September 30, 2006

Well, it happens to everyone and it happened to me too.  I finally wrecked at the track.  It wasn't a big wreck and I'm ok - though I'm sore and still a little jangly from it.  It was the first session of the day and I didn't think I was going that fast.  I had just run a warm up lap at 1:35 which is about right for me for first thing in the morning. 

This was my first time back at the track with all my new changes:

• New rearsets
• Lowered seat
• New Brakes
• New model tires (Pirelli Supercorsa Pros)

My first impression was that I had a totally new bike.  It felt like it had a LOT more to give where acceleration, lean angle and grip were concerned than before.  It felt faster too, it just hooked and ran. 

In short the bike was faster than my brain was on the first session of the day.

I came out of Turn 11 with a good deal of speed and ran wide - right off the track in fact.  I knew I was running wide so I just ran off thinking I'd learn my lesson and dial it back down - only the runoff was rougher than I had expected.  I hit a big bump in the dirt and got pitched right off the bike at probably 60+ mph.  I landed square on the middle of my back (yay for spine protectors, it didn't even knock the wind out of me) then I flopped around on the ground for a minute, thought I was done sliding and stood up, only to do a couple more cartwheels before finally coming to a complete stop.

I'm embarrassed that this happened on the first session of the day and it is totally my fault.  I had made major changes to the bike, different brand of tires, different brakes, new race plastics. 

I went out there and rode the bike as if none of those changes had taken place, like I still "knew" the bike from before. 

I was wrong and it bit me. 

I had said I was just going to go out there and ride a slow pace to learn all the changes - had I done that I would still be there tonight instead of sitting here at home nursing a sore shoulder, two sore knees and a tweaked right wrist.  The other factor that would have helped is that it would have been nice if the runoff had been smoother - but really once you are off the track anything else that happens is totally your fault.