For those of you that hadn't heard, my motor blew up in the 250p race at Las Vegas but, I managed to limp it across the finish line. I pulled it apart last Saturday and it looks like the head gasket blew and, as the motor burned off all the coolant, the pistons seized and partially collapsed, the head warped, the bearings crapped out, etc. etc. Blown motors suck. With only a matter of days left before the next race I called in every favor and kicked over every rock to get all the parts and work needed to get the motor rebuilt. I gotta thank Marino's for staying late to get the machining done in a day, Mike Norman for being Mike and letting me raid his parts inventory even though I'm riding for "the enemy" (LOL!) and, of course, SpeedShop for working un-godly hours to rebuild my motor in only two days! ...The rest of this drags on a bit so consider yourself warned! Friday ------ Kenyon Kluge and I had planned to carpool and he wanted to leave around 7. I was running a little late and when I got to Speedshop around 7 but the bike wasn't ready. I gave Kenyon a call and told him we needed another half an hour. ...and again a half an hour after that and again and again. We finally admitted to ourselves that there was still alot of work to do and decided that he should probably just go with out me and I'd get up there whenever I got up there. Eventually we got the bike all together and running but, in our part collecting haste we'd forgotten a few gaskets (clutch cover, oil sump screen, etc.) and our slobber silicone everywhere solution wasn't working. After alot of trial and error we finally got everything tight, loaded up and I got to Sears a little after 2:30 AM. I parked the truck in the driveway, hopped the fence and climbed into Kenyon's warm camper. Saturday -------- Get up at 5:45 AM so, that I can drive my truck in, register, and tech the Ninja. I hook up with the rest of my endurance teammates, none of whom have done or even watched an endurance race before, and we struggle through the registration, tech, etc process and we all miss our first sessions. In the second round I get to scrub in the new tires on the SV. The ergo's were a little weird at first, the brakes were dynamite and the clutch just took the lightest touch - so much so that I stalled a few times before I even got onto the track. I pulled out, thinking I was gonna die but, very very quickly came to love the SV - It's just so easy to ride! The first time around 7 I leaned the bike further over than I'd ever leaned a bike over before, tearing off a good bit of leather off my suit in the process. I came in with a grin so big that I thought my face was gonna crack. In the third short practice session I'm determined to get my elbow down for the first time but, never quite make it. No biggie - I've got all afternoon in the endurance race to try. Somewhere in all of this Asaf Chibi came over, raided my spare parts stash and I helped him put his bike back together after his morning crash. The Endurance Race ------------------ Nobody on my team has any illusions about being competitive and the plan was basically to have fun and get some bonus sears seat time in but, it wasn't to be when our first rider, Ray Soto, wads the bike in turn 10 after 11 laps. No, the bike can't be brought in and Yes, your race is over. Damn. Ray was having some trouble seeing straight after his crash so, his wife took him to the hospital to get him checked out but, they pronounced him more or less fit to go home after a CAT scan. We packed up our endurance pit and I did some hill climbing with the Ninja on the ring roads to break the motor in. Sunday ------ I finally had a chance to ride the Ninja on the track and take a proper look at the course in morning practice but, did my best to keep the revs low to break in the motor until the end, and my restraint ran out, when I got a couple of flying laps in. I was hitting six gear red line in turn 8 and basically just holding it there all the way until I started braking for turn 11. Sucky, but the time sheet showed me hovering around 2 minutes - that's 12 seconds faster than I was in March! Word in the pits was that a 1:55 was probably going to be a winning time which left me a little slow to be as far in front of Asaf as I needed to be to take over the top 250p novice slot. I figured I'd find a couple more seconds in the race when I wasn't babying the motor but it was gonna be tight. I put a +1 counter shaft sprocket on and a -1 rear sprocket and went out on the 250 superbike hot lap. Unfortunately something seemed to be weird with the clutch. When I'd shift and let out the clutch nothing would happen for a whole beat and then the RPM's would drop sickeningly low and slowly climb back to where they should be. Still, the taller gearing had me coming into turn 10 wicked fast compared to the old stuff - I probably could have gone down one more tooth in back but, I was more worried about the clutch. When I came in I futzed with the cable tension some and went out for the next hot lap and had the same problem so, I started doing laps in the hot pit until I got it as good as I could and was just gonna keep my fingers crossed for the race. The Race -------- I was gridded on the inside spot on the third row and got a decent launch. I stayed hard on the gas all the way up and through turn 2 and noticed that I was directly behind Jay Kinberger, running 5th, and I could see the front! While I was trying to figure out where reality had wandered off too I did my best to keep my head down and stay part of the Jay, Steve, Val & Chris pack. The bump in turn 6 was upsetting the bike so much that I was always pleasantly surprised when the front end eventually came back, I was doing my best to keep my turn 11 suckiness under control and I never really got used to how much faster I was going with the taller gearing (this is the first time I've touched it before) but, the clutch was working beautifully. Jay and Steve eventually checked out, or just drifted out of my focus zone, leaving Val & Chris in front of me and dicing for third. I kept chanting to myself, "Holy Shit, I'm behind Chris McGrail!" over and over again. Unbelievable! I was using all my best kung-fu but Chris and Val obstinately stayed half of a second or so ahead and I could never get into the mix. We finally caught up to traffic on lap 6 and sometimes that worked for me and sometimes that worked against me but, the net affect turned out to be a big fat zero and I finished in the same spot I was on the second corner of the first lap. In some ways it was my most boring race ever - no dicing, no close calls, no nothing. Just me chasing Chris and Val. On the other hand is was the most fun ever! Man, I wish we had lap times! At the end I noticed someone down in 3 and Lisa Maz doing the, "I'm so embarrassed" shuffle in 6 but, happily both looked okay otherwise! Afterward, I found out the David Crone, Mike Norman and Tom Hicks had done an excellent job of keeping Asaf far enough behind me that I was able to make enough points to be top 250p novice of the year. Yay! Pirelli gave me a hat and took my picture while I was feeling like a great big dork. This was a pretty amazing year for me. I came in almost dead last in March and got to dice with most everyone at some point as the season progressed. Thank you's to everyone in 250p for all your advice and support (particularly Jay, I learned alot from him at the CCS Vegas race) and a great big giant congrats to Steve for kickin' butt and always having a smile on his face!