Since the VIR Superbike round was canceled and I was in town instead of working I jumped at the chance to race for the first time since April. Since my crash in August I haven't had a chance to do anything to the bike and really hadn't planned on doing anything since my next race wasn't supposed to be until October. So Friday night I looked the bike over and it really did amazingly well after the crash in August and all I ended up doing was bleeding the brakes and cleaning the scuffs off of the paint.

Saturday I went out and Dave Salmi (#40) was able to use me as an instructor for the novice school which was great because I really wasn't sure how my ankle would hold up to riding. I only started walking on it again a couple weeks ago and it is still a bit tender. Well, the day went exceptionally well considering the pouring rain. No novices crashed and I was feeling pretty good about my ankle. I just didn't think it would hold up for my usual 4 class race schedule.

Sunday I arrived at the track early and decided that I was just going to run the 750SB and 600SB races. I figured it was going to rain all day and I usually do very well in the rain so I may as well try to make some money. As it turns out, the only race for me would be a dry one. At third call for the 750SB qualifier my side plate on my helmet broke off leaving me w/ no faceshield. I considered packing up and going home right then. But Scott Ferrel came to my rescue w/ a sideplate for my helmet and I made it out for the 600SB qual. On the warm up lap a rider crashed in T5 and brought out an ambulance. We ended up sitting on the grid for quite awhile and again I pondered pulling off and going home because it was just starting to rain on our dry track. I stuck it out and we did another warm up lap to test the conditions before starting the 4 lap qualifier. I went pretty good and on the last lap I was sitting in 7th when Anthony Manciu came around me on the outside of 3 but left the inside open so I took it and repassed him. Then coming into T7 he came flying by me and Tamer and I followed the 2 thru 7 and into 8 where they both took the wide outside line. I again went up the inside and beat them to the apex and took the line away finishing in 6th. I was pretty happy w/ that.

750SB was the frist race after lunch and I intended to start the race from the back of the grid on full wet rain tires since it had started raining pretty good during lunch. This backfired on me when things started drying up and I ended up having to swap back to my dry tires and ended up just getting the brakes back on the bike when 3rd call was made. I still didn't have my leathers or race fuel so I decided it was no loss and relaxed and took care of everything else at a leisurely pace. (Something quite different for me since I normally have 4 classes in close succesion during the day) So 600 SB rolls around and we have a dry track and I'm ready to go. I feel good starting from row 2 spot 2 and I get a decent start but as I'm shifting thur the gears heading towards T1 something doesn't feel right w/ the shifting. When I get to T2 and try to click my downshift something really doesn't feel right. I roll thru 2 and 3 a gear to high and as I'm exiting T3 I look down at my shifter and the nub on the end of the lever is gone and all that remains is the screw that attached it and it's rattling around loosely. I contemplate throwing my hand up and crusing back to the pits but I figure one lap of trying won't hurt and find that the screw actually works fairly well for a shifter but then that fell out on the front straight starting lap 2. At this point I'm still sitting in 8th place but the leaders are already checking out on me. The rest of the race turns into a battle between myself and #70 Justin Watkins. When I end up bogging the bike out of turns and dragging it down the straights unable to shift right, he gets by me, but I out broke him into T1 after finally nailing the right gears and held him off for a couple more laps till the white flag came out. He was maybe a second behind me and I knew he would get me if I messed up the gear changes. So coming thru T2 I again missed the down shift and I can't get it to change all the way between 2 and 5 and he passes me into T4. I tried chasing him down the back straight and almost had a shot at him in T9 but he was just to far in front for me to take his line.

So that was it...a whole lot of questioning myself about wether I should be racing on my injured ankle and telling myself to go home only to have a race where I really actaully thought I could do well, end up w/ a mechanical failure because I didn't check a part someone else gave me.
Still, Turning 13's and finishing 9th in those conditions wasn't all that bad...