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* Gainesville 2005 Race Report * |
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It was really nice having the Gainesville race was on a weekend this year as Sue would be able to come with me. We have added two new crew members this year, Torin and Sophia. They are our newest family members, a 3 year old male and a 6 month old female, both Whippets. We opted to make test and tune passes on Friday night as we only managed to get in two passes at our local track, both of them bad as the bike seemed to be making a lot more power now than at Rockingham in October. For this, I have no explanation. In test and tune, I finally got the clutch to hold after adding more than 40 more pounds of spring pressure. Maybe having a density altitude of 486 feet below sea level was the reason! My first pass in qualifying was a 10.06. Sometimes it is easier to make a bike go faster than to slow it down and this day would be no exception. Pass number two resulted in a 9.98 second blast, my fastest pass ever, and I was trying to slow the bike down! We were definitely in trouble as we were dead last in qualifying against the 10.3 second index. Our final pass, even getting out of the throttle at 1000 feet still only netted us a 10.14 qualifying time and for the first time in my racing career, I qualified dead last. On Sunday morning, I had to run the #2 qualifier in the first round. I've learned a good bit about playing the throttle over the past several years and so was no more concerned than in any other first round; all first rounds are nerve racking! Unfortunately for the MAVRIK team, the driver left the starting line 5 thousandths of a second too early and never realized it until the crew chief informed me after the turn off. The better news was that my Zipper's teammate Keith Carper was still in the show in SEP as was my friend, Biker Doc in ET. Not wanting to leave so early in the day, I hung around to watch the both of them. Biker Doc went to the quarter final round in this his fourth ever race! Keith, on the other hand, was invincible and went to the finals and WON his first ever AHDRA national event! I couldn't be happier for him and Maura and the whole Zipper's team. Racers are a superstitious lot! Look's like I made a deal to go to Phoenix for race 2 in AHDRA national action. It will no doubt be hot there and if I can help it, so will MAVRIK Racing! See you there??? Stay tuned for more! And THANKS for visiting the MAVRIK Racing pages!
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