a short straight before the tight 6… I’m not on the gas hard still thinking about my brakes, I slow down a tad and feel my rear tire squiggle, I think to myself that’s not right and look down for a closer look at my brake lever. That’s when I notice brake fluid dripping down from the cylinder and down the side of the bike. I brake some more and prepare for a gingerly easy turn into 6 and the moment I start to tip the bike in towards the left I feel my rear tire come around and off I go sliding again.

Bike didn’t do so well this time around and wasn’t ridable so I ended up watching the rest of the race from the infield waiting for the truck of shame to come and pick me up. With the events from the past few minutes playing in my head over and over again, the wait felt like for ever. To say I was disappointed and pissed off with myself would be an enormous understatement. The Gecko took first place, followed by Sunny Park and Nikole Ann Pilkington.

On a more positive note, Johnny ended up coming first in his Rookie race and with the points earned up to date, looks like he also won the Rookie cup championship.

Photos from SOAR Round 5

Sat: Long
Sun: Pro

Too much rain

Final corner before the front straight

SOAR was using a cool timing system by Zoomius, so with an RFI sticker on my windshield I was able to get my lap times without having to have a lap timer on the bike. I spent the first session of the morning going quite slowly just trying to figure out which way the track turned, trying to memorize the turn sequence, and get a feel for all the bumps and cracks and bumps. The track has 2 consecutive straights with a fairly tight and challenging but fun infield. The layout wasn’t that hard to learn and by second session I felt comfortable to start adding some speed. Granted I’m sure I was fairly choppy still and my lines weren’t ideal, but I managed to get around at a time of around 1:30 and I knew I could tweak that a bit more. By the end of the day I was consistently doing 1:24′s and I was very happy with that.

Saturday came around and we got a bit more practice time in the morning, followed by qualifying heat races through the remainder of the day. I had entered the Gecko Forwarding Rookie Challenge, a class for beginner racers with less then 5 races experience.

Coming out of corner 1

Some pics from SOAR Round#4

Leaning into the uphill right hander of corner 6

We spent the August long weekend at Bogie, could there be a better way to spend time off work? Johnny got to go up early again, I made my way up Friday night, rode Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Riding a track 4 days in a row, that was a first. It wasn’t quite as tiring as I had thought, I guess after a while you start getting used to this.

Making a straight line out of 12B and 13

First time back at Calabogie with my new suit. Being able to actually move freely on the bike made such a difference. I was still having some issues with the plastic shoulder details hitting my helmet and preventing my head from turning as far into the turns as I would want to. I found that dropping my inside shoulder would help with that.

One of my favorite corners rightly named Temptation

Johnny had his new GPS Starlane lap timer so I got to use his hand-me-down AIM timer. Here I was all happy that I would finally start getting an idea of what sort of lap times I do and we couldn’t get that damn thing to work. We tried propping it up on the bike all sorts of ways, and eventually gave up. I ended up using Sandy’s unit (thank you Sandy for letting me borrow it!) so I did end up getting my lap times after all. My times were consistent at around 2:30 and dropped below that a few times. My best time of the weekend was a 2:28 which I was very happy with.

Photos from the weekend, taken by 303 Imaging

Sat Jun 27 SMP Pro
Sun Jun 28 SMP Long

The weekend had started off some what frustrating with the bike bottoming out each time coming into Allens. I felt held back, wanted to go faster, and the little voice in my head cried it’s not fair. I adjusted my style, added a lot more finess and strategy into braking and ended Saturday dragging my knee consistently through a couple corners. The sound finally didn’t evoke an automatic fear response and I learned to welcome what was once a bone chilling scraping. Took a few of the first morning sessions to get used to the feeling of the new gloves. Completely different grip and feedback compared to my old gloves. Different but better. Custom ear plugs from guy on Kennedy Rd are working like a charm! The suit.. feels like second skin! Feels so increadibly good to be on a bike in a suit I can actually move in. Some learning curve with body position, legs getting too tired, I was over working myself. Getting off the bike too much? Carying too much weight on my inside leg as opposed to letting the outside leg do some of the hanging on as well? Worked on getting my body more relaxed.

Sunday, got to walk Allens with Colin Trevor and Pi I am. Thanks Tim! Learned much about a good line through there and SMP Long #5. Corners felt a lot better and things flowed much nicer after.

Note to self, must make a track map with all markers detailed so I can make notes. Draw out all the concrete patches, wholes, bumps, Daisies, you name it.
Rain at the end of the day as weather predicted. Went out with a couple brave souls, felt very good out there. Worked on being smooth and consistently hitting the lines I wanted to be on. Was having a great time.. then the checkered flag came out, oh well it was starting to pour any ways. As I came off, I was informed I blew off a black flag aimed at me as it turns out for riding in the rain on slicks. Not intentional. Made Paul’s day got a high 5!

Made some big revelations about my suit.

Sun SMP Nelson