First race for me since 1998! I was anxious and nervous for pretty much the whole weekend apart from when I was on the bike. Friday was a KSR track day and Josh came to that on his road SV650, we were running the Screaming Alien layout in reverse (CCW).
Track day went well, conditions were great and I got straight back into dragging the knee – I’m well pleased with the CBRs handling, it’s on stock suspension and settings all round and I find it confidence inspiring. I went straight into red group this time, might as well get used to people putting passes on you and there were plenty of quick guys there to try and follow round. I struggled to find a good line through the left at the end of the back straight and the next 90 right but started to feel pretty good through the long left (Big daddy) with multiple apexes and the following long right.
Josh had new Dunlop Q3+ tires on but hasn’t had much seat time, in fact he’s only ever run that particular SV650 up the street, he’s ridden my street SV a few times. He went out in green group and was soon passing people and you could see his lean angle increasing with each lap.
Saturday qualifying sprint races are only 6 laps but that was a good intro for me since I’m still developing some race stamina. I finished in the top half of both Lost Era Lightweight and Old Folks Amateur classes giving me some decent grid positions for the races. The rear wheel was starting to move around a bit and there were no wear holes left on either side of the rear tire so I swapped it for one of my other scrubs … that was a bit better hehe.
Sunday races went well even though my races were back to back which meant 12 laps, a 2 minute break and then another 12 laps! It wasn’t too bad but I had beads of sweat bouncing around inside my helmet by the last few laps of the second race. About that time I was lapping by myself in Old Folks and focusing on staying on and finishing the race. That allowed Danny (who was riding in the Pro class and had an issue at the start) to catch up on the last few corners of the race …
I ended up finishing 14th out of 28 and 10th out of 29, some of the guys in Old Folks were way quicker than I expected but I was pretty happy with those results for my Canadian debut.