07/03/09 - 07/05/09 European Speer Cup Championship

Friday July 3rd
The weather was much like what we encountered at Magny Cours with off-and-on rain throughout the day. Reese, Vinny and myself would be competing the GP2 and 600cc races this weekend with Jaz running his liter bike in the GP1 and PowerCup.

Brno is a smooth and flowing track. When looking at each turn, they are simple and straightforward for the most part. But because the track is so flowing, each turn sets you up for the following turn or puts you out onto a little straightaway to the next corner. So it is important to maintain momentum and get excellent drives down each straightaway. These straights allow you to exponentially pull on an opponent if you hit them right, but conversely it allows your opponents to close the gap quickly if you make a mistake.

Again, the talent field seemed to be pretty deep, but by now we are able to pick out the regulars running at the front.

The day was pretty much spent learning the track and trying to get familiar with the track flow.

Rich’s comments for the day:
“Hope this isn’t going to be another Magny Cours weather weekend…”

Saturday July 4th
Happy 4th of July! Unfortunately, there were no real fireworks for the American boys this weekend. No fireworks, but we were given a reprieve on the weather forecasts. The day turned out to be quite hot and sunny. Track time was a bit more than we had been getting, but was marred with Red flags and early ends to the sessions. They would end each session with red flags, but sometimes I’d only get the warning a turn in advance before needing to exit the circuit. Unfortunately it felt like I was always on my fastest lap when they put an end to our qualifying!

I was hoping to achieve a 2’15” but found myself struggling to even get out of the 2’20”s. I qualified with a 2’22” which put me at the back of the pack for GP2.

The GP2 (basically everything but 1000cc machines allowed) race proved to be an amazing start but quickly dwindled as I found myself too far up the field for my laptimes. Not having the pace to stick where I was at, I quickly found myself overtaken by the faster riders after they had time to recover from their poor starts. By the end of lap 2 I was nearly top 10 after starting 32 on the grid! I really wish I had more time/skill to get my laptimes down and make that start work better for me! I eventually gave up 10 or more spots to finish in 22nd. I did manage to stay in front of some guys who were able to turn some faster laptimes than I, so I definitely had some good battles going throughout the race.

All in all the race finish allowed me to collect a few more points toward the overall championship which I am currently tied for 5th place.

Rich’s comments for the day:
“I had an amazing lap 1! I really wish I had the pace to maintain or build on that launch.”

Sunday July 5th
Sunday was another great weather day and I was only able to improve on my best time by a second. I really should have been down to the 2’19” mark at least by this time, but just couldn’t manage to put it all together.

For the 600 race, I was mid-pack on the grid and figured I’d do well if I could manage another amazing start like I had in the GP2 race. I did have a good start, but nothing as impressive as the GP2 start. I only made up a few places and traffic got spread out quickly. I managed to run in 9th spot for the first few laps, but made mistakes 4 laps in. My laptimes suffered drastically and I gave up a few spots. I tried to recover and managed to get faster and faster, but could not reel my top 10 spots back to me. I ended up finishing the race in 14th. I finally had a top 10 finish and gave it away. I’ll make sure I’m 100% healthy (no more colds or medicines during a race weekend) for the next round.

The points tally from this weekend put me in a 3 way tie for 5th place in the 600cc championship standings!

Thanks to everyone who participated and/or helped during this weekend. A special thanks goes out to all my sponsors for helping to keep us competitive:

* Tachyon – Best extreme cam on the market!
* PowerStands – Racing Inspired, built for performance
* Traxxion Dynamics
* Vortex – Trusted by Champions
* Leo Vince
* DynoJet
* South Central Race Center – the best source for Bridgestones
* On Any Moto

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