Hello everyone, today on October 1st, 2011 I raced at Calistoga speedway round 19 of the AMA Pro Flat Track Series. I had never raced at Calistoga so I was excited to see how the track was going to be and how my bike was going to work at this track. The length of the track was a half mile, I haven’t had much experience on half mile tracks so it was going to be interesting to see how I was going to do. I have only raced 1 half mile track back east when I was racing at the amateur nationals, and also I am on another borrowed bike, not really used to it.
In the first practice I was hitting the rev limiter really early going down the straight-aways so I knew that I was geared wrong. Also the bike wasn’t hooking up as good as I wanted it to so I knew that I also had to make some adjustments to the suspension. After the 1st practice I was 12th fastest out of my class. Now I had two sessions of qualifying to determine where I line up in my heat race. In my first qualifying I wasn’t hitting the rev limiter anymore so the bike was working a little bit better. But I was spinning up more than I was in the practice session. I ended up qualifying 14th in that session. I still had one more session to go do good and get a good lap time in. The bike was still spinning up some but I ended up qualifying 12th in that session of qualifying.
Now it was time for me to race my heat race. I had 1st pick on the 2nd row. I picked the inside line so that if I got a good start that I would shoot under everyone and be in the front of the pack. The guy ahead of me got a bad start off the line which caused me to break and messed up my whole start. I was about 9th going into turn 1. This track was really hard to pass on because when you would go into the turn it would want to just shove you right out of the turn instead of let you hold your line. I ended up getting around 8th place in the 3rd lap. I started to catch 7th place but I didn’t pass him until the 5th lap and I couldn’t make up any more ground on 6th place and ended up taking 7th place. I got the last transfer spot straight to the main, which made me happy that I didn’t have to go to a semi.
For the main event I had 1st pick on the 3rd and back row. I knew I was going to be hard to get a good start from the back row but I chose the inside for the start and hoped for the best on my start. On the start I went under a bunch of guys going into turn 1 and was running in about 6th place. One of the rides bikes blew up and they crashed on the second lap so they stopped he race and set up for a restart. I was a little disappointed that they stopped the race because of how good of a start that I had gotten. But now I was thinking that I might even be able to get a better start than before. The race started and going into turn 1 everyone kept a tight line instead of going wide which made it to where I couldn’t pass anyone. I was in last place going into turn 3. On the second lap going into turn 3 someone ran over a rock or a bike part that had to have been around the size of a baseball and someone’s rear tire shot it at me and hit me directly in the chest. It hurt really bad and was making it hard for more to breathe and I was having a hard time turning the bike into the turns. I passed a rider going into turn 1 and was now in 17th place I passed 2 more riders going into turn 3 and was now in 15th. I held 15th place the hole race until someone passed me in the last lap in turn 3 and I ended up taking 16th place.
Overall had a fun day at another pro race. Thanks a bunch to all of my sponsors for all of your help and support. I will be doing my next pro race at Pomona Round 20 of the AMA pro flat track series. See you all there.
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