I got to Mopar CSBK Canadian Superbike Championship round 1 at Shannonville Motorsport Park Thursday night filled with excitement and nerves. I put my freshly put back together Kawasaki ZX-6R through tech right away and began to set up for the weekend.
Friday morning I was awake early and eager to get on track and get up to pace. I set out for my first and only practice session of the morning and was feeling the nerves. I set out on a warm up lap and was coming onto the front straight getting ready to put down a quick lap and halfway through turn 1 I heard an awful noise coming from my engine. I stood the bike up and looked back to see nothing but white smoke and I knew right away I was in trouble. Sitting out in long track turn 2 I got down to looking at my bike and found that a connecting rod had punched a hole and it was hanging out of the front of the engine block. Not a good start to my first ever national weekend. Friday afternoon I set out on my back up bike - a 2001 Suzuki GSX-R600. I didn't feel comfortable on it and didn't feel fast but I knew I had to make it work no matter how stubborn I wanted to be. I wasn't happy with the results I was seeing but I kept my head down and pushed on.
Saturday morning I set out for practice and was feeling much better about the bike but was still uneasy with it. After putting a fresh set of rubber on the bike I set out for the Shoei Helmets Amateur Sport Bike qualifying with a big goal in mind. After a red flag early in qualifying I spent some time in hot pit waiting for the go ahead. I was sitting 10th at the time. We were given 12 minutes to qualify and I set out ready to go and put some hot laps down. I fell as low as 17th in the grid before putting my head down and on my last lap putting down a 1:11.0 and securing 8th spot for a start on the third row in Sunday's race. I couldn't stop smiling after that performance. Saturday night I gave some feedback to Kyle from Windmill Motorsports and Machine and got a few pointers from him to help make the bike even better.
Sunday morning practice I set out to see how the changes made the bike feel and I was thoroughly impressed and the bike felt awesome. I managed to be the 4th fastest rider in the session. That gave me some much needed confidence heading into the race.
Starting the race I was very nervous and wasn't sure what to expect. I got a fairly bad start and ended up in the middle of the pack and had some work to do. I was running a fairly conservative pace and was sitting in 10th place and working hard to catch the people in front of me. After the 6th lap I really started to notice that my rear tire was really starting to step out and that I was losing traction and the gap of the group in front of me was increasing. I kept my head down and was fortunate to keep my bike upright unlike many of my other competitors. It was a crash 8 laps in that brought out the red flag and called the race to an end. With the number of bikes going down I managed an 8th place finish in a 26 rider field. That finish put me right where I qualified.
All things considered and how my weekend went I am very happy with the results and really hoping I can figure something out with my Kawasaki to have it back to running condition as well as competitive to compete at round 2 of CSBK @ St Eustache to get some points as well as move up in the standings. It's 2 weeks until the next regional RACE round and I can hope to be there and have a bike to ride.
Thanks to all my supporters in chasing my dream and if you'd like to become a supporter I can be reached via my Facebook team page as well as via email:
www.facebook.com/adbracing
My support comes from:
Marriner Design
Champion Spark Plugs
613Motorsports.com
Vortex Racing Fan Page
SPY
VnM Sportgear
Windmilll Motorsports and Machine
Road Racing Stars of Tomorrow
My Ottawa Orthodontist
Argyle & Associates
Napa Autoparts Cornwall
O'Farrell Financial
SHAWNAIR
From a press release
