Vegas at the racetrack on November 2, 2008, was windy. In June, we had a rogue wind that blew through around 2 a.m., according to reports, picking up our new 250 dollar canopy and crumpling it up like a rejected page of earnest prose destroyed in frustration by its author. This time around, the wind was relentless, starting first thing in the morning and not easing up until the early afternoon. But this time around we were wiser; we'd anchored our canopy 2.0 to several buckets of water, heavy steel motorcycle chocks, and generators. The canopy may not have ever gone anywhere, but the wind was just pummeling it and us. The canvas sheets on our new canopy were flapping around noisily, my hair was whipping around and making me irritated, and James and I frequently glanced at each other, and then at our canopy, and then at the heavy objects we'd tied it to.

Eventually we took it down and stopped stressing. It wasn't hot, or terribly sunny, so shade was not an imperative.

During Sunday morning practice the wind was so forceful that it was blowing us all over the track. One turn at this track is a long, fast, right-hand sweeper, and during the Sunday morning windstorm the wind was pushing me wide so hard that I came off the track suspicious that James had adjusted my suspension.

There is a young man that we talk with at the races named Garrett. Garrett's a nice kid, maybe 18, and he has a mop of curly, crazy brown hair that's usually hidden underneath a trendy beanie or cap. He has cute pictures of himself on MySpace looking sort of emo, as emo as a motorcycle racer can look, I guess. Anyway, I'd never really talked much with his dad aside from some 'congratulations' here and there, but Mr. Willis came by and chatted with me and James quite a bit on that windy Sunday. At one point Mrs. Willis walked by, and Mr. Willis said, "Hey pig!" She looked, then laughed indignantly, saying "the sad thing is that I looked." I asked Mr. Willis what she calls him. "Toad," he said. Later that day I saw Mrs. Willis riding pillion with Mr. Willis on their scooter, and looking like a couple that's been in love so long they have almost a handful of grown children. It was strangely sweet and it stuck in my mind.

I got a bad start in Formula 2 Novice, my first race. A bad start means that I get scared by the pack of riders all vying for position in the first five or six turns, and I just roll over and expose my belly like a submissive dog, letting everyone and anyone pass me. Once things clear up, I spend the rest of the race picking people off and working my way back up. If I could be braver on the start, I would put myself in a position further ahead with faster riders, and my experience has shown that when I ride with riders that are just a bit faster than me, I easily and without any hint of issues step up to their pace.

During the race I had a good battle with Jo, a racer I'd been competing with all year. He looks kind of like Mr. Clean and is friendly yet somewhat awkward. I passed him, then I passed him back and stayed ahead of him at the checkered flag. I was frustrated with my pussy start and wanted to change this behavior. I talked with James about it and he inspired me. "Don't dawdle!" "Find the hole and just go in it, like I do." "Put yourself where you want to be, they will get out of your way." In the second race, Lightweight Twins Superbike Novice, I got a significantly better start, and even ended up passing a man named Zoran, a legendary SV racer who happened to be tootling around on a new concept bike he built and was testing out. He was tootling, but I was still thrilled and amazed to find myself passing him by. I also was ahead of Jo before the first turn, and ended up beating him by more than two seconds. I played the game of chicken with a few riders in those treacherous first few turns and I won. It was awesome.

Another highlight of the day was watching 14 year old Elena Myers win two big races. She beat lots of men, but more impressively, she beat teenage boys that are older than she is. God I wish I'd started riding when I was younger.

James won four races, which thrilled me, but there really wasn't anyone significant there for him to race against. But we were still tickled. He also got a nice write-up in RoadRacingWorld.

We've been vacationing in Vegas since then and having a great time. My life is blowing up in about four other ways right now, so much to write, so little time.

Look it up in a dictionary. Find this photo:

A silly blog post that happened today:

Road Racing Diva Caves to Temptation

I love the way they approach clothing for "women who kick ass." They avoid falling into the cliches of pink and cutesy and "hee hee I'm a girl and I race", it is just serious style, athletic prowess and hip color palettes.

Anyway, I had my best race weekend ever at Infineon a few days ago. At the end of one race, I had thirteen riders (12 men, 1 woman) behind me and 25 in front. At AFM races I usually only beat about four or five crotch rocket jockeys. I'm not entirely sure how this happened, either.

At a track day last week, James helped me work on a change to my body positioning that helped me brake harder and turn the bike more quickly, and he also got me thinking more critically about my choice of lines. Something was just different this time though. I guess my expectations were low, but I'd shaken off some more fear I was clinging to involving AFM race starts. AFM race starts are so insane. Sixty racers all piling into the first few turns, weaving and shaking and bumping and hoping to not all fall down like a house of cards. I hate this part of the sport. But it's not going to go away, and I think I started to figure that if I'm going to do this, I have to do it like I mean it. So I did, and found myself ahead of quite a few people, and I held my position.

