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VIRginia International Raceway:

May 13-15, 2016, MotoAmerica

Pic 1: The ETR Crew! Denise, Eric, Fred, Dianne, Dave, and Randy.

By this time last year I had raced at three different tracks and had probably raced in about 15 races. However, sometimes life and work get in the way, which is the case for this year. My first race weekend this year was a pro event with MotoAmerica at VIRginia International Raceway, which is admittedly a pretty big event to be starting the year on. Even though it was a bit of a risk, I was confident that my bike and overall program were up to the task of tackling VIR, even though I traditionally struggle there.

Pic 2: The tech sticker that makes it all real.

Looking at the weather forecast ahead of time, it looked almost certain like it was going to rain Thursday night and Friday, but Saturday and Sunday looked beautiful. As the rain started on Thursday night, I decided I should go ahead and change to rain tires so I could take advantage of all of my practice time on Friday. Amazingly, when I woke up on Friday morning, the track was dry and the radar showed rain, but not right away. My practice group was first up in the morning, so I decided to throw the DOT’s back on and go out for practice. As we rolled out onto the track, it started to sprinkle and the sky continued to darken. I knew the track was dry for the moment, so I decided to put my head down and turn some good laps before the rain really started to come down. The session was 40 minutes long, so I went out for a mini session early, came in to take a quick drink and check over the bike, and then went back out and turned some more decent laps. On the last lap of the session, the rain started to increase and the water on my face shield started to accumulate. As I slowly went through T10, I hit a sealer patch and slid both wheels simultaneously, which certainly got my attention and made me happy to get off the track that was only getting wetter as time went on. I ended practice one in P15 in my group with a 1:43.8, which certainly isn’t anything to write home about, but it was a decent start with a lot of room for improvement.

It rained pretty heavily for the rest of the morning, but the rain stopped around noon or so. My second practice session started at 1pm, and with the rain tapering off, I was hopeful that the track would dry up so I didn’t have to burn a set of tire stickers on rains. The sun started to peek out from behind the clouds, a nice breeze started, and the track started to dry up but wasn’t quite dry by 1pm. I came up with a brilliant plan for the second 40 minute practice session…. I would let everyone else go out early and form a dry line around the track and then I would go out after the track dried. Well… my brilliant plan must have been everyone else’s brilliant plan too, and not a single rider went out at 1pm. I decided that no matter what, I would go out at 1:20pm and get 20 minutes of practice time in, and as I started to gear up, others started to hit the track right before me. I clicked off a few good laps in this session with my best being a 1:36.4, good enough to put me up to P7. Again, this isn’t fast, but I made a good amount of progress and I felt great on the bike, so I was really optimistic about qualifying on Saturday.

Pic 3: The crew working while I'm turning laps during qualifying.

Since I was riding in group 2 for the 600 Superstock class, my qualifying session was the first thing on track on Saturday morning. This plays against me because I am notoriously bad early in the morning; it takes me at least a couple of sessions before I’m loosened up and can move around like I need to do. To work around this, I decided I would treat this 40 minute qualifying session as 3 separate mini sessions with a quick break in between each one that allowed me to get off the bike and loosen up. I did just that, I went out for about 3 laps and quickly decided I didn’t want to waste too much time out in that “mini session” because I could tell I was struggling to move around like I needed to do. I came into the pits and stretched out a little and quickly went back out. My earlier stint had me running around P14, which didn’t surprise me at all. During my second stint, I dropped 4 seconds right away and I dropped down to P7. I was on my last flying lap of that stint when I came up quickly behind another rider.

 

