I am writing this report while sitting in the Seattle airport waiting for a plane to take me to Las Vegas. Only a few short hours ago I was navigating Pacific Raceways at speed, and now I'm experiencing the joys of airline transportation. I almost feel displaced and it’s put me into quite a bizarre mood. On one hand I am excited about spending the next few days with Freddie Spencer and Company in Las Vegas, on the other, I am frustrated with how things worked out for us racing today. Here is what went down.

I took off a day early to spend some time with Dan and the team before the race weekend to help them prepare for our last WMRRA round of the year. It’s fun to hang out around the shop, talk trash, and just generally goof around before we head off to the races where everything gets a little more serious.

Notes on practice:

The weather was absolutely horrendous the Friday before the race weekend with enough rainfall to force the track to shut down operations during the scheduled track day. This, of course, left the track in shambles. However, by Saturday mid-morning the WMRRA crew had cleaned up most of the debris and standing water. Believe it or not this was the first time this year that I have truly ridden in the rain. Something that I have truly missed. I love riding in the wet, something that Dan continues to disbelieve. It only took about five laps to get the feel back as the Pirelli rains were performing their usual magic, and by the end of the day I was feeling extremely confident. The only issue we encountered all day was the malfunction of the electronic quickshifter. Not a problem as I simply shifted the bike in a normal fashion. Little did we know how much of a factor the shifter was going to be in our weekend.

Notes on race

Unbelievably the sun came out Sunday morning drying the track completely by 10:00 am. Our race, 600 Superbike, was the first scheduled race that day. I did a few laps in morning practice to check out the track and ensure everything was good. With that done the crew mounted up a fresh set of Pirelli’s and threw the warmers on. We were ready. I was gridded in the middle of the second row knowing all too well a good start was going to be crucial to our success. I launched well and was in about 6th going through turn one. With some aggressive passes and late braking moves I had made my way up to 3rd by turn four. We blasted through the lap all the while making serious ground on the leaders, Mike Sullivan and Barry Wressell. As we entered turn three Barry’s bike got way sideways (apparently a result of a loose steering damper) and he shot off the track in a rather dramatic fashion. He was okay but quite lucky to have walked away from the ensuing crash. With Barry now unfortunately out of the picture it was going to come down to Mike and I. I had a huge grin on my face as I blasted up out of turn seven knowing we were in the hunt for a possible win. My grin was short-lived however as the bike was starting to misfire and sputter on hard acceleration. I concluded it was the shifter issue which generally was resolved by flicking the switch by my left leg to shut the system down. Unfortunately this had no effect and the problem was getting progressively worse. To my despair Mike was disappearing down the track and with the situation not improving in the slightest another rider managed to get by. I stayed out for a few more laps playing the onboard technician, but with no resolution to the misfire, I had to pull off into the pits. I was terribly disappointed as I had really wanted to do well for Dan and the team this weekend. I felt good, and the bike (when running) was phenomenal to say the least. But hey, that's racing and stuff happens when you race. Dan knew immediately what had happened and proceeded to disconnect the shifting mechanism and had me do a few test laps. Guess what? The bike was 100%. Damn shifter. :o)

A huge thanks to everyone that helped make this weekend as fun as it was and a special thanks to the Gua family- Brad, Cindy, Adam and Erin for being about the most praiseworthy people I have ever met.

Here I go, off to Las Vegas, to learn how to ride a motorcycle with a world champion. I can’t wait!

Stay tuned

Oliver

Please click on image to enlarge

The Zlock Shop	Another view
The DYNO room	The Pits
The 6RR	ZX6RR
ZX6RR	ZX6RR
ZX6RR	Mike Sullivan and I
Barry Wressell	To be in the picture each person had to have been roadracing for over 30 years! From left to right - Dale Zlock, Mike Sullivan, Dan Zlock, Bruce Lind.
Mr Brad Gua	Brad & Cindy Gua
Mr. Zlock	Meet "Boonie" ... Dan & Joyce's new dog. Finally something that costs Dan more money than me... :o)
Dan & Boonie	Check this out... I found Dan's old NASB license from 1986-87... Hilarious
Kodi goofing around with me before I left	This is how she greets me when I pick her up from Preschool ... What an awesome kid.. :o)