I had one battle with a sweet, bespectacled wedding photographer during Formula IV. He ended up ahead of me after we passed each other a few times, but at one point we were side by side going into turn seven, looking over at each other wondering who was going to back down in the game of chicken, and I won. I was on the inside of the turn, but hey, it definitely took some "balls of steel" as he put it.

I'm encouraged by these results. My laptimer said I did a couple of high 1:53s, beating my year's goal of 1:55 by over a full second. On a 75 horsepower SV this is actually a pretty decent laptime. I will continue to do push-ups, squats and abs in the gym, along with riding my bicycle every chance I get. These things will help me go faster.

This weekend I felt like a racer. So many little things I wasn't able to physically or mentally grasp at the start of the year are finally starting to come together; things like always being either on the gas or on the brakes. Things like downshifting my bike while braking so hard it feels like I'm doing a massive bench press, also with only half a butt cheek on the seat of my bike. Things like walking away from a race weekend and still feeling strong, in shape and full of vim and vigor. I still have so far to go, but that's what keeps it exciting.

How on earth does one train oneself to not ease back on the throttle when another racer comes into the periphery, with only feet to spare as they pass? How is it possible that I feel like I am racing my ass off, yet I come in with a lap time of 2:18 (placing third out of six in my novice race) and my class winners post 2:08? Where does the confidence to pass come from? Having raced for many years brings this experience, I believe. We were pitted next to Bennie "Bear" Taylor, a 9 or 10 year old little fast guy on little fast bikes, and his mom was telling me that he struggles with having the confidence to pass too. He's learning it at the age of nine, but I'm learning it at the tender age of 33. He's also learning it with his mom, dad and helpers encouraging him and working on his bike for him; meanwhile, I get tough love from the man. What's a girl to do? I do appreciate the tough love, as it will only make me stronger and hopefully not a girl about whom others say, "well of course she's fast, her boyfriend takes care of everything for her..."

It looked like rain, and rain it did. I got two practice sessions in Saturday morning before the skies opened up and ruined everyone's afternoon. My bike was working great, as always. I had the second fastest laptime in the slowest practice group; hopefully next round they'll bump me up to group 2. Honestly though I think that my peers were just a little bit disturbed by the cold, cloudy weather. I just told myself to be smooth as always, do most of my braking straight up and down, and trust that faster riders can do much faster laptimes on my bike despite the chill in the air.

I was really looking forward to racing Clubman again; Clubman is a novice race the AFM runs on Saturday afternoons. Typically once you race clubman and beat the qualifying laptime by three seconds or more you're not allowed to race it anymore, but they just relaxed the rules to allow you to run the race twice after spanking the qualifying time to allow for new racers to get more experience. But it started dumping rain around 11 a.m. and finally around 2:30 they called it a day and canceled all the clubman races. Oh well!

My first race on Sunday, Formula IV, was the first race of the day. There was one round of practice sessions, then a riders meeting, the national anthem and away we went. I was hesitant the first half a lap because I had much less faith in my fellow riders to not bin it while running around, vying for position, so I unhappily took a spot towards the back of the pack and set about trying to work my way back up.

I was riding well until the lap after I passed Brian Paoletti. Coming out of turn seven and into some esses, I kind of "forgot" that there was another left hand kink coming out of them and was headed for the dirt. I tried meekly to make it and then decided I would just ride through the dirt and back onto the track where the track turned right again. Brian passed me back, but then I passed him again somewhere. I was finding that I was faster than my peer group going through the carousel; people seemed timid about carrying corner speed through there. But then I was weakest going into seven and nine, the turns requiring heavy braking after quick straights. An occasional rider would sneak by me there.

Then, I was battling with Mike Adrian, a rider who was impossibly slow at the last race. I couldn't get over how much quicker he was, and it infuriated me that I was behind him. I passed him in the carousel, then he passed me back in nine. On the last lap, I passed him in the carousel again, thinking that I hopefully would have him this time, but then he snuck by me again going into nine. He even hesitated, unsure that he really had it, and I could have counter-stuffed to his stuffing me. But I didn't. Oh well. It's only club racing. But god damnit I wanted to beat him! Zoe, another girl racer on an SV, was gridded ahead of me, got a stronger start and stayed solidly in a pack ahead of me, but my laptime was still better than hers. I ended up with a 1:56.2 best laptime, my best ever at that track.

650 Twins was an unbelievable disaster. Not for me, but for many others. It was mayhem around every turn! Crash here, crash there. They ended up having to roll an ambulance and then restarted the race. After the restart, the mayhem continued, and another ambulance scurried out onto the track. Another restart. At this point, Shandra Crawford and I were stopped in turn 7 with a pack of riders, waiting for track officials to decide where to send us while the medics did there thing. She called the chaos "bowling for bikes." Pretty descriptive turn. Both she and I were apprehensive about going back out there after yet another restart, but James encouraged me, saying, "but there's gonna be fewer riders out there! Of course you're going back out!"

