01/15/05 FFTWS @ San Bernadino County Fairgrounds
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My first real flat track experience! ...And it was kind of a blur.

Show up at noon, figure out registration, grab some pit space. My neighboors were first 
timers too so, that was reassuring and, a former Co-worker, Josh Weiss, was there as well.

Go through tech where I'm informed that my much researched and long debated tire choice, 
Bridgestone Trail Wing 41/42's, are "knobby" - which, while strange to me, also qualifies 
me for the "knobby" class for next time, yay. They also made me remove the front brake 
lever (eeep) and wrap duct tape around my pegs (???).

The rider's meeting was a little disorganized but fun and they left us with a hearty 
"Please, please, please don't get hurt out there - the insurance is already sooo expensive 
that we can barely afford to put these on as it is."

That seems to be a re-occuring pattern now days (or possibly always). It makes me sad that 
less and less people are willing to take personal responsibility for their actions and, 
instead, finding someone, preferably with deep pockets, to blame. People don't want the 
liability, Insurance rates go up and sooner or later legislators step in and ban it.

...but I digress.


Practice
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They put me in the "knobby" practice group for my one and only six lap session. Six laps 
to learn how to flat track on a quarter mile loop. That's what? A couple of mnutes of seat 
time? It felt even shorter. Even worse, I sucked.

When I came in, someone said that I was holding my foot up waaaay to high, MX style, and 
suggested keeping in down by my peg so, that it'll slide instead of digging in.


Heat Race
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Grid sheets for the heat race wefre posted while I was in practice. I'd signed up for "125 
2-stroke/250 four stroke beginner" but they had me in the big bore play bike class. Which, 
IMHO, is where my CRF230F should be but, it's capped at 200cc's. Registration said that 
they had to move some people around to make bigger grids and agreed with me that this was 
probably a better match anyway. Yay!

...'Course, how I feel and how my competitors feel may be diffrerent things so, I wandered 
through the pits, introducing myself to my comeptitors and making sure it was okay with 
them. Nobody cared  ...not even a little. Double yay!

Grid up for the race, I've scored "poll" for some reason. The light turns green and I get 
a little wheelie but, go smokin' off from the line. Feeling bad, 'cause I do have a slight 
horsepower advantage, I roll off exiting the first corner thinking that maybe I'll ride a 
gear lower to even the odds. Besides, I'm here to learn and I'm gonna learn alot more 
actually racing than riding around by myself. That, however, turned out to be dumb 'cause 
Jimmy, on a TTR125L, flew by me and I never caught back up. Damn.

I did learn that by staying down on the inside line let's you block pretty well and that 
keeping my foot down like I was told was much nicer.



Hang around for a couple more hours. Watch the other races, the speedway guys were fun to 
watch and they fall down alot which is also fun. It's dark and cold but, the grandstand is 
pretty full.


...to be cont.