Good time to start racing?

[tshort]

finishing the race would be great.  not finishing last would be a bonus.  

That one made me smile to myself - reminded me of my first weekend racing.  It was a twinsprint at Road America, and I had those exact same sentiments: don't crash/finish the race; and try not to be last.  

It was a GTlights race (SV650).  No one was more surprised than me when I went to look at the results board and found my name in 4th place!  There were so many bikes, and so much confusion (to me) out there, I really had no idea where I was in the pack.  

Raced 10 more races that weekend, and brought home wood in all of them.  Who knew??  Certainly not me, I can tell you that for sure.

Go for it, and have fun.  As SuperDave has said (and he told me this, too), HAVE FUN.  If you're not having fun, why are you out there?  Wise words, those.

[2002r6]

i want to thank all of you for talking me into going racing this past weekend.  friday practice was rough, with mechanical problems and a crash in turn 1 on my first session.  i forgot to tighten my water pump drain bolt, which of course popped out and filled my lower with water, then going into 1, well, you can guess what happened.

with help from a few people, including the guys at fast lane, some parts i had, and $40 worth of other parts, i'm back on the track.  still having some issues, but at least i got to know the track a little bit.

saturday kent larson helped me out a ton.  get the bike running well and am able to race on sunday.  despite one close call when an expert clipped my right puck in practice going into 9, it went well.

entered my first race, lwss.  got a good start and just rode my race.  imagine my surprise when i check the board after the race and i'm in fifth.  got wood my first time out.  couldn't get the grin off my face.

my second and last race was lwsb. didn't get as good a start and got stuck behind a slower rider who i couldn't get around. i'm so used to track day passing rules that i guess i need to be more aggressive going forward.  finally got him coming out of 9 but by then it's too late to try to catch anybody else.  ended up 9th.

despite the crash, i couldn't be happier with the way things went.  i want to thank rick, kevin, rachel and the rest of the team from fast lane, kent larson, and all of you for talking me into it.  can't wait to get back out there. track days will never be the same again.

sherry morgan finished just in front of me in the lwss race.  i hope she heals up quickly and gets back out there.  she was riding great in race 1.

[Fat_Nate]

Excellent, excellent.  Thanks for the update.  (It sounded very familiar -- I only started this year, too.  I wish I'd started sooner!)