Lifes little ups and downs...., All in one weekend.... Options

[SpedToe169]

Well its been a busy week so I'm just now getting around to telling people about all this.....Last weekend was...interesting.

It started off horrible. My boss basically chewed my ass on thursday for not having the cars done when they should be and had no sympathy for the fact that I was not in control of the people I was waiting on for parts. So I was bummed. But I was preparing one car for myself that weekend. I got to do my first SCCA drivers school at Texas World Speedway on the 1.8 mile road course. To get an SCCA (regional) road race licence you have to do 2 SCCA sanctioned drivers schools and participate in 2 regional races as a novice. I had 2 very experienced and knowledgible instructors at the school and they helped me learn the track very quicly as they knew i had prior experience. I knew going in that their was a chance that I could get waived for my second school if I did well and had the 'required' experience but from what I'd heard it wasn't very likely. Anyway, I went out and did the best I could. I drove very clean, made a lot of good passes and managed to really dice it up with a couple of the other fast guys in the school. We were on track for 3:40 in 20 minute sessions. By the end of the day I was dead tired but I was kicking ass!!! We had a 5 lap 'mock' race at the end of the school with a rolling start and everything. I started in about 10th out of 40 (just random starting order) and I ended up 3rd after 5 laps. I also set the fastest race lap. I found out about 2 hours after that that my instructor had begged that the chief steward wave me so I could race on sunday....well...guess what....he did. I was gonna race.

I was so psyched it was really hard to keep myself focused. I had managed to calm down a lot by the time qualifying rolled around in the morning, but i was still shaky! I went out and did the best i could in qualifying. I didn't really ever get a good clean lap in with no traffic. There were something like 45 miatas on track with me. My lap beacon wasn't working so I really had no idea what i had done when I got back in. I just hoped to be in the top half. Sunday was MUCH different than saturday. There was some bumping even in qualifying and even the slow guys seemed hard to keep up with. About an hour after qualifying I went to get my grid sheet and see where I would be starting......I almost died when I saw it. I read it backwards...started from the bottom thinking thats where I'd be.....

I qualified 5th out of 35!!!!! It was really hard not to freak out. Everybody was coming up congratulating me and telling me how awesome it was that I had done so well. I only had about 2 hours to prepare beofre the race. Most of that was just necessary to get calmed down and focused again. I was the first car in grid....it was pretty funny watching some really experienced drivers grid behind me and give me the 'who the hell are you' look. The start went ok and I held 5th spot through turn 1 and 2 but then the first of several disasters struck...I got too excited, trying to shift too fast, and missed a shift coming out of turn 2. I couldn't get it back in gear and ended up having to let 5 people by. 10th. Ok, no big deal, I'll work my way back up, I've got 16 laps to go. I managed to get back up to 7th before the second mishap. A guy about 3 cars in front of my spun and hit the wall hard coming out of turn 12. In the process of avoiding all the other cars and getting slowed down to miss the wreck i spun.....towards the inside wall. Sh1t!!!! This isn't my car! I got it stopped just off the track, before the wall, but everybody was passing me. I couldn't pull out without hitting somebody so I had to wait for the whole train to go by. Then I tried to pull out.....crap!!! I was stuck in the mud!!! By now the double yellow was out for the wreck but it took me what seemed like forever to get the car out of the mud. Finally I was out and rolling but the field was easily a half lap ahead of me and i was in 31st. I managed to catch the field but there was little hope of having much time to work my way back up. The wreck was taking forever to clean up. We ended up having 1 lap under green before the checkered flag. 1 lap. That was a lot to think about on the last yellow flag lap....1 lap to redeem myself. 1 lap to correct all the mistakes, and hopefully not make anymore. The green dropped and I went for it. I don't really remember much of that lap except that my heart was going about 10,000 miles an hour and I was so focused I wouldn't have known if I had a heart attack. I passed 10 cars on the last lap and was 2 feet from passing the 11th when I took the checkered flag. I ended up in 21st. Not bad considering it was my first real road race. The car survived, I survived, and it was awesome!

Then I got home. I had a weird feeling all the way home. I could just telling something had to go wrong. As soon as I got out of my car at home, I knew. Somebody had stolen my motorcycle. My baby was gone. No theft insurance. Just gone. My heart sank. I know I'll probably never get her back, or see her again but we had fun. She was a 1995 Yamaha YZF600R with tons of mods. The most notable mod was the direct port nitrous system. It was fast. The fastest thing I've ever been on, or in.

[blkGT]

sorry about that bro. sounds like a great experiennce tho.

[boosted_K2]

wow dude, now thats a racing story!! i hope to be in that kind of position here soon, but i guess we'll have to see. sorry to hear about your bike man, that really bites. good luck with your 2nd driving school!! where were they at? and how do you sign up?

[sinner96ST]

I'm sorry to hear about your bike, toe. I'm glad to hear about your qualification tho.. It's just a bike, although it was personal it's just a big hunk of aluminum when it comes down to it. Your future with the SCCA and everything else you do with cars, will far outweigh some asshole stealing your ****. I'm not suprised you qualified so high, you've done your homework and you obviously have a bright future in racing.

I don't post much, but I thought i would chime in on this.

So, I guess I could say.. "Congratulations, and wow, that sucks."

[Andason]

not to bring it up but do you have any more pictures of the bike, i was thinking about getting a bike

[SpedToe169]

K2, I'm done with schools!! Once you're waived, thats it. I'm now 3/4 of the way to my regional licence and 3/8 of the way to my national/pro licence.

Andason here are some pics. The YZF isn't the newest, fastest bike, but it is the best bang for the buck bike sportbike out there. The newer bodystyle might appeal to you a little more. They were built from 1994-now and have always been based on the same engine and chassis with lots of suspension tweaks along the way. For the best suspension I would suggest the 96+ models.

[FallenHero]

you weredriving a miata? Does it have many engine mods?

[Andason]

[ghostdog]

when I read the title I thought you crashed your celi. whew. great story though, and congrats on doing so well on your first road race. and too bad about the bike, looks like it was one hell of a machine.

[boosted_K2]

wow thats awesome man. where was the school? and do you have any idea how much it cost do get into it? and did your BMW team pay for it for you??

later

[SpedToe169]

[boosted_K2]

sweet, i will have to look into that, i want to get through a season or 2 of SCCA autocross first though i guess.

[SpedToe169]