Chapter 11: On a Brisk Winter's Morning.
Today is Jan 20th, 2013. It was almost 80* in LA and almost 70* at WSIR. Last weekend was rather the opposite, with WSIR between 30-45*.
Despite my not having tire warmers I pressed on with the track day, fully aware that I would probably crash. I didn't care. I needed to ride. I needed to test parts, feel speed, exorcise demons, I don't know what it was but I needed it.
I stayed up all night installing my Annitori quickshifter and my block-off plates. I got 2 hours sleep and my friend came over about 7am to load up. It was cold as shit so we waited around for a few hours until the sun fully came out and headed up to the track. We should have just gotten drunk and watched National Geographic or something.
I pulled up on WSIR Streets and some dude recognized my helmet (he's in here somewhere, sorry I missed you after that dude) and we chatted for a second until my friend Javelin pulled up next to me. This kid rips, he rides AMA on an R6 and I've chased him around Big Willow before on a day that really progressed my riding.
Anyways, any hope for me taking it easy just went out the window, ****ing 17 y/o AMA rider is right behind me. I rip down the straight, fully tuck, LOVING the quickshifter. Go through turn 1 and get on the brakes pretty good since I know my tires are wicked cold. Tip in to turn 2 and crack on the gas and the rear spins up, immediately steps out on me and slams me into the ground. I thought I was going slow as shit too (I was!).
Broke my screen, bent the **** out of my brake lever, rashed my fairings and did some more work to my sliders. Whatever. Ain't care. Wish I didn't do it but oh well. That day ended up being nuts. I think there were over 15 crashes. Lots of carnage. The track never got warm, the ambient didn't go above 40-45* all day.
I also should have softened my suspension up a ton. I was delirious at 5am and just opened my notebook and put on the "Streets" setting, not thinking it should be a lot softer given the temperature.
I am also shopping for tire warmers now. Finally. At the advice of my teenage AMA racer lunatic friends. Who I have enlisted to train me to be a proper madman.
Yup.
[EDIT] I also hit my helmet on the ground (not very hard) but it still totally bummed me out. More mad about that than anything else that happened. Also rashed up the top of my right glove pretty good when I went down. Happy to report I only had a slightly bruised forearm and no other injuries. Its so worth it to invest in good gear!
Linear Mode
