Well, I'm back again. It's 4/23/99 and we raced the first weekend already. It didn't go quite as planned. My brother never did get his bike ready. He's building a FZR600 framed, XT600 motored, hybrid. It's currently in Virginia being transformed. FRANKENCYCLE, if you will. So I told him, "Hey Pete, why don't you race my Hawk, and I'll race the 6R for the first weekend, until your bike is done?" Great idea, right? Well that was the kiss of death!

     So after about 6 weeks over at Falicon I called to see if my crank was done. Guess what? They needed more parts that we, (me and the Fun Wheels guys) didn't even order yet. So Pete and I figured we'd both race the 6R. I'll take the Middle Weight, he'll take the Heavy Weight. So we packed up the trailer, bike, pit bikes, dogs, camping stuff, and headed up to NH.

     I am the master of measure once, cut twice. I messed up a measurement on my front end and went out for practice on BRAND NEW, never scuffed, cold, wet, race tires. On a cold, wet, track. With a misadjusted front end. I didn't even get a full lap. Fell going into turn 3. Slight ding on the radiator. No big deal. So we missed practice on Saturday. Pete's first time riding my bike was on his sighting lap to his race. But we got it set up ok and he did good. 1:42's. Not bad for his first time riding the bike. I was doing like 1:36's. A little BETTER then I ended last year with. Not BAD, but room for improvement. This bike is good for about 40 m.p.h. more then last years FZR's and the end of the front straight. Well Sunday comes around and I went out for practice to loosen up and my next session I'd try to drop my times. I came off of the track and told Pete a fast line through the esses at 11. So Pete goes out and I see him from our pit going into 3. He looks pretty comfortable. So I go to take a picture of him for the site. I didn't see him come by, so I figured he must have just passed. Then guys are going by two and three times and I still don't see him. OK he must be in the pits, adjusting something. Well, he found me by the garages. Bike rashed, leathers rashed, brand new gloves rashed. I showed Pete such a great line through 11, he couldn't slow down enough for 12. He was hurting pretty bad, so we went to the little hospital thing at the track and got a splint for his thumb. He figured he'd be better off not racing on Sunday. He couldn't even hold the bars. He went to the doctor on Monday. Pete's got a broken thumb. He's out for three weeks. So we're blowing off the May 1+2 race. He'll be ready to race by the time he's got his own bike back. I'm proud of myself, I didn't even bust his chops about crashing my bike. I did pass a few comments about riding through the pain though. What are little brothers for, anyway? Giving back all the shit older brothers give you when you're young. I'll write more later.

CATFISH

This page was last updated on:

06/05/2004