When: June 24 - 26, 2005
Where: Virginia International Raceway
Wednesday 6/22
Got home after work and packed the trailer. Dane showed up around 8pm.
We made a quick stop on the way out of town and were on the road by 9:30. We
stopped at the PA border in Port Jervis NY.
Thursday 6/23
Up early and on the road by 7. We made it to the track by 6. We set
up next to pit lane and decided to treat ourselves to an actual motel for the weekend.
We got a room at the Comfort Inn in Danville.
Friday 6/24
Since this was a combined FUSA, CCS and USGPRU weekend, Friday was a normal race
day instead of a practice day. We got two short rounds of practice. I took the
250 out, but not the 125, since it needed some work. Practice was slow, but it was
good to get back out on the track. Practice ended by 11am and we had the rest of the
day free. I did the work I needed to do on the 125, then Dane and I did a full
engine rebuild on his motor. We finished his engine and had it running by 6:30pm, so
we went off to eat. We had dinner at Los Tres Magues (sp?) with a few nice cold
margaritas, then off to bed.
Saturday 6/25
Morning practice consisted of two 8-minute sessions (per bike). Pathetic (the good
news is that I got to follow Nate Kern for a bit and learned a couple things). There
were a lot of red flags during the day, so our qualifying sessions got pushed way back.
125 qualifying happened at about 5:45pm, and 250 qualifying happened around 6:20 or
so. I was way off my pace and did not qualify well (no surprise). 250
qualifying was especially frustrating since I almost hit someone that decided to sit up
and relax halfway through a lap and relax on the track before the checkered flag. I
was gridded 20th out of 37 in 125, and 17th out of 21 in 250.
Dane and I had dinner with the Hjelms at the Ouback. A fun time was had with them as always.
Sunday 6/26
Got to the track for our single round of 15 minute practices. I felt good
on the 125, but 250 was kind of slow. I managed to follow Mike Himmelsbach around
for a few corners and learned a few things.
125 GP
I got a good start and managed to go into T1 with the crowd. It took me a while to
get up to speed in the race, and lost touch with the two lead groups of riders. I
had a couple good battles with Dennis Woods and Chris Marshall, and managed to get away
from them and pick up the pace a bit. I was catching up to a group of 6 riders and
was hoping to get by them to grab a top ten finish, but I ran out of laps. I had to
settle for 14th position. My times were about a second off my best at VIR, which was
a little disappointing.
250 GP
I got a horrible start in 250. I went into T1 at the end of the pack. After a
few laps of dealing with traffic, I managed to start picking up the pace. I put my
head down and went on a mission to get my ass into a good finish spot. I started
picking off riders and ended up riding pretty much alone. I completely missed the
halfway flag, and was happy to see the white flag as I was starting to fade. My
mission ended with a 7th place finish. : )
Dane and I collected our payouts and prizes, said our good-byes and hit the road by 7. We stopped at some cheap motel in PA at 1am.
Monday 6/27
We were on the road by 8am. Around noon we noticed the van had a horrible
sulfur smell and pulled over to discover the battery swollen and spitting acid and fumes.
We found a small auto parts store and got a new one. We were back in
Stoughton by 3:30pm.
Overall it was a fun weekend. We were disappointed with the amount of practice time, but no one fell down and there were some good finished to be had.
Special Thanks to: Matt Cooper for continuing to lend me parts to get the 125 up and running for the race.