Memorial Weekend at the Beaver

Gina, Maggie (the pooch) and I headed to BeaveRun for the Memorial weekend holiday.  Leaving Friday, we arrived that night and had an absolutely great weekend of riding and hanging out at the track.  Dave (Grey), Blake (Kelly) and Jeff (Agnes) were there, although Blake didn't ride – he lives close by and just came to hang out.  Dave also brought his buddy (Dave) Bavol, who was hilarious.  His entertainment value over the two days was off the charts.  We seemingly laughed non-stop over the two days because of him.  Maggie made more friends than any of us did over the weekend – I think because she's a boxer, and she was calm with all the bikes buzzing around.  Boxers aren't supposed to be calm dogs.

STT was running the event and the turnout was somewhat light, which was perfect for me.  Even with some drastic closing speeds in the advanced group, the track was still fairly open and I put in a lot of laps over the course of the two days.  The sun was out, temps were in the high 70's/low 80's and it was great weather to get out and ride.  Between STT's Grattan event getting rained out on the second day, and the first two rounds of racing having practice cut short due to rain or cold weather – having two solid days of riding was a good thing.

Usually I leave the track with a feeling that I left something behind or didn't accomplish what I wanted.  This weekend wasn't like that.  I set out to work on a specific set of corners and I nailed down what I wanted to in each of them.  Finding a brake marker here, a reference point there, or just going faster in a certain spot.  By the end of the weekend, I got down to less than a second off my best lap time on 90+ lap tires and pump gas, all while sliding the rear tire around and being comfortable with it.  I'm really looking forward to going back there in a few weeks for the races.

Thanks to Blake who took the Zuma around on Sunday and watched in a couple sections to see where I could improve.  His advice was definitely helpful.  Thanks to Agnes and Blake as well for helping us load up on Sunday – and between them, the Dave's and the new and familiar faces we met over the two days, made for a great holiday weekend.

Cheers,

– ek