topeka

The first USGPRU race of the year was scheduled at Heartland Park Topeka in Topeka, Kansas. The 12 hour drive from our house was horrible! The only cool thing about the traveling part (which I usually find some way of having fun) was being able to witness the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri. It is enourmus, and really well crafted the way it is shaped. So anyway, We arrived in Topeka at around 2:30 in the morning (not sure how, I was asleep) and stayed in a motel for four hours. Friday morning started the race weekend with a planned practice round in the morning and a GTLights race (like the WERA Solo 20 race) for ccs. The problems started early though. I left my wallet at home with both of my expired WERA lisences, plus my FIM lisence was on the Dining room table. Ccs calls for "racing experience" to get a ccs lisence, which was all at home, so we had to call my brother Robbie back home, from work (thanks man) to go to my house to get all my lisence and than go back to work so he could fax them to the ccs people at the track. After this mess, we went inside and parked by Miles Thornton. We unloaded the truck, I got dressed and acually made the second round of practice (only four laps though). THe GTLights race would be my first real ride on the track to get to know it, and it ended up pouring down, which just made it that much harder for me to learn the track. I wound up coming in half through the race asking for tape on the radiator because the bike was running to cold, but my dad didnt have any, so I just went back out and finished the race anyways. Saturday was a little better of a day. Practice in the morning went OK. Qualifying killed my whole weekend pretty much though. I qualified 3rd row for the 125 race and second row for the 250 race (both USGPRU races). In the ccs 125 GP race on Saturday, I came from a good ways behind, only to catch Scott Smallwood at the last second to pass him only milimeters after the finish line. SUnday went pretty good. In the ccs 125 GP race, I had a great, strong battle going with Hayden Gillim (who has most deffinantly improved a bunch since last year). It was a really fun race, only with about 2 or 3 laps to go, he entered turn two to deep and tucked the fornt end on the brakes, givign me the win. A good way to start a day off in my opinion. The USGPRU 125 race was the best race of the weekend. I came from 3rd row on the start and fell in behind Hayden Gillim in fourth place entering the first turn. I worked past him and started reeling in PJ Jacobsen and Nobi Iso who was acually on an Aprilia 125 (so much motor in a straight line!!/Hayden was still on my tail). Once I caught Nobi and began to lose Hayden due to his tires giving out. My tires started to go out, they were sliding all over the place in every turn. My front tire has nothing left AT ALL!!! Nobi ended up motoring away on the front stretch to take second which left me with third. The podium thing is way cooler than any of the other podium things I have ever done. They an accual podium and a guy went by all of us with a microphone and interviewed us all. They had champange (for kids/it was acually like sparkling grape juice in a fancy bottle). The USGPRU 250 race was not near as good. My tires were so far gone that I couldnt keep up with myself really. I wanted to go much faster but my tires were holding me back. I ended up 6th in it. Miles had a bad weekend but maybe he will be back up to par this weekend at Barber for the WERA National race. See Ya.