Dragway Times

This was my first try at being little Mr. Speedracer. I really didn't plan on going to this, just happened at the last second.  My brother and friends were going to run their cars.  I always wanted to take the bike but that's "crazy talk".  No way in hell did I want to try and race it.  I caved and went with them.  Glad I did, it was good fun for the $15 spent.  I learned I can't launch a bike if I needed to and that I have the reactions of a drugged person.  Baby steps I guess.  This was the 1st time I had tried anything like this so it was all trial by fire for me.  I just had the mental image of flipping the bike or losing the rear end.  I'll get more comfortable as time goes on......

All I can say was today was HOT.  90+ degree weather this week.  This trip I tried something different.  As per recommendations by a few people, I lowered my rear suspension all the way, and took the rear tire PSI from 40 to 20.  It seems to have helped some as all my times were pretty good (for me).  Nothing stupid happened this time out, no stalls, no bogging down.  All the launches felt great, though they could still be stronger.  Also tried bracket racing and blew that pretty bad.  I'm not used to having someone go ahead of me and then me going.  I was racing a Acura Integra Type R who dialed at 14.82 while I was dialed at 11.30.  Watching him take off and start down the track got me jumpy and when the light tree started to fall I jumped the gun and fouled pretty bad.  0.500 is a perfect reaction, anything less is a foul.  That run I did a 0.081, bad to the point that on my time slip the girl handing them out wrote " Little Impatient", followed by a frowning smiley face.  Oh well, maybe next time.  At any rate I still blew past the Type R.  The heat seemed to have scared off alot of people so we got a good number of runs in.  And we even got the 11.322 run on video.  I'm happy enough I beat my previous best time.  And  I was getting much better at reaction times and making power on the launch.  Already made plans to go 2 weeks from now.

Today was pretty amazing.  It was a Subaru Event over at NED.  Exeter Subaru had rented out the track for the day for all the Subaru's to run on.  I tagged along on the 929 with a pair of leather pants in the backpack just in case I was able to make it to the track.  Once all the cars had cleared tech I went and spoke with the techs and asked if I could get a bike through if I had the permission of the event organizer, they said sure and gave me a ride in the golf cart (best part of the day!) and talked with a friend of mine that helped set this up.  15 mins later, the bike was all checked out and I was ready to play with some Subarus.  First race, which I seem to have lost the slip for, was against a friend in an STi.  I fell asleep at the lights and he got a HUGE jump on me while I snapped back to consciousness.  Shortly down the track I had already passed him in what he described as a "sonic boom".  Some seriously fast cars there today, one down at 12 flat, few others not far behind. 

Being that it was a small crowd, you could just keep looping the track and rarely have to line up behind more than one person.  I was able to get roughly 25 runs in (I know I lost a few slips somewhere).  Also let my brother try the bike for the first time on the track (from 12:30 to 1:30 and 3:30 - 4:00).  When I let him try the first time I had run a best of 11.4, his 2nd run he pulls an 11.2.....bastard.  Not to mention his lower weight was netting him a higher trap speed.  I broke into the 11.1's later in the day and ended with a best of 11.121@127.85, Brother ended with 11.136@131.  Weather was mid to high 70's, slight wind.  Sunny mostly, some clouds.

Click here to see Video and pictures from this day.