Witchkraft Racing: The Search for Speed

Life is Good (For the Most Part)

Sorry for the delay in postings .. I can almost type with two hands now .. well, more like one and a half, although it's not very accurate.

The last couple weeks have been a struggle, I won't lie. Being held up in this rig has been anything other than fun. It's a wave of emotions – highs and lows. I know what to expect with a significant injury like this, as it isn't the first one I've had, but it doesn't completely make it easy to block out the negativity that is often trying to push its way through. Fortunately having Gina around has made things so much better. In sickness and in health right? It's not as much for helping me with basic things – sure she does that, but let's be honest – I've done this before and she's not about to overdo it with sympathy and follow me around. And given what I'm doing – I certainly don't want that, especially with her being pregnant. It's more about being there and the little things that make us laugh and help the time pass. That's worth more than anything and it's funny how those little things can help you forget about throwing a season away and losing most of you worked for the winter before. I do think her biggest complaint right now is that I'm hogging the bed with all the extra pillows. Sorry G.

It will be three weeks since surgery this coming Wednesday. Things are going as planned I suppose. Constant movements and work to get the fingers moving, make a fist, etc., in order to stretch out everything that was tightened up from the surgery. It's getting better each day but with that – I'm quickly finding the limitations in day-to-day stuff. Every part of the wrist hurts when I do too much. It's a pretty sharp pain. Left side, right side and front are all vulnerable. I messed it up quite bad with multiple breaks and some crushing of bones. The idea with the rod is that it holds everything in place so bone can grow back and fill the gaps of where it broke more severely. I think in the end, the wrist will be good – I probably just won't have the same range of motion I previously had with it.

Working out hasn't been happening and that can spiral into bad eating habits. I learned my lesson after shoulder surgery, after gaining weight, and I'm not letting that happen again. I've started doing a little core work and want to get back into a spin class soon – even if it is one-handed. Running is a little tough with the movements, but hopefully in a week or so I can get back to that at least. Lots of calcium and vitamins and while I've lost some muscle, I'm almost happy that I haven't lost as much as I thought I would have by now.

All things considered, and how bad things could be .. it's the summer .. and for the most part, life is good.

Cheers,

eddie

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010 | POSTED AT: 7:54 AM
FILED UNDER: General | 2 comments
WERA ‘10, Round 4: Grattan Raceway National (Season-Ending Sealer Strips)

Since I only have one hand to type with, this race recap will just be bullet points of what happened.

- Terra was in the Jeep console all weekend. That's why this weekend went so poorly. My bad.

- The track management decided to lay new sealer in turns 2 and 3 the night before this WERA National event. Not the week before. Not before a car event, but the night before their biggest bike event of the year.

- We had high hopes for the weekend. We had the bike sorted and I was ready to push and turn faster times.

- Friday morning saw several bikes go down in turns two and three. James Dillinger broke his ankle, another rider crashed hard and hurt his foot/ankle. Other riders went down too. At 10am, they broke early for lunch to fix these sections.

- I went out after the "fix" to the track. On the second lap, I highsided in T2 when just cracking on the throttle. I wasn't going fast and wasn't at more than 20% throttle. The bike didn't make it off the track (barely damaged), but I tumbled. End result was a bruised up left shoulder/arm and neck, along with a rather severe break in my right wrist. Guess the track wasn't fixed.

- After falling, WERA shut down the track for the day and refunded everyones' money for practice. This act alone should speak of how bad the situation was – WERA rarely ever does this. Grattan spent the rest of the day/evening re-fixing the track.

- The track's lack of forethought and responsibility would contribute to why only a total of ten teams gridded up for the endurance race. Ten teams for a National Endurance Series race. That's bad.

- Saturday's practice and race would show the track was now better in T2 and T3 – at least on the race line. With Jeff's BeaveRun injury and now mine, we definitely weren't doing the endurance race.

