OHR 6hour

This weekend was the 6 hour mini endurance at historic Oak Hill Raceway in east texas. I love this track more and more each time i go. its always a great challenge and really takes some guts to pull some fast laps, but once you figure it out you can rail around that place.

I always seem to miss practice at the hill for some reason. This weekend was no different, but i wasn't too worried about it. it was a 6 hour race, so i had some time to get up to speed. it only takes a few laps anyways. my first stint was a little hairy due to a lot of chattering in the rear which would start chattering in the front as well. after i came in and talked to roger (bike owner) we decided to let a couple pounds of air pressure out of the rear. what a huge difference that made. almost no chatter at all. the slicks were sticky, the track was dry, the brakes were fantastic and i was really getting into a solid groove.

towards the end of my second 1 hour stint i got involved in a heated and long fought battle with an aprilia rs70 2 stroke. it had our xr107 4 stroke out powered, but i was able to keep up with him. I was even able to draft him down the long straight. i've never drafted anyone and noticed a difference before, but this time it worked beautifully. if i was drafting he'd walk away from me and gap me by a good 30 yards or so, but if i could stay on his rear tire the entire way he couldn't pull any gap. thats the fastest i've ever gone on one of these small bikes, and it felt a little sketchy. he eventually won the battle when we almost crashed into each other (he missed a shift and i was committed to the turn we were entering). i had been on the track for an hour and when you get an adrenaline rush like that it takes a lot out of you when you come back down, so i came in for a rider change and tried to cool down.

My lap times were really good. on my bike i've only been able to do a 2 minutes flat lap times, but on roger's bike i was doing consistent 1:58 and 1:57. I had the teams fastest lap with a 1:56.9 which frustrated roger a bit. from experience i know that its not the best feeling in the world to have another teammate beat your time on your own bike.