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!!