My plan was to set the rider up to pass on the exit of the final corner, but as I quickly closed the gap, I realized she was off the apex and left a gap that I thought I could get through. My closing speed was fast enough that I didn’t need much of a gap, but just as soon as the door opened, she closed it right back up and I hit her tail end. I fought the crash for a spilt second, but my bike spit me off pretty quickly and I tumbled in the grass for what seemed like forever. I had enough time to think about one of our bikes hitting me, one of our bikes hitting her, hoping neither of us get hurt, and even enough time to get pissed at myself for damaging the body that took me weeks to fix after my last MotoAmerica round last year. When I stopped tumbling, I jumped up and looked for the other rider: I wasn’t hurt, so I was positive that she wasn’t so lucky. To my surprise, she was nowhere to be found, so my attention quickly shifted to my bike. In that split second, I thought maybe I hit her and she stayed up, so now I need to go check out my bike and hopefully get back to the pits. As I walked around, I noticed my bike was nowhere to be found as well. I was a little confused, but I thought it was possible my bike stayed upright and rode off the track over the crest of a hill before it fell, so I walked up the hill. As I crested the top of the hill, I quickly noticed that my bike was still nowhere in sight, so I started walking down the front straight along the brush line thinking maybe it went that far. As I walked down the straight, I came within eyesight of my pit and noticed my bike was already there and my crew was already working on the bike. Now my head is about to explode… I’m so confused and I’m starting to wonder if I hit my head… things just weren’t adding up. I sat out on the side of the track for about 15 more minutes waiting for the session to end, and then crossed the track and was met by my crew who told me what had happened. As I was spit off the bike, my left clip-on stabbed her tail section and stuck there, keeping my bike attached to hers. She rode her bike into the pits with mine in tow and took my bike all the way in the pits before someone grabbed it. My bike, although there was some cosmetic damage from the impact, never hit the ground in one of the fastest crashes I’ve ever had. 

 

VIDEO OF THE CRASH CAN BE SEEN HERE!

Pic 4: Me walking around by the brushline parallel to the front straight because I have no idea where my bike is.

Pic 5: The two bikes involved in the crash.

Pic 6: This is where my handle bar puntured the tail.

Pic 7: Denise and I talking to Shelina after the crash.

Pic 8: Walking from hot pit to parc ferme to see the damage to the bike after the crash.

Since I crashed in qualifying and didn’t make the cut-off for the main race, I had to compete in a Last Chance Qualifier race and finish in the top 5 to go on to the main race. I was starting in 9th on the grid and if you’ve ever read one of my race reports, you’ve probably noticed the trend that I am a terrible starter. For some reason, though, this race was different and I got a great jump off the line. As we went into T1, I was up into P6, but as we entered, I noticed a rider that was out of shape all the way down the front straight and especially going into T1. He entered T1, a right handed turn, from the far right side of the track and cut off several riders. As I watched, I decided I was going to hang back a bit because I had a feeling he was going to take himself and others out with him, and I didn’t want to be one of those riders. Since I hesitated a bit, Nick Doolan decided to pass me around the outside of T1 which boxed me in a little. When the out of control rider cut others off in front of me, it caused everyone to check up in front of me and because I was boxed in, I had nowhere to go and I hit Nick. Luckily we were able to stay up, but Nick ran off track and I lost 8 spots in T1. I exited T1 in P14 and just that quickly my hopes for making the top 5 had all but escaped me. In the first few laps, I pushed hard to regain the lost time and I fought to pass riders in front of me. However, I quickly found myself making mistakes here and there that would work against me, and I never found my rhythm: I ultimately finished in P12.

After the LCQ I came into the pits and my crew quickly noticed that my bike had developed an oil leak. We looked the bike over and decided that we thought maybe the case cover gasket had been compromised in one of the hits that my left side had taken, so overnight I fixed that gasket and had the bike ready for Sunday. In the early morning warm up session on Sunday, I went out for a lap to double check that the leak had been fixed, and then planned to go right back out to turn some laps. Unfortunately, I hadn’t fixed the leak and oil was still leaking from somewhere. We couldn’t pin point the problem, so we cleaned it up and I went back out for one more lap to try to locate the leak. When I came in, we found that the leak had gotten much worse, and there was still no definite location identified. My next time on track was scheduled to be the LCQ on Sunday. I wasn’t comfortable going out on track with the leak getting worse without knowing what we were trying to fix, so I decided to call it a weekend and go home with the bike intact. As much as I wanted to race, I did not want to be the guy that oiled the track, crashing myself or anyone else out of a race.

Pic 9: Oil splatter on the rear tire after the LCQ.

As much as I hated missing the races on Sunday, I didn’t have to miss one of my favorite parts about the pro event; the fan walk. I’m not a flashy guy, I don’t normally go out of my way to talk to people. I’d normally rather sit in my garage and tinker than go out on any given night. But the fan walk brings all sorts of racing fans to the pits and I get a chance to chat with some of them. The range of fans is awesome, some are 4 year old toddlers, some are 65 year old die-hard fans, and everything in between. We all have something in common; we love racing.

