This was my first CCS race and it was fun!

I've been told repeatedly that CCS "ain't the AFM" and my experience last 
weekend would support that but, I think that it's been a little overblown.
Yeah, tech was cursory and yeah, grid sheets were posted mere minutes before 
some of the races, the schedule got changed mid-day and getting official 
results took hours but, there's something to be said for a more grass-roots 
racing organization.

There's alot of classes to run in if you're so inclined, the staff was nice 
and helpful and heck, I got a trophy!

Saturday
========
Saturday morning I went to registration and got to bypass the huge line 
because I pre-registered. I breezed through tech and missed my first of three 
scheduled practice sessions chasing down some electrical gremlins. After pulling 
the bike apart and tightening/wiggling all the connections the problem seemed 
to go away. Which wasn't real reassuring as I didn't actually fix anything. Oh 
well, my morning practice sessions were fairly productive and without further 
incident.

I was pleased to note that there was one other familiar looking EX250 
circulating the course in practice group 1. It turned out that this was AFM'er 
Richard Lesher on Paul Somerville's bike so, there was definitely gonna be 
another 250 on the grid. Yehaw!

I was concerned that, since Lesher had been racing for ages and was on a better 
bike, that we wouldn't get to play in the race Sunday.

Sunday
======
CCS doesn't require you to re-register or to go through tech again if you 
already did on Saturday so, I had a mellow morning until they called out the 
practice groups. I was in Group 3 this morning which was the same group as 
Lesher. We were both pleased to learn that we were pretty evenly matched and 
were looking forward to a great race that afternoon.

When CCS finally posted the grid sheets Lesher wasn't on it so, he spent 
about twenty minutes getting that straightened out. Yet another reason to 
pre-register.

I had the pole and Richard was to my right. We had joked that whomever got 
the holeshot was gonna win the race and his spot gave him the inside line into 
turn one making it unlikely that I was gonna be able to get in front of him 
in time. Drat. 

Richard beat me off the line but somehow I was able to pull up next to him 
before he took the inside line into turn 1 and I had to fall behind. Were I 
managed to stay for a couple of laps before the motor starting cutting in and 
out. At first it seemed to only happen in right handers which is usually a 
symptom that I'm running out of gas but I checked it before the race! Then it 
cuts out in a left hander.

"Hmmm, is the fuel filter clogged?"

The problem was getting worse and worse and starting to noticeably cost me 
time! I eventually saw that the dashboard went dead when the engine bogged 
out so, I was seeing my electrical gremlins from Saturday again. F*ck!

The power losses were becoming more and more frequent and longer in duration. 
Richard was pulling one, two and then three seconds ahead of me as each lap 
progressed and I was beginning to wonder if I could go the distance. F*ck!

...I made it! I finished about 4 seconds behind Richard and made it around the 
first few corners of the cool down lap before the ninja gave up and died. So, I 
finished my cool down lap on the back of the crash truck. Three hours later CCS 
posted the results so, I could get my 2nd place trophy and go home.

What a great weekend!!!