What a weekend. This race was all of 2+ hours away from the house so I was looking forward to doing some camping. But trying to get everything ready and deal with work left little time to prepare. Ended up scratching that idea and just decided to wake up extra early Sunday morning and make the trip. Took the bike to practice the track during big bike practice from 8-9 which meant leaving at 5am which meant waking up at 4. No wonder I slept in til 8:30 this morning!
Well I was really excited to try out the new Bubba Ramsey custom cut dome on the ESR310PV. And it didn't disappoint! Took the motor from 193psi to 230psi! The grunt in the woods and out-of-the-corner torque gain was very noticeable. Exactly what I was looking for! I spun pretty hard on the start and didn't get a good hook up and ended up with 2nd on the holeshot behind Doug, my rival for the points championship this year (I'm still 12 in the lead). I followed him for a couple laps and then got close enough I thought I could get around him after the scoring chute but found one of the corners leading up to it wasn't a bush, it was a tree and it put the bike on its side and me on the ground. After getting it fired back up, it was catch up time for the next 1.5 laps but with a half lap left, I caught him again and we did a little rubbing. I had him set up perfect coming back onto the start straight. I was on the outside but about half a quad in front of him and knew if we held our lines, I'd have the inside on the next corner going into a tight section and would have made the pass. But we both overcooked the corner and he ended up blowing into the berm and pushed me through it. Not overly intentional and apologized after the race. He admitted he came in too hot and had the tires locked down and just slide on the hardpack grass. And I know it's not like him but made for some excitement for sure. So rather than throw everything away and break something or not finish, I stayed tucked in behind him and finished 2nd. Funny thing is in the overall, I came in 5th...1 second ahead of him. Odd.
So without further ado, here's the vid of the 1st lap...
https://youtu.be/SsNppRtiZWY