Well my much anticipated first national of the year did not go as
planned. It was a rough weekend from start to finish (I've had no luck
at "The Dunes" in a long time)...
In Saturday's practice I clipped my arm on another rider's handlebars
who was stalled in a corner. My left hand went numb and I pulled off.
It turned out to just be a bad charley horse but I was unable to ride
the 450 practice.
On Sunday, my 250 practice went good although my arm was still pretty
sore. I only rode a few laps of the 450 practice since my 250
qualifier was almost back-to-back with it. On the first lap of my 250
qualifier, my motor let go. Turns out the piston broke right off the
connecting rod (manufacturing defect??). I regrouped and went out for
the 450 qualifier. My bad luck continued on the first lap when my
clutch perch randomly broke when I pulled the cable in. I rode 1 lap
with no clutch before before crashing twice. Luckily, my one lap I put
in was fast enough to qualify.
When the first 450 moto rolled around I honestly did not feel ready. I
hate making excuses but in the 3 or 4 laps I had put in on 450 over
the weekend I was just not comfortable on the rough track. In fact,
other than racing Port Perry the weekend before, I hadn't even ridden
the 450 in almost 6 weeks!
I had a good start and was about 13th. However, I was just riding too
tight, got arm pump and started fading. I decided to pull off before
the halfway mark, cut my losses and call it a weekend before I got
hurt.
I'm obviously disappointed with how things turned out but I feel like
I made the right decision not to ride the 450. We're piecing together
the 250 and will have it ready for the last two nationals - Sand Del
Lee and Walton. This will give me time to get back up to speed and
give my knee and my fitness a chance to get back to 100%.
Thanks for reading,
DL68
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment