What a day. Towards the end of the first novice practice, I lowside off turn 1 trying to pass. Thanks, Bueller, for the spare rearset. Then, in the AmU heat, someone (forget who) went down in the rat's nest and I had no choice but to try the bank shot off his bike (or his head) and off I go in the mud again. Tweaked my forks a little. My exhaust can is lookin gnarly. Scramble to make NU and did, but had to miss the heat for NO. Everyone's heard of Bertha's moon launch, right in front of me. I was on the left, but as I go to the edge to dodge that carnage , the guy immediately to Bertha's left takes us both off onto the grass, but we slid back up to make turn 1, no harm (the guy apologized when we got back to the grid). On the second lap of the real race, I hit the bump on the back straight and enjoyed a first class tank slapper. Guess the forks were worse than I thought. Tried to survive to the end, but on the last lap, got squirrely on the back straight again and just...couldn't... make... turn 3 and into the mud when the front caught the edge. I was still ready to rock, but the R6 wasn't. All my muddy banged up shit reminds me of the dirt bike days...
Joe #859