Pic 10: Signing an autograph for a race fan.

After talking to a bunch of fans and signing autographs, my mother-in-law walked up and said that she had talked to Wayne Rainey and that if I walked down hot pit, I could go chat with him for a bit. I hated missing some of the fans that walked up after I had walked away, but it’s not every day you get to meet and chat with a legend like that. When I walked up to him, I introduced myself and he immediately knew who I was. His response to my introduction was “Oh, you’re that famous guy,” referring to the video of my crash in qualifying. I nervously chuckled because I had no idea how to handle the irony of Wayne Rainey calling me famous, but we had a good laugh about it and we talked about other events I’d done with MotoAmerica and where my home tracks were. As my racing career continues, I’ve accumulated a list of really cool things that my terrible memory just couldn’t forget if I tried. This one goes straight toward the top of that list.

Pic 11: Some of the crew and World Champion, Wayne Rainey.

As I reflect on the weekend as I do every race weekend, I have to ask myself if this was a successful weekend. For nearly every other event I’ve done during my career, I have been able to answer yes regardless of how I finished the races, and this one is no different. I certainly didn’t get the results I was looking for, I think that’s pretty obvious. But what may be less obvious are the things I’ve learned because of this event. It’s hard for me to point at specific things that I’ve learned from this event because I was on the track for such a small amount of time. I learned less about my riding this event than normal, but I did learn some things about myself that I think are interesting. As much as I wanted to race on Sunday, I made what I believe is the mature decision. I don’t know that I would have made that same decision 3 years ago, but I’m glad that I’m able to do that now.

Pic 12: Dave, Randy, and Fred talking about the crash in parc ferme.

I want to thank all of the crew that came out to support me during this event. I’m sure that it wasn’t always a walk in the park, especially when things weren’t going well and I was upset with myself or others on the track. My crew did an awesome job keeping me going both physically and mentally, always making sure they went above and beyond so I could keep my head in the game. Randy Chabot was my local guy, super helpful and knowledgeable about VIR and racing in general. Fred Baly came all the way from Boston and helped a ton, and my in-laws Dave and Dianne Fornoff drove out in their new RV from Illinois to help out for their first pro weekend. I also can’t forget to thank my awesome wife for her support, both on and off the track.

Pic 13: Denise and I during the fan walk.

Speaking of thanking people, my supporters this year are helping out a ton and without that help I couldn’t afford to race at this level. Shoei Helmets continues to be a huge supporter and our choice of protection. Not only is their product the best (especially the new X-14!), but their customer service is amazing as well. Pilot Motosport has stepped up again this year and provided us with the best crash suit on the market. Unfortunately, I tested the new suit the very first time I put it on, but it held up perfectly and only had cosmetic damage. Sportbike Tire Service is the premier dealer of Michelin tires, and the knowledge that David Grey has in his giant cranium is astounding. Popshadow Decals has once again outdone themselves with the graphics on my bike. Vortex Racing is still second to none in the customer service department, and their products speak for themselves. We’ve added Pitbull Products to our team this year and we couldn’t be happier to have such a fantastic company supporting us this year. Pitbull is known for their industry leading stands, but they have also been coming out with some awesome new products as well. Moto-D Racing has been a supporter for a few years now and we couldn’t be happier with them. Their tire warmers are amazing, they allow you to really dial in the temperature of the tires based on the conditions, and they also have some awesome products out there that you should check out. Spiegler Performance Parts has also been supporting us for a while now and their brake lines are the industry standard for stainless lines. Sidi boots make the lightest, most protective boots on the market, and Spy Optics keep us looking cool on the grid before the races. The Motorcycle Factory Inc in Woodbridge, VA has some of the best deals on new and used bikes. Lastly, Core Nutritionals helps me prepare for these grueling weekends at the track with some awesome workout supplements.

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Racing requires skill, courage, dedication, hard work, a little luck, and a lot of money. I am an amateur privateer racer, which means I pay for all of this out of my own pocket. Being a professional racer is certainly a dream of mine, but at this time, I must pay my own way.



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