CCS at LVMS May 10-11, 2003

Janice and I loaded up and hit the road early Friday afternoon and got to Vegas 
about 10 hours later. We got a little disoriented at the track 'cause we were 
tired, there was drag racing going on, lots of security and people and we were 
holding the track map upside down. Anyway, we decided to stay in a hotel that 
night. $$$

Saturday morning, we got up early and headed out to the track. The pits were 
bigger than I was expecting and we got a nice spot near the hot pit. We set the
pit up, registered, went through tech and headed out for my only scheduled 
practice session to learn the track before the first race. Eeep.

Las Vegas Classic Course is pretty neat. It's mostly a collection of really 
tight corners, a couple of short straights and a long gently curved top speed 
(for a Ninja 250 at least) straight in back. Turn 1 is a particularly fun 90 
degree right hander - go in fast and throw it in as hard as you can. Yehaw!

My race was combined with open singles and lightweight GP and I was gridded in 
the 9th row and got a good launch (to about row 6). In CCS I feel like I'm 
getting decent at starting whereas in the AFM my best starts just mean I keep 
up with everyone else. Anyway, I was really stiff, making alot of mid corner 
corrections, etc. because I didn't know the track but, hey another first place 
finish in my class.

Apparently, the announcer was really taken with me and spent the better part of 
the race talking about me and racing little bikes and how cool that was. Neat! 
People were coming up to my pit all weekend long and asking questions and I 
even got a couple of offers for the ninja. Anyway, good press for the 250 
class!

Afterward, Janice and I tied everything down and hit the strip. Which was fun 
but I was feeling pretty wasted from riding so hard and wasn't too in to it. 
We were hoping to go see Penn & Teller at the Rio but the $75 ticket price 
torpedoed that for us. Oh well, you can never see the pirate show at Treasure 
Island too many times!

We slept in a little later Sunday morning, checked out and headed down to the 
track. I bested my fastest lap from Saturday in the morning practice session 
and was feeling a little smoother.

CCS had time sheets up from Saturday and it looked like I could have made a 
stab at the podium in Lightweight Sportsman (SV650's mostly). Oh well. :)

My Sunday race was combined with open singles, lightweight GP and middle weight 
sportsman and I was on the 5th row. If I got a great start there was a chance 
that I could beat the entire singles grid. I got my launch but got a false 
neutral which left me waaay back going into turn 1. Damn.

Fought my way through some traffic but the singles front runners had pulled far 
enough away that it would probably have taken me 15 laps to reel 'em in. Drat.

Still, I was feeling a little better and Janice said that I eventually clicked 
into "graceful" mode and found another second on my previous best time and 
collect my second first place finish for the weekend.

We load up and hit the road. We decide to experiment with a different route on 
the way home which unfortunately costs us an hour and a half and pull in around 
3 or 4 AM.