This is the 5th round of the CCS Midwest Region.
The Wednesday before we left, I took a Super Dave Visionsport class at Blackhawk. If you have to chance to do this, I would do it.
We left Friday after work and arrived in St.Louis around midnight. I stayed home from work on Friday cause I wasn't feeling good. During the class on Wednesday, I sat in front of a AC duct and had the cold air blowing over me during the day. Not good. I actually was going to miss this round until I checked the pre-registered list and saw that the guy in first place was on the list. Aw Crap, now I HAVE to go down there.
Saturday morning, we got to the track and found out about the no passing zone before you go onto the front straight. I totally understand why folks don't like this track. You could seriously get hurt around here. I did enjoy riding on the track though, it was fun.
Saturday was a open track day for everybody. I went out in the medium group since I'd never been to this track before. After about the 3rd or 4th session, I was doing all the passing and wasn't getting passed. At that point I was down into the 17's. The rain hit after that and then we had a gasoline mishap so we called it a day.
The gasoline mishap happened when I was holding a funnel for Graham and the gas can spout had a split in it and sprayed gas all over me. Not good. I quickly took off my Under Armour gear and got washed up. There's nothing like the burn of gasoline on your skin. I was able to wash up my riding clothes at the motel and let them dry over night.
Saturday night, we went looking for Ted Drewe's Custard shop (
http://www.teddrewes.com/Drewes.asp) while we down there. It turns out next door to Ted's is this pub called Al Smith's Feasting Fox. (
http://www.feastingfox.com/) Very good food.
Sunday is the actual race day with these Trackaddix events. I'm signed up for 2 races, Unlimited Superbike and Supertwins. I use the Superbike race as a warm up for the Supertwins. I don't really care how I finish in that race. I'm only concerned with my Supertwins finish.
During practice, I immediately knocked off 2 seconds off my times and dropped down into the consistent 15's.
It was dry during practice but they were calling for rain during the day. They called it correctly too.
We got the bike all ready for the Unlimited Superbike race and headed to the grid. As I was heading to the grid, I was getting hit with rain drops. I'm currently running slicks. Slicks and rain don't mix. I really wasn't worried about since it was just a drop or two. So we go out for the warm up lap and there's more rain. OK,, I'm getting a little concerned now. The flag drops and we're off! I felt like I was the last guy into turn 1. I was told otherwise but it felt like it. I am make it around in the first lap and could see some folks already pulling off because of the rain. I didn't think it was that bad yet, until I hit the front straight. I could see a wall of rain at turn 1. CRAP! So I basically slowed to a crawl and pulled off at the end of that lap along with a bunch of other folks.
I pulled into out pit and saw that Graham already had my rain tires pulled out of the trailer and the tools all ready to go. We'll just say we won't win any pit stop races but we got the tires swapped over in time.
I lined up for the Supertwins race and now the rain has stopped but everything is still very wet. I got a good launch and was actually up in the experts diving into turn 1. I basically just cruised around trying not to do anything stupid and passed folks when I could. I usually enjoy racing in the rain for some reason. In the amateurs, I was in first place for the whole race and by the end of the race, I was in third place overall!
My first race win on the RC51!!!
I even passed SuperDave Rosno! Granted, he was riding on DOT's so that doesn't count. :>)
Granted with the rain, the grids were very light. However, I pretty much had the whole amateur grid covered even if it was dry. The next closest guy was 2 seconds a lap slower than I was. There was only one person quicker than I was and it was by .5 second a lap.
We loaded up and headed home. I pulled up in front of the house around Midnight. I was still feeling like crap so I slept till noon on Monday.
Next on the schedule is Road America. It is also a twin sprints weekend so I have races on Friday and Saturday.
I owe a huge Thanks to Graham for going down there with me and helping out. It is greatly appreciated. I also owe Jeff thanks for the use of his generator when my started acting up on Sunday.
Chuck C.
CCS Midwest AM #99
Sponsored by PBI racing, Dark Horse Racing, DGY Motorsports, Lockhart Phillips, Bridgestone Tires, Win Racing, Oury Grips, and CRG Levers.
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