Photo by Katie Overton
Those who don’t race like to ask why I do this. I think one of the reasons why I love this sport so much is that it is never ever easy. Nothing is ever simple when you come to the race track and I’m not sure if I ever want it to be so simplistic that it gets boring. It’s not that I love chasing a set up, but at times I do love the challenge. So much goes into making a motorbike work just perfect around the road course. There is so much to experiment with, it’s almost endless. This weekend was another adventure with the bike and the competition. Two major changes to the sprint bike. The front end and different size rear tire. One would work out and the other not so much. The endurance front end was placed on the sprint bike and it was absolutely perfect from the get go. I love everything about this front end. The back end got a smaller tire. Went from the 180/60 Pirelli (which is 190+ size) to the smaller 180/55. I was chasing set up with the back end all weekend. While it was very frustrating, it was also challenging and very informative. Dealing with chatter and unsettled rear under acceleration. I knew to be up front I would have to best my personal record sprint time by 2.5 seconds. While this was not accomplished I was able to set a personal best by 1 second turning a 1:20.724. The grids were 20+ which is outstanding. My shoulder injury from Blackhawk Farms did not really come into play while riding which was a huge relief. I was very happy about turning 1:20.XXX lap times but not so much about the gap from myself to the winner which was much smaller at NJMP.
ASRA Thunderbike – 8th
Thunderbke – 5th
Ultralight SBK – 6th
Photos by Ben Loyle