When: July 26, 2003
Where: NHIS

Friday 7/25
Traffic sucked.  All those weekend warriors were heading north.  You know.. the ones that work all week and then head up to NH for the weekend...  uhhh.. wait a sec.. that's me!

Saturday 7/26
I got bumped up to yellow practice, so I took my time getting up.  Got the bike fuelled and ready to go, and went out for practices.  Man am I slow.  I got no better than a 1:26 in first practice and 1:25 in second practice.  First practice was rough, since I'm always kind of screwed up after another track (Mosport).  I survived though.

After second practice, I had to pull the engine apart to replace one of the transmission splines, as the countersprocket kept loosening up (the threads were getting stripped).  I pulled the transmission cover, and clutch, and removed the transmission.  Rick helped me pull the set rings and swap the spline.  We threw the rings away as we removed them, as I had new ones, but it turned out that the new ones I had were not the correct size.  After asking everyone if they had any, and driving to the hardware store to see if any metric sizes were available (thanks Frank!), I had to resort to pearl diving for them in the barrel.  I managed to recover them all, and Rick and I worked on straightening them out so we could reuse them.  Oops!  I got the bike back together and tested by the time I had to race.

GP Singles
There were a few red flags during the day, so we were running late.  I had first row outside grid spot for this race, so I was pleased.  I got a great start, but wasn't aggressive enough into T1 (as always).  I ran a really consistent race, putting in 1:23 lap times on every lap except for one high :22 lap.  I got 3rd spot, though I could have had 2nd if my ability to pass slightly slower riders was any better.   I gotta work on that as it's really hurting me.

LWGP
I bogged on the start.  Not good.  Dane and I swapped spots a couple times with him running in front of me when we caught up to a pack of 3 riders.  He was pretty aggressive and managed to pass 2 out of three of them on lap 5.  I was hard on the gas coming out of T12 when one of them fell off his Aprilia 250 right in front of me.   I had to seriously check up to avoid hitting the rider, who was tumbling right in front of me.  This is the third time this has happened to me in the last 4 weekends (Alright.. who taped the sign that says "Crash in front of me" on my back !?).  I managed not to hit the rider as I went by him..  but only by about an inch.  Very close.  By the time I got it all back together, the pack I was chasing was pretty close to T1.  No way I'd catch them now.  I had to settle for 8th spot.  Dane ended up passing the last of the pack, so that's cool.  My best lap time never got below 1:24.

Sun 7/27
Got up and did red sticker practice.  Not sure why, but I couldn't get any better than a 1:26 in either practice.  Frank went out with me for second practice and tried to give me some help, but I couldn't keep up with him.

Thanks to Frank and Rick for all their help.