This past weekend marked the seventh weekend in a row that saw me racing or attending a P.R. event. It's actually been quite crazy; my wife and I bought a house just over a month ago and I have yet to spend a weekend in it. Ahhhh racing!

It had been close to two years since we last raced in Portland, and somehow I managed to talk Dan into going down for this particular weekend.

Notes on Practice:

Day one - Practice
Practice Session 1
Weather conditions - Cold and damp
Tires front / rear - soft front - soft rear
Total laps - 4
Best time - 1:12.2
Concerns/problems - The bike has a slight "miss" in the higher rpm range.
Notes: It was readily apparent that there was something wrong with the 600. In the higher rpms (around 14,000) the bike was slightly misfiring. Unfortunately for Dan, the rest of the day was spent sorting out the issue. After numerous tests we located the problem; it was the "brain" of my quick shifter. For some reason it was causing one of the cylinders to misfire in the higher rpms. With the quick shifter fully removed the condition disappeared although, obviously, I no longer had the luxury of a quick shifter, something I have grown quite fond of over the season.

Day 2

Practice Session 1
Weather conditions - Cool and damp
Tires front / rear - soft front - soft rear
Total laps - 3
Best time - N/A
Concerns/problems - Need better conditions to push the bike hard enough to see if our settings will work for the race
Notes: With the limited laps from the previous day and the fact that the conditions weren't ideal for this practice session, our settings on the bike were limited with the exception of gearing and tire choice.

Race 1 - 600 Superbike
Weather conditions - Dry and warm
Tires front / rear - soft front - medium rear
Total laps - 6
Best time - 1:10.3
Result - 5th
Concerns/problems - Settings are slightly off; the bike won't turn effectively middle to exit of turns; also my braking and turning points need adjustment.
Notes: I got a decent start and went into turn one in eighth position. By lap two I was in fifth, however, the lead group had broken away with a small gap which it seemed I wasn't able to close. Unfortunately, a rider had a bad crash on the sixth lap bringing out the red flag and a stop to the race which officials then called complete as we had covered over half the distance.

Race 2 - 600 SuperSport
Weather conditions - Dry and warm
Tires front / rear - soft front - medium rear
Total laps - 10
Best time - 1:09.8
Result - 4th
Concerns/problems - Need to improve my precision around this track.
Notes: I got another decent start and went into turn one in sixth position. From here my goal was to get into the lead pack and latch onto the leaders for a few laps. Mike Sullivan and Allan Schmidt were both in this group and as they both pretty much "own" Portland, I figured I was in for a few quick lessons. The pace was much better for me in this race as the setting changes we made were helping the bike get through the infield. Unfortunately, I made a mistake going into turn four causing me to run a little wide and destroying my drive all the way into turn seven. With that I lost about two seconds on Allan and Mike, although I was having a great race with Tamer Kekhia that lasted right until the last corner on the last lap where he unfortunately tucked the front end and went down, though thankfully unhurt. In the end, I wasn't too impressed with my overall performance this weekend although, as Dan says, we have to keep things in perspective and move on to the next round.

From here I am actually supposed to be doing some SuperMoto locally, although I have offered my bike and services (as crew) to Jamie Dick for next weekend.

Stay tuned.

Oliver

Please click on image to enlarge

The 600	The 600	Dan "Slavin"
	The hardest working man in show business
Mark from Pirelli	Connor Gabbott	Our home for the weekend
The Pinkstaff family celebrates their endurance championship - Well done guys!	The Pirelli crew & Nathan Hester
	Barry Wressell
Shawn Gaylord	Steve & Chris Lily