Becca and I arrived at the twisty 1.8 mile Streets of Willow Springs saturday morrning too late to get a good pit possition the place was packed. I was riding on a total of 10 hours of sleep spread over two nights, having not slept thurday night trying to catch up at work.

I felt really rusty. The much more twisty Streets of Willow felt like the tango to Big Willow’s slow dance. Every other corner I felt I was falling off the bike and just not able to do things as quickly as needed. In the middle of the day things got a bit easier and I finnaly didn’t feel quite so paniced. To give an idea of just how much work it was here’s a run down of my shifts – Down the front straight though turn one I’d shift up into 5th then down all the way to 1st for turn two, then up to 2nd gear for turn three, back down to 1st for the tight turn four… up one as I accelerate out, then up another one for the next S-turn, up another into 4rd for the fast left heading to the bowl, then down 1 for the bowl to 3rd, then up three down the back straight… then down 3 for the fast left, down another 2 for the tight left, then up one for the faster right then down one to 1st for the kink and the skid pad and final corner before heading back down the straight! A total of 18 shit points in 1.8 miles, one every 5 seconds. Compared to Big Willow’s 11 shifts in 2.5 miles, one every 8.5 seconds.

The USGRPU had a race this weekend and a lot of super fast kids from all over the US (and even canada) had come to beat up on us old, over 18 adults. USGRPU had qualifying end of the day saturday and I managed a 1:29.28 lap time. This put me 8th of 12. I was over 2 seconds slower than 7th though and a long long way off the fastest kid’s 1:21.26. But so far it was one of my quicker laps and considering how tired I was at the end of the practice day I wasn’t too dissapointed.

Becca and I packed up headed to the hotel and managed to get to bed at a record early time of 9:00! I decided I had enough practice and I would skip sunday morning practice this would let us sleep until 8:50 giving us almost 12 full hours of sleep! This would be by far the most sleep I had ever gotten before a race day, it was great to wake up naturaly before an alarm.

I was in three races, 250GP, USGRPU 125 and Willow 125. Willow 125 being the regular 125 class that always runs at willow springs and USGPRU being a longer 10 lap national 125 race for the USGPRU national series.

First up was the 250GP race. Because of all the USGPRU 125 riders this weekend the 250GP race was mainly a 125GP race with only a few 250cc bikes. Feeling fresh from all that sleep I was feeling good. Unfortionatly I didn’t get a great start, I was 4th going into the tight turn 2. A 125 kid had gotten into the lead and the 250GP bike was in 2nd slowing me and the 125 rider in front of me. I tried to pass them as quickly as possible and got by them in the next couple of corners but the leading 125 was far ahead by then. After a few laps I decided I wasn’t going to catch him and just focused on my technique. Toward the end I laped the lonely 250 bike in last and took a secure 2nd.

Next up… the USGPRU race.