"Okay fine," I thought. I also thought that if Shandra went back out, I'd feel lame for not going back out too. So I did. I was much more hesitant on the start and got a spot towards the back, as usual, and then worked my way back up to 33rd (out of 37) by the end of the race.

James won Open Superbike and Formula Pacific, which was really exciting. He got a bad start and was in fifth going into turn 2, but then worked his way up to first, ending it with a four second lead over David Stanton. We ended the day at a cute little bar in Glen Ellen with Josh, the Pirelli guy, and his girlfriend. We got along great at the track and overall I can't complain about a thing (except for not beating Adrian and Zoe, grr)!

I also had a new "outfit" (James likes to make fun of me for wanting to match suits with helmets):

So sure, I haven't been racing long enough to truly feel I own the title of "female racer," but even in my short career I've noticed some troubling trends. 

Hair.  If you keep it long, it's going to get destroyed, no matter how hard you try to keep it soft and silky (unless you've been blessed with a mane of shampoo commercial quality hair).  I've also noticed thinning around my temples, perhaps from my already baby fine, frail hair doing battle with the snug helmet as it squeezes onto and off of my head.  I think I'm going to transition back to my natural brown and stop bleaching it, hopefully this will help it stay stronger.

Girl-specific issues having to do with long hours spent exercising in the hot sun in a leather suit.  'Nuff said.

Boys behind you target fixating on your ponytail or the sheer fact that you are female, and then crashing into you.  This has happened to Krystyna, another racer, and probably others, and I saw it happen in front of me when Zoe was in front of the rider who crashed in front of me.  He was so fixated on the fact that she was female, it didn't occur to him that there could have been TWO females in his race, and he ended up getting the two of us confused and blamed the crash on me.

Once you've spent two years spending money on bikes, a trailer, parts, suits, helmets, tires, racing schools and over $1,000 a race weekend, you look into your closet one day and notice that you haven't shopped for clothes since gas was still two bucks a gallon.  You look at your frumpy, limp hair, ill health, battle wounds, and empty wallet, faintly able to recall a former, more glamorous you, and wonder if this absolute abandonment of all things sexy is similar to the unfortunate transformation that hits most new mothers. 

I'm tired of being dirty, injured and unpolished.  But I still want to go faster...

In a nutshell...

Infineon rocked.

Friday: awesome practice day with new personal best laptimes
Saturday: came in fourth out of twelve in my novice race with a laptime of 1:59.9
Sunday: beat seven people in 650 twins and had a faster best laptime than seven riders who placed ahead of me (1:57.4), my boyfriend won Formula Pacific (where the fastest riders race the fastest bikes), and I had an awesome crash in Formula IV that got caught on camera:



I love the shattered glass, flying ponytail and hand still on the throttle like "I think I can still save it..." I was fine, but my bike needs a tiny bit of work. It happened on the first lap when everyone was still bunched up and the rider in front of me grabbed a handful of front brake on the exit of 9 and tucked the front. I rode up and over his bike. I'm still not sure how his bike landed on its right side, though.

The James vs. Christie speed delta is coming down, slowly but surely! It's typically around twenty to thirty seconds, this weekend, a mere seventeen. Hooray!

My racing situation is unique, for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, I'm fortunate enough to be able to race in a place as far away from me as Vegas because my boyfriend is a successful racer with his own mechanics; mechanics who have a large trailer and are happy to take my bike with them to James' races. I do pay them. But it affords me a high level of convenience that most novice racers simply don't have. Richard is a top mechanic in high demand, but he always makes time for me and I'm thankful.

What this means is that instead of hauling my stuff for ten plus hours and sleeping in a roach motel or my trailer, I flew into Vegas, checked into my hotel, and showed up at the track the next morning to find my bike out and ready for tech. It was rad.

After how stressed out and disappointed I was in my Buttonwillow weekend, I was prepared to not have any expectations and just ride. I was excited to learn the track, and I was excited to push myself a little more to get on the brakes later and on the gas earlier.

I waited in line for almost 45 minutes to join WERA and sign up for practice and my races, so I missed the first practice. No big deal. Brant Wiwi came up to me in line saying "well, Mrs. Randolph." For some reason him and his girlfriend are usually pitted near us. I think because he's often pitting with Terry and Robert Tinagero, and Robert idolizes James and always puts himself near us so he can hit up James and Richard for advice.

