I loved the fact that this weekend was local
. Having people you know drop by the pits was great! Seeing some familiar faces was even better. Not to mention I would rather make a 2 hour drive then a 24 hour drive any day.
Friday track day was some-what frustrating
, Much like the weekend before, the front was sliding, and the rear was spinning. As Mark Schellinger would say, "Not very confidence inspiring!". My best time was a 1:01.2, despite all the changes that me and Marcus made. Finally we decided to rebuild the shock. Which made the rear hook up great, but the front was still all over the place.
Saturday we kept playing with the clickers, and made a geometry change. None of that worked, and I actually ended up going backwards qualifying with a 1:01.223 on fresh tires. That night me and Mohan decided to go back to recommended rider sag numbers for the R6, I figure that it can’t possibly be any worse then the issues I was having for the last 5 days at PPIR.
Sunday, everything turned around for me set up wise. In the mourning on old tires I ran a 1:00.666! Which was my personal best at PPIR. Not to mention I hit 9 laps in 1:00 range. I was feeling great for the race.
In the race a got a poor start, but still managed to keep up with the pack. After a little while I started passing people: Tyler Jones, Jeremy Haiduk, Johnny Page. Even caught up to Lambert for about a lap. Unfortunately, at about lap 10 I started getting arm pump in my right hand, so braking and turning the bike in became some-what of a challenge, and my lap times slowed to 1:01s. I guess in the next couple of months I need to work on conditioning. If anyone has any arm pump workouts let me know (and not the kind that Brizz does late at night in front of the computer).
However what is encouraging is that my best lap time was a 1:00.151
which was faster then Jeremy Haiduk, Tyler Jones, Shannon Moham’s. Which was within 107.1 % of Tommy Hayden’s best time
.
Now the cool part: I got some Speed TV love, when I was lapped by the Hayden’s. The mentioned “Eugene Bazyl from Louisville, Colorado riding for Breckenridge Brewery!”. Also during the one of the fade out for the Superbike starting grid it showed be and Marcus messing with the suspension on the bike. And I also heard that I got some recognition from the announcer when I almost high-sided coming out of turn 3.
Most importantly I would like to thank all the people that helped out this weekend.
Shannon Mohan – Thanks for all the encouragement and help in the pits, with out that suspension changes Sunday would have been completely emberasing
Joe Logalbo from Rebellion Motorsports – Thanks for all the help in the pits all weekend, it made my life so much easier
Dad – for showing up all 3 days and wrenching on the bike, as well as for getting all the food and drinks for the weekend
Marcus McBain from RPS – Thanks for the lightning fast shock rebuild.
Dean and Kim – for hooking up a ticket to the suite, air conditioning is SOOO nice
Every one from the CSC that dropped by to say hi, and all the people that corner worked.
I would also like to once again thank all of my sponsors (yes, it’s a shameless plug but these people make my racing possible):
Breckenridge Brewery – got some TV time
CarQuest of Lafayette
BikeJam.com
Morse Custom Fiberglass
TK Motorsports – congrats to Brian on his FX race
RPS
Bazyl Motorsports
Rebellion Motorsports
Vanmar- Michelin
DynoJet
BAB leathers
Codeffects.com