Never back off
Roebling Road Raceway (RRR) - Bloomingdale, GA
July 24/25, 2004

We plan to leave @ 3pm Friday, and as usual, I'm late. I pick up Rebecca from work and we hit the road ~3:40. Not too late though. Traffic isn't bad at all. About 45 mins away from the house, I remember that I forgot the DV camera. Dammit! I can't record any onboard video w/o it. I decide that getting down there in time to get a good spot is more important than going back.

We make 1 small stop for gas and a stop for food to eat in the car... 4.5 hours later we arrive at the track. HOLY SHIT, that's a record. Usually it's about 5.5 hours, but I don't remember going that fast, but oh well, that's great. We get a good spot right near the tech shed and pit out/in. We setup the canopies and head for the hotel.

This weekend is a twin-sprint weekend, which means we do all the races on Saturday and then all again on Sun. Saturday morning we head to the track. This is my first time at RRR with the 125, so I have to learn the fast way around the track again. Practice goes well and I feel comfortable, but not 'fast'. I'm in race #1 so immediately after practice I put the warmers on and get ready. I head out to the grid and get an OK start. I'm dead last. I make a few passes and make my way up to finish 5th. I'm happy with that.

Next up is LWGP. Pretty much racing the same guys. Mid-race I'm in 6th spot and 5th place is quite a ways ahead. About 3 laps later, I catch up and start trying to dice it up and pass them. It's tough as I battle Bill Davenport. Back and forth we swap positions and on the last lap, I pass him to take a 4th place finish. At this time it's SCORTCHING HOT. It's 97* and 50% humidity. I'm sweating my ass off and starting to suffer from heat exhaustion

Last up is the 125GP race. I get a good start and after the 1st lap I'm in 2nd place. John starts to run away, turning ~3 seconds fast lap times than me. I have no chance of catching him so I settle for 2nd place. That's it for today as I can barely move around without feeling sick. We quickly head to the hotel, take a nap, eat dinner, then back to the hotel to sleep for the night.

We get up and head to the track. After morning practice we chill till after lunch and I get ready for my first race, 125GP. We head out and it's the same as yesterday: John checks out and I'm sitting in second. After a couple laps, I come around T8 and see that John has crashed. Next time around I see him and his bike againt the tire wall. Man that sux, but now that means I'm in 1st. So I come onto the straight and take a peek behind me... no one for about half a straight. So, I decide to back off a little and relax. Maybe dropping my times by 1 second. Here comes the white flag. 1 more lap. As I come around the second to last turn I take a glance behind me and I see Joanne RIGHT on my ass. HOLY SHIT she caught up!! FUCK!!! I stay on the gas and know my only chance is to rail around the last turn and get a great drive onto the straight b/c her bike is amazingly fast. We come onto the straight and I pray I don't see her pull up next to me... only a few hundred feet till the finish line... I see her out of the corner of my eye. DAMMMMNNNNN!!! she pulls up next to me and beats me to the line by ~1 foot!. DAMMIT she won. Oh well.. that's what I get for backing off. Lesson learned for me.

Last race for the weekend is LWGP. I stay suited up and head out for that race. Pretty much the same as Sat. Not much excitement and afterwards we pack up and head home.

Overall, we had a good time except for the scortching heat. I learned a valuable lesson and will NEVER back off during a race again. Only 2 races left. Next up is Barber on Aug. 14th weekend and we're REALLY looking forward to it.