Realizing that I wouldn't get to practice all day because of the Solo 20 races, I decided to sign up for the brutally long twenty lap race so I could get some more practice at that track. As the day went on, I got excited for the race, for the challenge of it. I like beating the crap out of myself; it makes the shower at the end of the day immensely satisfying.

The day proceeded uneventfully. Ace, James and I went out to lunch in my rented Ford Escape and then toured around the enormous Las Vegas Motor Speedway complex. We paused on the side of the road to ogle a mansion-sized earth mover. The boys oohed and aahed over the huge suspension parts and massive axle rods, like little boys excited about some new Hot Wheels. We were disappointed that there weren't any Shelby Mustangs out at the Shelby factory, but then had fun watching go karts zipping around the go kart track.

We got back to the track and started to get ready for our respective races. Me, Solo 20 lightweight (determined by engine size), James and Ace in Solo 20 Heavyweight. I was waiting for race number five to roll around, and was inside the trailer watching the track. I started to see Shandra going by on her SV and I thought that I was supposed to be in the same race as her, but also knew it was race number four going on, so I went outside to see what the hell was going on. My race was in progress! They canceled race four! I was upset and started to gear up. They were 11 laps through, but I figured I could sneak out there and get some laps in, which I did. I rode a little harder than I had in practice that morning and got down to a 1:36, faster than my 1:37s in practice but still slower than Shandra. I didn't mind; I was just practicing.

I rode a little scooter down to a spot near turn 8 to watch James' race. He started out in fourth, but as the laps continued he started to drop back little by little. He didn't look like he was quite himself and he seemed pretty unhappy afterwards. We resolved to get to bed early that night after getting in late the night before, logging only four hours of sleep.

The next day, even though it was race day, was more mellow. I didn't have to sign up for anything, my bike was already on warmers and had been teched the day before, and my mood was cheerful and excited. I had two practices in the morning, getting down to a 1:36. I didn't have nearly the same sense of foreboding and doom as I did before my first Clubman race at Buttonwillow and just cruised on up to my grid spot, ready to get some more practice in. I thought I was part of a second wave, so when the green flag flew I made sure my fellow novice was also going, and that put me dead last. I caught up to Michael Mamer on his retro styled Ducati and was presented with the challenge of passing someone who's slow in the corners but has more motor than me on the exit. I tailgated him relentlessly for eight laps, almost passing him twice but each time aborting. I didn't trust him to not freak out and crash as I showed him a wheel. No excuse, I should have still gone for it, but there will always be next time. I came in third out of three with a laptime of 1:34.

I don't know her very well, but I have a ton of respect for Shandra; she and I chatted some and it's clear she is into this and enjoys the mental and physical challenges of it. I figure she's in her mid to late thirties, but she looks younger. She gets herself to the track and figures out her setup on her own. She seems to have improved a lot this year over the last, and is also riding a 250 and a mini motard with the little kids in the mini races. Interestingly, I was seven seconds slower than Shandra at Buttonwillow, and only a second and a half slower than her at Vegas. Sure, the track is smaller, so laptime differentials are smaller too, but I think this was indicative of my confidence increasing yet again.

James wasn't pleased with the outcomes of his races, but admitted that he and the guys learned a lot that will help them for the next one. In Formula I Expert, he took second behind Pridmore with a 1:17.6, beating Michael Beck and Alessandro Assanti, WERA West's number 1 plate holder. In a later race he lost a tight battle with Assanti and took second, and took third in Heavyweight Superstock. I love watching him race. The minutes and hours before races he's like a bull at the rodeo before being let out of the pen, which is both amusing and sexy.

I feel good about my bike and am ready to start learning again, as opposed to just dealing with nagging little mental gremlins. Next race is Infineon with the AFM, not this weekend but the next. 2:00 here I come!

There's a rider I see in the results of races and practices who rides at a somewhat leisurely pace, and his name has stuck out in my mind, so sometimes when I see results I check his laptimes and compare mine to them. Dean rides a 600, a much more powerful bike than mine, but at Fontana I was a second slower than him on average. Compare that to last month's AFM race at Buttonwillow, where I was twelve to fourteen seconds slower than him. What gives?

Maybe it was because as I was cruising through Buttonwillow's Riverside, an extremely fast, long set of sweeping right hand turns, I was singing the Beatles song "Michelle" inside my head. I should probably focus on going fast instead of thinking about a cheerful, slow little song.

The topic came up on barf recently as to whether or not a woman might ever be racing in Moto GP, the world's premier motorcycle roadracing circuit. One of Moto GP's recent world champions, Valentino Rossi, is the 7th highest earning sports personality in the world (2nd outside the United States), earning an estimated $30 million a year, according to Sports Illustrated. In the thread, someone made the statement "then there has to be some deficiency in women, other than the societal to explain why there aren't any top level women in motorcycle racing. Or is the answer, because they never wanted to?"

