2014 cap

I got a little slack with the blog the last few months so here's how the rest of the season panned out. MRA ended on an ok note with 3rd in Open Endurance, 4th in Open Supersport and 10th in ROR GTO. 

After the MRA season ended I decided to go to Miller Motorsports Park and race the last round of the USBA season. Got there Friday evening and stayed with my friend Shane Turpin and got up to rain Saturday morning. Practiced all morning in the rain and got the bike all set up and working great only to get ran into from behind in the first race by an overzealous kid who had never races in the rain before. I dislocated my shoulder but didn't know it at the time and packed up and went home. Shane really looked out for us the rest of the time we were in Utah and I can't thank him and his wife Dawn enough. Two weeks later I got in with the specialist and found out the shoulder was dislocated and they put me under and put it back in place. I've been rehabbing it ever since. Prob be another month or two before I can get back on a bike. 

I'll try to stay on top of the blog a little better. 

Pictures from Sam Christmas

I got to meet photographer/biker/all around good dude Sam Christmas at the PPIHC.  He flew over with Gary Inman from Sideburn to work on a story about Guy Martin.  He took a ton of pictures and was kind enough to send me these of yours truly.  Thanks Sam, I hope we get to catch up again soon mate!

Onboard Video from the PPIHC

My brother Chris edited down the onboard footage and made this badass video of my run up the mountain.  Thanks brother!!!

Carl Sorensen PPIHC 2014 from cjmagnuss on Vimeo.

Pikes Peak International Hill Climb 2014

The week was a blast! I had a great time getting to ride the mountain and hang out with tons of great people, there are too many to list!  Here's a bunch of pics from the week and a quick video that my buddy Neil got from the ski area of my going by.  I ended up doing it in 11:04, got 10th in the Open class and 16th over all.  Cant' wait until next year!

This picture was taken by Jamie Price.

This picture was taken by Camden Thrasher.

Pueblo, Round 3

I only raced Open Supersport and Open Endurance to save the wear on my pelvis for the Pikes Peak Hill Climb.  These are the two classes I'm still in the points in after my crash at round 2.  Got 5th place in both.  Hangin in there!!

Round 2 didn't go so well

OpenSSCrash from Carl Sorensen on Vimeo.

Took a spill after getting really impatient on the second lap of Open Supersport.  Ended up going to the hospital and missing the 4 hour endurance race and my Sunday classes due to a non displaced fracture in my pelvis.  I'm laid up for a couple weeks but should be ok to race at round 3 at Pueblo and be ready for the Pikes Peak Hill Climb race.  Bike faired ok, mostly cosmetic damage.  I'll have it back together and ready to go.

Round 1, High Plains Raceway, May 10-11

The season is finally underway! After getting a few track days in of practice I was starting to get comfortable on the new bike.  For the Friday track day before the race weekend I had a secret weapon up my sleeve.  My friend (and extremely fast rider on a zx10r also) Tracy Schram came out to coach me.  We rode all day Friday, the weather was perfect, and I learned tons about riding the big bike (if you ever read this Tracy, thank you so much).  Saturday morning came and my nerves where shot.  Practice in the morning went ok, but I didn't really feel like I was a the competitive pace that I wanted to be, so I was a little worried about the races.  My first race was after lunch, Open Supersport.  With new rubber on the bike and things ready to go I gridded up on the 5th row.  I got a really good launch and then missed the shift into 2nd and it put me back about 3 more guys.  The race was fun and I worked my way up to 4th and began chasing Ricky Orlando closely.  On the second to last lap I made a pass but couldn't make it stick and he finished in 3rd and I settled for fourth.  Not bad for the first outing on the new bike. I was right there with the guys I wanted to run with and my lap times were over 2 seconds faster than my pace on the 675.  My second race was Open Solo Endurance.  The race had been shortened to 20 mins from 30 because of the threat of rain moving in.  I got an ok start and quickly found myself picking off most of the guys I picked off in the SS race.  At just under halfway through the race I made the pass on Nik Lenski for the lead.  I managed to hold the lead the rest of the race with Lacy giving me hand signals from the pit road.  I never thought I'd win a race on the new bike on the first weekend I raced it.  My lap times had got down to 1:50.2, which is 2.3 seconds faster than my fastest lap on the 675.  Saturday went really good.  Sunday the race day was cancelled due to it being really cold and snow moving in. It snowed all day so canceling was the right call as we wouldn't have been able to race in that mess anyway.  Here's a couple pics.

I want to send out a huge thank you to all the sponsors this year: The Walnut Room, Think Tank Tattoo, Kawasaki Racing, Rocky Mountain Kawasaki, Bell Helmets, Sol Performance and Pirelli, Bart and Steve at MadMoto, STM Suspension, Snug Harbor Motorsports and Puma, EBC Brakes, Woodcraft and Armor Bodies, Bloodnickel Industries, Speedmetal, and Von Zipper shades.

Can't wait till round 2!!

Progress

Together and ready for the season to start!

Bell Helmets

Bell came through as a new sponsor this year.  Pretty stoked to rock these nice helmets.  Love all the history behind the brand too.  Thanks Bell!

Progress on the big bike

Here's what my winter has been looking like.  Things coming along and apart from some cosmetics she's ready to ride and start dialing in suspension.  Can't wait!

The most important money spent

This and having Dave Rose at STM go through the forks is the most important money I've spent on the new race bike.  This is total mechanical porn…

New adventure for 2014… Big Bike!

In November I got a deal with Rocky Mountain Kawasaki and picked up a new ZX10R to race this year.

So, what I've been doing for the last couple of months is enduring the unusually cold and shitty winter and prepping the big bike. 

 Kawasaki has done a really rad job of making me feel really legit, so a huge thank you goes out to them and RMK!