passedbyachick.com

I hope you are all having fun at the track. What we do is dangerous enough that if you’re not having fun, or if you don’t feel that your life is made better by your racing, you should figure out how you can make it fun and if you can’t, take up a new sport.

I had a track day at Infineon yesterday, missing an Easter get together at my sister’s house in San Jose. I love getting together with my family. My seven nieces and nephews range in age from almost six to 24, and my brother, sister and parents are fun to party with. I’m sure they were eating ham and drinking bloody marys, all with golf on in the background and kids and dogs running around like wild animals.

But it was nice at the track. It was the first day this year that I’ve ridden in pleasant conditions and haven’t just daydreamed all day long of getting into my truck and putting the seat warmers on high. My lap timer, kind of like my little coach shouting at me on the sidelines to go faster, was broken, so I spent the day focused on accuracy and smoothness. I never focus on accuracy and smoothness, I just go out there and try to go faster and pass boys, so I figured this would probably be good for me.

I need to sort out turn 7, a fun, knee dragging double apex right hander, and need to turn later and more emphatically for turn 2, a semi-blind, off-camber, uphill right hand turn (and scene of many a highside). For some reason I kept pushing wide in 5, a very fast, long, almost non-turn, but was pleased with my aggressiveness and entry speeds over the hill and into the carousel because I consistently felt my bars getting light up there.

My bike was turning very well except for in the fast turns like 5 and 8a and 8b. I always find these to be the most difficult turns for me and I don’t know how Elena Myers does it. It seems like it takes so much brute strength, but maybe it’s just a timing thing. Does she grunt like a Russian tennis player when she’s flipping her bike over from one side to another at high speeds? Who knows. Towards the end of the day the wind was pushing south and west, which should have helped me in 5, but made 8 more challenging.

At the end of the day my bike broke and I had to push it all the way from the outside of the top of the carousel back to my pit. Our trailer was already loaded up and I didn’t want to make my pit-mate have to wait until 5 o’clock for the crash truck to come get my bike so I hoofed it. Kyle Shirrmacher gave me a push down the sticky drag strip (the thing felt like a bad movie theater floor) which was helpful and fun.

I didn’t get a chance to tell her so, but I was really proud of Cassandra Gaddy for having a good, solid day out there. Cassie had a really tough crash last summer and has worked really hard to get healthy again and get back out there. Jennifer Lauritzen also looked great in that last session, passing me like I was going backwards, and I was having visions of where I would pass her back when my bike went kaput.

Elena Myers, Krystyna Kubran, Joy Higa, Angie Loy, Tania Davidson, Marisol Lacour and Shandra Crawford were all in the Vegas house for WERA West this weekend, but I haven’t gotten my act together to report on the details yet. Please send me pictures and race reports.

Love,
Christie