Now, I'm not sure that I believe it's possible for women to race or ride as well as men. There don't seem to be any physical limitations, like in football, but there might be a fundamental lack in the aggression necessary to dominate. I was really tempted to reply, just because I'm interested in the topic, and I put together the following unposted response:

Images in the media totally support the societal ideal of the man that kicks ass and comes home to supportive woman. Everything from the television shows we watch to the commercials that are shown to the print advertising we see in magazines support this, with a few notable exceptions.

Case in point: a Bridgestone ad that's been running on Speed channel all the time lately features a squirrel running out into the road to get a nut. Car approaches. Squirrel screams like a little girl. All the other forest creatures scream like little girls; the deer, the owl, the praying mantis, the female human passenger in the approaching car. But her big, strong man smiles knowingly and swerves the car deftly around the helpless squirrel, saving the day. It's a really cute ad, but would you EVER see a woman driving the car? NO! There isn't a single car ad out there that features a woman behind the wheel of a performance car.

Popular culture seems to be more supportive of men and women who fall into these stereotypes, and often don't know how to handle people who don't. Society has always had fiercely held ideals about the role of motherhood and what proper behavior for a female constitutes. Parents, usually wanting the best for their kids, and intentionally or not, typically encourage their boys to do boy things and their girls to do girl things. They want their kids to fit in. God bless Mr. Myers [father of a local 14 year old girl who many believe represents one of the only current possibilities for a female Moto GP rider] for being so supportive of a little girl who wants to race.

There might be a lot of nature to it - maybe the average girl will never be aggressive enough to race at the top. But that's the beauty of average...there are always individuals out there who are not...

Some pictures from Monday:






Me on the track



Two up ride with AFM #2



Hangin' at the dinner (that's us in the foreground with our backs to the camera)



We're the two cracking up on the left

Being on the track this year hasn't been the same kind of exhilarating "whee" as it usually is. In January I crashed at Fontana, a new track, in February I rode two more new tracks: Buttonwillow clockwise and Buttonwillow counter-clockwise. Then last weekend I raced the clockwise Buttonwillow configuration.

Yesterday I got to ride at Infineon, the track I feel most comfortable at. The ups and downs and round and rounds make riding there feel like riding a rollercoaster. It's fun. Not hard work, not scary, not bumpy and there's wide swaths of pavement at the ends of fast sections, giving me comfort when imagining a brake failure or other such nonsense.

I set the bar low for my laptime goals; my primary mission was to have fun but I also wanted to make sure I was falling into a leisurely range of 2:05 - 2:10. Not only was this achieved comfortably, but I also regained my confidence at lean angle, dropping and skidding knees left and right, even in the carousel. I worked on braking markers and turn in points. I worked to carry more speed through 3a, and to hone my line through 7.

After lunch I took a two-up ride with James on a friend's R1. James' laptimes, on a bike with nearly three times the horsepower of mine, come in between 20 and 30 seconds a lap faster than mine. This is like starting to take tennis lessons and then comparing yourself to Pete Sampras, such is the disparity in our ability levels. The speed was indescribable. Braking was so hard and so fast that my ass rose up off the seat as I slid up his massive back, pushing my hands against the tank with all my might to keep as much of my weight off of him as possible. Accelerating out of every corner was an exercise in hanging on for dear life. He passed guys in the middle of tight turns, and at several points I could have reached out and touched the rider we were passing.

I keep thinking of this design of a skunk on my new Skunk Racing t-shirt:



He's gritting his teeth, scrunching up his face, the spit's flying, this is pretty much what I looked like inside my helmet on that ride, only maybe more scared looking. It was probably the closest I've ever come to dying. I think he had even more fun that I did, his first comments to people when we got off the bike was "oh dude that was so fun, stuffing guys all over the place with my girlfriend on the back, ha ha!"

The next session I went out and turned my fastest lap, a still leisurely 2:02. Expert race winners on pokey little SVs like mine can do 1:46. I'd be thrilled to get under 2:00 this year, with 1:55 being a "someday" goal. Perhaps I'd get there faster by making the skunk face even when I'm out there by myself.

This track day was unique in that it was a charity event; after the track day, wine and beers were served in the garages, and then to the cheerfully creepy sounds of a singing accordionist, a spaghetti dinner and auction. I won a bottle of wine and a brunch for four at the Fairmont in Sonoma. I chatted drunkenly on the ride home and didn't return to the south bay until this morning. I feel encouraged, capable, and blissfully sore and worn out.

Eleven months ago today my back was opened up and operated on. Disc material was cleaned out, bone was chipped away, all to give my inflamed nerves room to breathe. I'm not sure if it was my actual spinal cord or one of the big nerves coming off of it and going down my right leg that was being choked within an inch of its life, but whichever one it was, my toes didn't move anymore. And the lower half of my leg had no feeling in it.

