Good Times, Bad Times

So Saturday was an awesome day. We had 11 female racers signed up for Formula AFemme, the AFM’s first all female exhibition race, and nine ended up competing. Angie Loy, STAR School instructor and WERA West fast girl, took first place followed by Deb Barton on her fast little 125 GP bike, and then Joy Higa on her Yamaha R6.

At the end of the day we lined up all our bikes (except for mine, which was already packed away) for a photo shoot in the winner’s circle. It was a wonderful moment. Surrounded by my fellow racer girls, feeling the girl power, all these awesome, rock star individuals, many of whom I’ve long looked up to and many more I’m getting to know and love competing with.

Shelina Moreda had just gotten the holeshot in Clubman Middleweight, the race right before AFemme, only to be collided into entering the bus stop, leaving her with severed brake lines and nowhere to go. Miraculously she kept it upright and as I was getting ready for the chicks’ race I saw her heading back to her pits, fire in her eyes, yelling “FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!” I can’t even imagine what it must be like to get hit, let alone no longer having front brakes.

Jennifer Lauritzen had a bike breakdown in practice earlier, but with a little help from her friends and the awesome Twin Works Factory crew, she was able to borrow a “second gen” (2003 and newer, fuel injected) Suzuki SV650 for her race. Already used to the first gen version, she had fun trying out Ricky’s bells and whistles and ended up having a great time in the race.

I, naturally, raced like a total Red Bull-fueled doofus the first half a lap only to watch one of my heroes, long time racer and mechanic Deb Barton, go swooshing by, smooth as silk. Great! Now Deb knows the truth!

After the highs of Saturday, Sunday started off with a pretty devastating series of crashes in Open Superbike. I watched from about ten rows up in the grandstands, rocking out to KC & the Sunshine Band and filled with excitement about watching my man race his big boy bike, when three riders went down at the launch, two of them appearing to get run over by other bikes. The silence that filled the air as the screaming bikes trailed off into the distance was deafening, save for the sounds of a bike sliding on the ground and two very injured men yelling. I guess it is good that they were at least yelling. One was helicoptered out with serious injuries and I believe is still in ICU.

It was awful. I wish I could delete all of it from my brain. The rest of the day was dreary and another helicopter came and went. My heart goes out to the racers who were hurt, and to their families as well.

I had a tough enough time writing even this, even though I was so thrilled by my girls out there in AFemme. More details on the race, photos, and how everyone did on Sunday will hopefully follow.