When: July 17 - 18, 2004
Where: Mosport

Thursday 7/15
Dane and I hooked up first thing in the morning and headed up to Steve's in Manchester.  We got the trailer mostly packed before Steve got home and were on the road by 1pm.  We got to Mosport around midnight and set up camp.

Friday 7/16
Got up around 7am, got showered and get the bikes ready.  Dale, Carol and Eric showed up and pitted next to us.

There was one practice session in the morning, followed by an afternoon qualifier.   Practice felt slow, but I somehow managed to take a second off my best lap time at Mosport.  That was a good sign.  I dropped another second in qualifying to get a 1:39.7, but it was only good enough for 14th spot.  Fourth row.

Tammy and John hosted a bbq for the can-am crowd.  Steve and I went to buy some beer and we got back in time for some food and late night bench racing.  Good people, and a fun time.

Saturday 7/17
There was a practice scheduled for the morning and the first of two races in the afternoon.  I did a bunch of 1:39 lap times in practice, which meant I could probably drop more time in the race, since I'm almost always 2 seconds off in practice.  I set a goal to get to the 1:37 mark.

Due to weather and lots of red flag delays, the afternoon race was cancelled.   Frank, Dane, Steve and I met up with Dale, Eric and Carol in Oshawa for dinner.   We tried to get into the "Big Sexy" (or whatever) club, but Dane and I had sneakers on so that wasn't happening.  We ended up in a bar called "Scratch", which turned out to be a swingers hangout (as we found out later).   Never a dull moment, eh?

Sunday 7/18
Since the schedule was screwed up on Saturday, they turned morning practice into the first race.  The second race was to run as normally scheduled in the afternoon.   I had the same grid spot for both races.

Race 1
We got two "scratch laps" followed by a 5 minute delay for the first race.   We got our tire warmers up to the pit road, did our two laps, put the warmers back on, then got ready as the clock ticked down to zero.  I got a fair start.. nothing to brag about. I took the outside line into T1 and tried to go around people, but didn't get too far.  I had a great race, battling with Christian Rose and Mark White for 10th spot.  I made a few mistakes and let them get away, but still managed to drop two more seconds off my time for a 1:36.07, which was good enough for 12th spot.  I was happy about the time, since it was 5+ seconds faster than last year.  No one crashed in the race, which was good.

Race 2
It was on and off rain in the late morning, and it had drizzled for the superbike race.   We had dry conditions at the 5 minute warning call and went out on slicks.  It ended up raining during the warm-up laps, and we got a 20 minute delay to make a tire choice.  We all went with full rains.  I got a pretty bad start, and spun the rear wheel off the line.  I went into T1 somewhere around 16th or so.  I managed to pass a bunch of people into turn 5 on the brakes, and picked up the pace.  I passed a bunch of people and was doing pretty good times.  Frank and I battled for the last half of the race, swapping positions about 5 times.  He passed me between T1 and T2 on the last lap, but I managed to get right on his rear wheel into T5, and out motored him on the back straight.  I managed to hold him off long enough to get over the finish line ahead of him.  We both had a great time.  After we came in, I found out that I had just finished 5th  !!  Without a doubt, this was my best finish yet.  Getting points in both races should put me back into the top ten for the Can-Am 125gp championship.

We left the track at about 4:30 and I got home around 5am after stopping at Steve's and Dane's.

Special thanks to: Steve, Dane, Dale and of course Frankie G for the great racing.