The surgery was a success, but the intoxicating dreams I had of improving my quickness at the track and perhaps one day racing were put on hold so I could rest in bed and watch endless repeats of Law & Order SVU.

Slowly I worked to regain strength and mobility. Two days after the surgery my mom began taking me on short ten minute walks down the street and back. The walks gradually became longer, and increased to twice a day. I was still on strict bed rest, for another six weeks, but I was instructed to walk, and walk I did.

I began physical therapy in late June. Still on disability leave from work, I continued my twice daily walks and visited the MORE Clinic in Santa Clara three times a week. The first exercise I did was a pelvic tilt; lying on my back, with my knees in the air, I would press my low back into the ground, then come back to neutral spine. I would then arch my low back, then come back to neutral spine. Lather, rinse and repeat.

Each day one or two new exercises were added. I had lost a lot of weight, all muscle, and was down to a willowy 125 pounds, not nearly enough for a five foot ten inch girl. I loved going to physical therapy because I loved getting stronger. I tried to eat a bit more to help nourish the extra activity. I listened to ass kicking music while doing my exercises at the clinic, visualizing myself back on a motorcycle, whipping around a racetrack. I was going through some challenging personal melodramas but the fantasies of complete ownage on a racetrack (which will likely always remain exactly that - fantasies) kept me bright eyed and bushy tailed.

It was sheer stupidity, really, the decision to go back to the racetrack so soon. In August I did a track day on my new little SV. People have crashed much harder than I have, certainly, but given the intensity of the impact of body on ground I felt in November and January, riding on the track in August was just stupid. Had I crashed at that point, I could have destroyed all I'd been working towards all spring and summer.

More track days followed and I got faster and faster, down to a still slow 2:12 at Thunderhill. I did some crashing, got slower again, and got faster again.

This Saturday I will race. I will wait on the starting grid for the green flag, take off in a charging herd of determined new racers, and have laptimes recorded in the books. To say I'm excited is an understatement, but I'm trying to temper my excitement with a little bit of grown-up maturity. My humble goal is to finish. Not be the fastest, not even to be faster than the slowest, but to just finish. And finish I will.

I feel like I know exactly what I need to do to keep progressing with my riding.

First and foremost, I need to focus on picking my bike up as I head out towards the exit of the turn, all while delicately applying throttle, increasingly as the bike becomes more upright.  Ham-fistedly applying throttle while still leaned over can have disastrous results.  I knew these principles before, I guess I had just never quite found the edge.  The SV seemed so happy to willingly do whatever I asked of it, so I kept pushing more and more, and then I didn't just cross that line, I think I dove across it head first.

Fontana was strange though, because my head was not in the right place.  And then it was on the ground.  I had actually had a near highside the previous session, where the rear end of the bike wiggled madly and then corrected itself.  Why did I not take that as a warning?  I even mentioned it to Ace, a race buddy.  Dumb, dumb, dumb! 

Second, I need to let the bike drift all the way out to the outside of the turn, on exit.  I get scared of running off the track, so I try and stay as far away from that edge as I can while still having decent lines.  This results in me carrying more lean angle for longer, which means less time that I can be pinning the throttle open.

Third, I need to brake later and harder.  I've done this effectively a handful of times, but fearing going in "too hot" I usually start braking early and don't carry enough corner speed to my apex (and as a result rush the exit by whomping on throttle before it's really safe to do so). 

I am practicing this in my car, like on the morning drive to work.  The driveway leading up to my office park is in a somewhat remote area, and has a long straight followed by a tight right and a medium left.  This 's' turn is the highlight of my mornings.  I try to go faster and faster in, braking at the last second, each time surprised by the responsiveness of my 330's braking.  I have a similar mindset on the bike, where I never give it enough credit to brake effectively and in a short amount of time.

Seconds can be found on entry and by letting my bike drift out towards the corner exit.  There are two fear factors preventing this, and I hope that I don't have to be taught another hard lesson in where the edge of traction is.  One is the fear of going in too hot and lowsiding.  Approaching a turn at high speeds is scary.  Will I go in so fast that I'll run wide and into the bumpy, ditchy dirt?  And then, will I go out so fast that I run wide and into the bumpy, ditchy dirt?  I think about my friend Steve, who hit the dirt, started cartwheeling and shattered his ankle from it doing a 180 degree turn around on his leg.  And then also my friend George, who hit the dirt too and got launched.  The road seems much smoother and more predictable than the dirt.

So I crashed. Again. Although, this time it was totally my fault.

Saturday morning in Fontana was blazingly beautiful. Still and mild, with snow-capped mountains rising up steeply just to the north.

The track day was frantic, with long lines for registration and tech, a rushed riders' meeting, and general chaos perhaps due to the organization running a mixed racers/street riders track day.

