Willow “Filthy Hot Mess” Springs

Willow Springs makes me think of the Shel Silverstien poem, Where the Sidewalk Ends. On one side, you have grippy, if just a little bit abrasive, asphalt that feel so good when you’re slathering on throttle like frosting on a birthday cake, and on the other side, you have absolutely nothing. The end of the universe. A place where bikes are dragged back from the abyss, usually in multiple pieces, and always covered in dust, filled with rocks, and and more bent than Lindsay Lohan a day after rehab.

So in other words, it makes for exciting riding and racing. Especially when you have the excitable David Kay narrating every piece of racetrack drama that he can dig up.

One track day in August was my first day at Willow Springs. Then I came in on Saturday, rode around a bit, tried to wrap my head around that little hill over turn 6, and tried to wrap my balls around turn 9. Well, my theoretical balls, of course. Turn 9 is pretty scary; it’s at the end of a WFO, 6th gear turn and it’s a sneaky kink leading onto the straightaway. You can almost become hypnotized by the desert landscape while rolling through turn 8. When it was time to turn for 9, I had just snapped myself back to reality, realized I was running out of pavement and threw my poor little Honda on its side, dragging pegs and wagging the rear from left to right and left again. I put a polite little hand up and excused myself from the session, as the track exit was right there as well.

Like so many competitive people, I set goals for myself here. I really wanted to break sub 1:30 laptimes while here at Willow Springs, because a couple girls I know have managed it before and I thought I could too. Saturday my best was only a 1:33, so I was very sad.

Saturday also was the four hour endurance race. I was entered as part of Shandra Crawford’s team, along with Krystyna Kubran and Nadine Lajoie. I was a bit afraid of the endurance race, because usually just a little eight lap sprint race will wring me out to dry, but I was excited to be a part of the Formula Femme team. An added bonus: riding an R6 for the first time.

My first time out in the endurance race, once Harley Barnes of the Cycle Heads team lapped me, I was swearing in my helmet and wondering why I let myself get involved in this. My shoulders, neck and back were cramping and my legs were already feeling like wet noodles, and I hadn’t even done 20 laps yet. To top it off, I was going really, really slow. Like, 37s slow. My best of the day had been a 1:33, but I couldn’t seem to find that pace again on Shandra’s bike.

Nadine and Krystyna picked up my slack and ran tons of quick laps. Nadine with consistent 34s, and Krystyna running like the wind with 31s. Unfortunately, in one of Krystyna’s stings the shagged front decided to tuck, and she and Shandra’s bike went sliding off into the abyss. The bike was destroyed. Krystyna was devastated, but otherwise fine. Maybe a bump on the head, we weren’t sure. We borrowed a bike from the Motoyard.com guys and were off and running again.

I finished things off at the end of the race, somehow those last laps were less painful than the first ones, and we brought it home.

Special thanks to Ron Duran, Jason and Jennifer Lauritzen, and Greg McCoullough for their outstanding pit help and support! Nadine’s boyfriend Raymond was a sweetheart as well, he was feeding Nadine snacks bringing her cold, wet towels, and hydrating drinks.

On to Sunday. Sunday morning found me crying again in the back of my race van. For those of you not in the know, about two months ago my fiance and I broke up. We’d been together for three years, and lived together for two. I’d been staying with my parents while picking up the pieces, and I’d been a mess emotionally. It all came crashing down on me Sunday morning, hiding in the back of my big orange Sprinter van.

As I wiped some mascara from my eye, I thought that breaking sub 30s would make me happier than anything, but all I did was break a radiator. I was able to finish my first two races, 600 and 750 Modified Production. In 600 “Mod Prod,” I finished 17th of 38 with a best laptime of 1:31.1, and in 750 Mod Prod, I finished 22nd of 30 with another 31.1. That race was gridded with Open Superbike Expert and Novice, so that’s where I placed out of everyone on the track.

Coming back in from 750 MP I started parking, and noticed that there was fluid gushing from my radiator. Alex from Fastline Cycles helped me figure out that I had a hole in the radiator, and he immediately got to work on taking the radiator off since I was done, or at least, that bike was done. This allowed me to immediately start running around like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to find a bike I could borrow so that I could compete in the Formula Femme race. I was leading points in the California State Championship and wanted to win it and have something to show for on my racing resume. All I needed was to go out there and do some “parade laps,” and try to salvage as many points as I could. I didn’t know how I needed to finish, but I figured I needed to finish as well as I could and not destroy some poor guy’s motorcycle.

Amazingly, Jason Lauritzen came around and offered up his cherry 2009 R6. Amazing. I was beside myself with stress, I couldn’t imagine anything worse than crashing the bike of a respected competitor, the husband of a competitor and friend, someone who cares so deeply about his racing and who tries as hard as he can every weekend. But I had to do it. I just had to. So I pressed forward. To make things even more stressful, there were some delays leading up to the race. Here are Jenn and me waiting to go out…and waiting…and waiting…

Finally we got called. I had never started Jason’s bike, or ridden Jason’s bike, or even sat on Jason’s bike, but off I went. I felt really mellow out there, and was just focusing on the fundamentals. Decreasing brake pressure while increasing lean angle. Decreasing lean angle while increasing throttle. Looking up. Being smooth with my inputs. The bike felt good, but I felt like I was probably going pretty slow. I was in second, behind a blazing Krystyna Kubran. At one point Nadine Lajoie passed me, and I followed her for several laps, looking for weak corners. I didn’t want to try anything too risky on Jason’s bike.

I noticed that I was a bit stronger than Nadine in Turn 1, an uphill, banked, somewhat 90 degree left turn. On the last lap, I decided to pass her there, and I guess I was helped out even more by her missing a downshift, killing her drive on the exit. I managed to stay ahead of her on the final lap, finishing second in the race, and winning the overall championship.

I was mostly thrilled I didn’t crash Jason’s beautiful bike.

But then I found out that my best laptime was a 1:31.3, two tenths off my best times on my own bike. And on pump fuel, no less! Really kind of made me want to run out and buy an R6, but that just wouldn’t be very responsible of me right now. Maybe I’ll just run out and buy a sick Honda motor instead.

Overall I was very happy with the weekend. I couldn’t have done it without the Lauritzens, and my sponsors Alex from Fastline Cycles, Andy with ACT Racing, and Pirelli cheering me on. And of course, without Shandra Crawford and the California State Championship, I wouldn’t have been rolling home with the biggest trophy I’ve ever won in my life!