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 …