My first session started late due to oil spilled on the track. I'm not even sure when I got out there, but after about 3/4 of a lap the session was red flagged and we all came back in. As I exited the track, I saw a rider lying face down on the pavement on the exit of a turn, not moving. The next session out, there were more red flags and I got one and a half laps in. It's like when a herd of horses all get excitable and twitchy for no real apparent reason. A smell in the air, a change in the weather, who knows, but the whole mass of riders seemed to be on the same wavelength and it was a day filled with crash upon crash upon crash.

After lunch, I finally got a full session's worth of laps in at this new track. California Speedway is a track that's primarily designed for Nascar events, so it has a huge D shaped oval with gargantuan grandstands lining it, and then several smaller, lesser tracks contained within it. The motorcycle track configuration almost feels like an afterthought; there seems to be no care or thought put into which way it goes, just a haphazard collection of turns and cones all put into place with a mind for providing good runoff (space outside the track so motorcyclists don't crash into walls or other "stopped stuff" as James refers to it).

That said, the track was actually fun to ride. I enjoy going to new tracks and figuring them out, only I was putting too much pressure on myself to "keep up," which is one of the cardinal rules of motorcycling that I'd always carefully followed, at least until Saturday. Everyone was in a hurry, it seemed. Or they were just feeling frisky, having traveled from colder parts of the world to this sunny, warm motorsports haven. I was passed by a rider I've seen, Shandra, who also rides an SV. I was excited to follow her because she was on the same bike as I was and is around the same speed, and it's fun to ride with other people you can "play" with. I introduced myself to her after the session and said I wanted to ride with her the next session too.

I didn't find her that next session, and a few laps into it I was starting to get caught up in the feeling of having fun, of figuring out my way around, of feeling fast. Yet another cardinal rule of motorcycling is to humble yourself when such overconfidence sets in. But I was feeling frisky and somewhere in the right-left-right collection of turns after the back straight I crashed. When you are leaned over far in a turn, which I am unafraid of doing, you have significantly less contact with the ground than you do when you're straight up and down. Brake and throttle inputs must be handled with care. You are supposed to gently roll on the throttle as you exit a turn, rolling on harder in proportion to how much you start "standing" the bike back up to be upright again. When you are upright, you can have the throttle pinned open.

So basically, I was too aggressive with the throttle while still being leaned over. My rear tire spun up and out to the side, and then regained traction and hooked back around; it fishtailed like that maybe once or twice and then I was spit up and off over the "high" side of the bike, resulting in this type of crash's ugly name: highside. Highsides usually break bones. People can land on their heads and break their necks. Lowsides, in contrast, are usually much less serious.

I didn't have any conscious thoughts as I was crashing. I didn't think, "oh shit, this is a highside, this is going to be serious." I think that I was perfectly in the moment, not thinking about the past, not thinking about the future, not thinking at all. I remember the fishtailing feeling of the bike and then rising above it slightly, headed for the ground. I landed on my chin and my left knee I think, slid a bit and then tumbled. I don't even remember waiting to stop sliding, all of a sudden I was up on my feet and scooting off the track and out of the way.

The medics at the track were extremely vigilant and procedure oriented, and it took a lot to talk them out of putting me on a stretcher, all because I said my neck hurt. My neck is sore, I have a bruise under my chin from my chinstrap, and I have large bruises on my left bicep, left knee, right shin, and right forearm. And a nasty headache, but I think that might be because I'm getting a cold.

I'm pretty fascinated by my crashes, but trying not to be. James has crashed probably three million times in his career, occasionally with serious injury, and I don't want to be a wuss. But it's pretty goddamned fascinating, if you ask me. It's drama, and I'm a sucker for drama. I'm also embarassed about the crash, because it's pretty difficult to highside the low horsepower SV; these types of crashes are more commonly associated with the higher horsepower 600s and 1000s. That said, I have some serious flaws in my riding that need to be corrected before I put myself into a competitive situation.

Anyway, I gave myself a time out on Sunday and decided not to race. I'm not sure they would have let me, anyway, and it would have taken some energy to scrape together the parts I needed to make my bike rideable again. I have some changes I have to make to my riding to help ensure this kind of crash doesn't happen again.

This weekend I'm headed to California Speedway in beautiful Fontana, California. There is a race with another racing club called WERA, and from what I've heard the numbers of riders on the track are much less than with my local club, AFM. The weather will be nice, and conditions seem suitable for me to participate in my first novice race.

Saturday will be a track day, with me in B group which will put less pressure on me since I'll be at a new track, haven't ridden in a while, and crashed the last time I did ride.

I'm pretty excited to just ride. Minor anxieties include figuring out where to pit. A group of people I know, including a talented, insane Balkan who also happens to be an expert when it comes to my type of bike, and another female racer who's also on an SV have asked if I'd like to pit with them.

