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This time we had almost 6 weeks between races, so I got the bodywork mostly re-painted and I mounted a new BT-090 front tire.
I also bought a used set of front brake calipers on eBay. One of the mounting tabs turned out to be stripped, so I couldn't swap calipers. Instead, I removed the pistons from those calipers and carefully polished them and put them into my calipers. Yet again, it didn't seem to help. I'm about ready to replace the whole front end of the bike to get rid of the dragging brakes!
My biggest sponsor (Julie) gave me a Razor scooter for my birthday, so I was stylin' this weekend in the pits!
I spent the day in Portland at the office. I called up Bud Reece and he broke his earlier plans to go out to dinner with me. Then we watched Little Big Man, his favorite movie.
Tony Jones had a reunion party to go to on Friday, but I stayed at his house. He had to leave even earlier on Saturday morning than I did to go rock-climbing.
Saturday morning was cool and clear, but it warmed up and became partly cloudy as the day went on. Les Green helped me fix a broken pole on my EZ-Up canopy.
I scuffed in the new front tire in the morning practice sessions. There was an endurance race in the afternoon, but Team Laupp-Sided wasn't running this time due to financial woes. I watched the first 40 minutes of the race, then headed out to get a few things done in Portland.
In the evening, Tony and Lizbeth and I went to the Indian restaurant again.
It started raining around 4AM. The rain stopped around 8 or so, and despite cloudy skies the track was fully dry by noon.
I didn't bother to mount my rain tires even though the track was wet. It looked to me like the rain was done for the day, and I was right. In the 450 Superbike qualifier, I got 3rd due to many riders choosing not to go out on the wet track.
In the 450 Supersport qualifier, Stuart shot away from the rest of us with his rain tires on. Scott didn't come out for the qualifier, so I built up a pretty big gap in second place on the first lap. I was cruising around taking it easy in the rain, then Jim Kennedy gave me some "hurry up" signals from the pit wall. It turns out Rick Kersey was catching me quickly using a rain tire on the rear with a street front tire. I managed to stay ahead of him to finish second.
I finished 8th in the Middleweight Superbike qualifier on the now only damp track.
During lunch, everyone who had rain tires mounted took them off. Many people had toasted their rain tires because the track was drying out.
In the 450 Superbike main I followed Stuart around for a few laps while the lead pack of SV650's drew away from us. Stuart seemed to be having some kind of engine trouble, and I passed him and went on to dice with some of the SV650s in the 650 Supersport Twins class that starts in the wave ahead of us. I finished 5th.
In the 450 Supersport main I got a good start, while Stuart and Rick wheelied on either side of me. As usual, Scott Soper rocketed past from the second row. I followed Scott around and kept him in sight the whole race. I even got close enough to think about passing him a couple times, but with the way he pulled away from me on the straightaways I knew it would have to be a last-lap manuever in order to work. Unfortunately I got held up a little by some slow bikes from the 125 wave on lap 8 and couldn't get close enough on the last lap (10) to try to make a pass. It was fun, even though I suspect Scott was sand-bagging.
In the Middleweight Superbike main I ended up behind Bardsley Donovan on his RZ350 on the first lap. I hounded him the whole race knowing that I had corner speed on him, but he had motor on me on the straights. On the last lap I surprised him by passing him just out of turn 8 and beat him to the finish line for 10th place. We both had a lot of fun in that race!
On the cool-down lap, I down-shifted between turns 2 and 3 and thought I hit a false neutral or something because I suddenly had no power. It turns out that the nut holding the countershaft sprocket on had stripped and fallen off at some point. The sprocket fell off on the cool-down lap, but who knows when the bolt fell off? Thank goodness it wasn't during the race. Is there a better time to break down than after the last race of the season?
For my birthday, Jan and Oscar Sander gave me some money for race gas. Thanks!
Thanks to Tony Jones for letting me stay at his place and paying for dinner!
Thanks to Bud Reece for changing his plans to have dinner with me, and congratulations to him on his recent retirement!
Thanks to all the OMRRA turn workers, registration folks, and other volunteers who made this OMRRA race weekend possible.
Thanks to my sponsors Inside Line, Bridgestone Tires, and Lockhart-Philips USA.
My most special sponsor is my wife, Julie!
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