- We had an absolutely great time each night over the weekend. 17-18 people together for dinner and then hanging out at the hotel afterwards made for great fun and helped mask my depression of not racing. The pain medication and Jager bombs didn't hurt either (done separately of course).

- Sunday was Jeff's time. With two wins and two second-place finishes, Jeff set the fastest 600 time of the day and had the best overall results of anyone - all with just being flown from the track just two weeks earlier after a nasty highside.

- Jeff's best race was the first race of the day. Entering T1 in 6th, he worked his way up passing names like Garrett Gerloff, Benny Solis Jr., Payton Sassman and Hayden Gillim to take second, just running out of time to challenge for the win.

- We put on a very respectable display against some top names, including the Graves-supported team. We did a lot of networking and made some new connections – all with being down one rider. I was very happy with the attention our team received.

- WERA most likely will not return Grattan to the National Series schedule for 2011. I don't blame them.

- I had surgery Wednesday on my wrist. Screws, rod and other fun stuff. This essentially ends my season. I wasn't aiming for championships this year, but I'm pretty sure we were leading all four classes heading into the weekend. My goal has been race wins and without racing for some time, that will be difficult. No more chasing new fast lap times. And most disappointing, no Mid-Ohio. With four days of racing and riding before the Pro stuff, I had very high expectations for next week – especially considering the regular AMA pros couldn't compete in these events, we would have really leveled the playing field. I would go as far as saying I was aimimg for a podium in AMA Supersport. That could be the drugs talking, but I was feeling great on the bike and know we could run the needed pace to run up front there.

- Congrats again to Jeff. He did great this weekend and will be flying the torch for awhile now.

Six weeks is the forecast for this rig. Fun times …

Friday, July 9th, 2010 | POSTED AT: 9:35 AM
FILED UNDER: Race Reports | 8 comments
Good Fortunes Are More Than Just Superstitions

Meet Terra. He's been accompanying us to the race track this year (some may know the meaning of this by the Yamaha commercials between Edwards and Spies recently). He was a gift and has become quite the fan of our race team this year (who can blame him right?).

Right now we're heading into the core part of the season. The WERA Grattan National is this weekend, followed by the WERA/AMA Roadrace Grand National Championships at Mid-Ohio, followed by the AMA Pro weekend a day later. Then we have a short gap and we're off to Virginia International Raceway for the the WERA Cycle Jam. All of these are big events with big competition at all of them – some of the best in the country. It will certainly provide a good measuring stick of where we're at.

This is the time I'm really looking forward to. It's not just a couple guys that help me step up my game, but a deep field across the board that forces the issue and the times to drop. After our last visit to Grattan, we've figured out some things and we'll be ready to go and push the envelope. As for Mid-O, I'm really looking forward to it. I haven't been there yet this year, but we'll have a lot of time to get back up to speed and push towards new, fast lap times. With all this excitement packed into the next couple weeks, VIR is a fair bit off in the distance, but it's an event that we did quite well at considering our lack of experience last year and the technical nature of the track. It'll be even more work to take the next step and build on what we learned there previously.

Without getting to far ahead of ourselves, Grattan is where the focus is. With names like the Bostrom's, Jason Disalvo, Dane Westby, Clinton Seller, Taylor Knapp and Kurtis Roberts, this event will be stacked – not to mention the host of other fast names that will be in attendance. If this isn't enough to get amp'd up about, I don't know what is.

Two seconds is what we need this weekend. Three if things go real well. We know what doesn't work around Grattan, so the only option now is to go with what works and put the hammer down. It'll be fun. And Jeff is feeling much better so I'm looking forward to him being back in action.

Ultimately, I'd like to rely on Terra for some help over the next few days, but I'm confident the hard work we've put in lately will pay dividends. Around Grattan, it has to eventually. And now is as good a time as any ..

If you're in the area, stop by our pits, grab a Monster and hang out for a few.

Cheers,

eddie

Thursday, July 1st, 2010 | POSTED AT: 7:44 AM
FILED UNDER: General | 1 comment

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