James and Ace are taking my bike down there for me, and it'd be pretty lame for me to not pit with them. Hopefully we can all be near each other. I respect James' experience and abilities, but also feel a need to make sure I keep my own contacts, especially in the SV community.

I fly Friday. Any friends of mine in the L.A. area are welcome to come visit on Saturday or Sunday. I don't know when I'd race on Sunday, but I'll be riding all day Saturday.

Concerned parents need not read on past the ( cut. )

Well, after three sequential weekends of full time MSF training (Friday night 5-10, Saturday 8-5, Sunday 8-5) and working full time, going to physical therapy and attempting to have a life on top of it all, I have now passed my Motorcycle Safety Foundation Rider Coach Preparation training. Which means that I can teach MSF anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world. On top of that, it pays well and is part-time. I'm excited to be a new rider's positive first experience in the motorcycling world, and to help new riders learn about safety.

It's a sweet gig. My first shift is on Saturday, December 1.

The training was exhausting and stressful. I don't know why, but our Rider Coach trainer made me really nervous. He wasn't very forthcoming with information or assessments of us, and I just happen to be one of those people who likes to know where I stand. The MSF is all about "adult learning," which is a method of teaching in which people aren't "taught," per se, but instead encouraged to find the answers out themselves. Works great for adults who have psychological barriers to learning like big egos, inability to adapt to change, and so on, but I'm a pretty receptive student with a deep love for efficiency. The most efficient way to learn is to simply be given the information, to digest it, and then to practice it; it takes too long to guide me down a rambling path where I will discover the answers on my own.

They don't teach you in law or medical school this way, do they? Just curious...

The only major thing worth reporting today is that I did my first track day on Friday.

It was the first day on the track since my surgery, and all went reasonably well. I was on a new bike, but on a track that I know well and love, Infineon Raceway. It goes up, it goes down, it goes round and round, it's like a roller coaster. I rode my new bike for the first time; a 2003 Suzuki SV outfitted with all the right racing parts. Not the most bling bling race SV around, but above average. The SV is pretty different from the GSXR I'd been riding on the track previously. It has around 75 hp, whereas the GSXR has around 109. I felt the difference in power most when throttling out of The Carousel, or Turn 11; the GSXR takes off like a surprised racehorse, and on the SV I felt like I was on top of a plodding nag, beating it on its ass with a stick, pinning the throttle while shifting up through the gears and wondering why I'm not going anywhere.

I'm slow on it. I don't know how or when to shift it. It needs to be shifted all the time. I can't tell you how many times I looked down and was 2000 RPM over redline, thinking, "dammit, I need to shift again." Also, when blipping my downshifts while braking before a turn, I noticed that I was sticking the throttle open at the same time, which is very, very bad. Coming down the front straight into Turn 1, braking, downshifting and blipping, then letting off and noticing you're still rocketing forward off of the track is upsetting. So I was very shy with my braking. Everything else I think was decent, my corner speed, drives, and lines.

Towards the end of the day I started to get used to it all.

The best news is that I didn't crash, even though I went off the track coming out of Turn 4. People frequently slip and fall when they go off the track into the dirt, but the plodding nag stayed upright even though I was a little aggressive with the rear brake. I eased back onto the track and my friend Jason buzzed by, pumping his fist in the air like "hell yeah!" They all said they thought I was going down for sure.

Here's the track map, so you can see the turns I'm talking about:



Saturday I slept in, had a lazy morning, then took my trailer back. There was a huge accident on 101 that made me a half hour late for my hair appointment.

My surgery happened so fast last week. One day it was my birthday, I was selling a bike and buying a bike that week, I had just had a triumphant experience at the Spencer School in Vegas, then the next day I had a neurosurgeon operating on my spinal cord and I'd be flat on my back for two weeks. With a little help from friends, I was still able to do some business. Rick met with the man buying my beloved SV, did the paperwork, and collected the money. The seller of my new SV race bike was helpful, understood my situation and was nice enough to drive all the way down to San Jose from Novato to my parents' house to do paperwork, then went with Ashley to my house to unload the bike and put it in my garage.

This doesn't mean that I am racing, it just means that I now have a real track dedicated bike that is capable of being competitive in a race against others like it, in case I find that I'm swift enough to be competitive myself in a race. For now, it will be for fun and to learn on.

I just don't know what to do about the colors. At first I detested the orange, but now I like it. It still needs to be changed. My leathers are white, pink, silver and black. I don't want any pink on the bike, so it needs to be some sort of combination of white, silver and black without making me look like an Oakland Raiders fan. Here's the bike as it is now:



Pretty rad, ain't it? Too bad I can't ride it for a few months, but at least in the meantime I can paint it and pimp it out a little.