Plans for Round 1

SOAR Round 1 is this weekend at Grand Bend.  It will be a three-day weekend for me, because I need to do the race school on Friday.  Assuming they are crazy enough to grant me a race licence, I will get a bit of practice in on Friday afternoon and then again on Saturday morning.

I struggled a bit with the decision about how many classes to register for.   I am committed to the endurance racing with PDR on Saturday, and wondered if maybe that, along with the Friday school, would be enough for the first weekend.  And actually it looked like that would be all I would be permitted to do, since my family was understandably not thrilled to learn that I would be gone for three days straight.  However, they eventually acquiesced so the decision was mine.

I knew I wanted to do at least one sprint class, if for no other reason than to get the experience of a race start.  Battle of the Twins Lightweight is the obvious choice - my bike should be pretty competitive there.

The question was...do I also sign up for the 600 Rookie class?  Air-cooled twins up to 1200 cc are permitted, but could I be competitive against a bunch of young guys (and girls) on Japanese supersport bikes?  Also, that class is usually pretty heavily subscribed early in the season.  I could be gridding up with 15 to 20 other riders as inexperienced as myself.  Recipe for disaster?

The track layout will be "Reverse Screaming Alien".  I reviewed quite a bit of youtube video of past Rookie races on that layout, and convinced myself that lap times in the 1:10 range would be competitive (i.e., potential to podium).  So, even the high 1:12s I was managing last year at a track day on that layout would not see me getting lapped or otherwise humiliated.  Accordingly....I signed up.  If I can get my practice times down into the 1:10s I will be pretty confident going in, so that is the goal I have set for myself.  But if I even manage some 1:11s I won't be too disappointed.

So the weekend schedule is: Friday - school and practice. Saturday - practice, 6-lap qualifying races for both BOTT LW and Rookie, then 3-h endurance race.  Sunday - a bit of morning practice and then two 12-lap sprint races.  The only thing certain in all of this is that ibuprofen will be my friend on Saturday.  I wonder if Advil would like to sponsor an amateur racer?

Speaking of sponsorship, I am going to sign up for the Bridgestone contingency program, since I am running their V01-R slicks.  They pay back to third place for any class that has a minimum of six competitors on the grid.  That will include 600 Rookie for sure but we may even have that many in BOTT LW.  Of course expecting to podium on my first race weekend is a bit fanciful...but I would feel like an idiot if I somehow pulled it off but hadn't bothered to register for the contingency program.  Also, it sure would be helpful at this point to win a little tire money!

On the bike prep side, the replacement oil cooler didn't arrive until today and I couldn't wait that long to get the bike ready, so I just removed the old cooler and bypassed it.  These bikes run fine without coolers anyway, but I will keep an eye on the engine temperatures and install the new cooler at the track if I deem it necessary.

I just acquired a new front wheel so that I can get set up with rain tires, but that won't all get organized for this round.  Hopefully it doesn't rain or I am screwed for the sprint races.

So, in summary, Realistic Goals for Round 1:

- Get licensed
- Don't crash
- Turn some practice laps in the 1:10.x range
- Don't embarrass myself in the sprint qualifiers or races
- Have fun

I should add that there is a running bet within the PDR team as to who will turn the best laps on the endurance bike...we are talking serious gloating privileges here.