April 10, 2004
Here are a few pictures from April 10th, 2004 at Putnam Park. Adam and I had a great day with sportbiketracktime.com - there were a few too many crashes (none by us), and a couple of "parade laps" (when you miss the checkered flag, everyone else pits, and you run another lap) but overall the day was excellent. 65 degrees and sunny on April 10th is a real treat - as is riding Putnam Park. It'a a fast racetrack, but the pavement is very good and it has a nice melodic flow to it. It was also great to find another FZR400 on the track (Aaron, #886) with whom to ride during the day.
Thanks to Jack Beaudry at www.sliderphoto.com for the awesome pictures!
First session out - Turn 2 - not feeling comfortable yet after a long winter...can tell by my body position and elbow.
Second session out, I snapped and Berserker showed up. Here's some good action shots through turn 4. Number 886 is Aaron, and the really fast guy on the grey R1 behind me is Paul Ducato, a friend of mine who races AMA. A few corners later, he came past me on the inside, looked back at me, wheelied, and then disappeared out of view faster than I could say "Damn you, Paul." I'm glad I can be your whipping boy.
Me around turn 4 just past the apex
Great action shot of me chasing Aaron on the FZR400
The next shot in the sequence through turn 4
The next lap, I'm heading around the outside of Aaron, and Paul is setting me up
I then jumped on #426 for a while - Adam's new NC30. Besides the suspension being setup for someone 50 lbs lighter than me, and the gearing being ar least 4 teeth too short, the bike felt great. I got to within 4 seconds of my FZR400 lap times before I forced the Berserker to pit and call it good before I threw that bike down the road through turn 1. Mental Note: Trail braking from 125MPH through a 100MPH corner on a bike without a properly setup suspension = Scary.
First in sequence, through turn 8
Near the end of the day, there were crashes in seemingly every session and it was hard to get a good rhythm going, but Jack at Sliderphoto did manage to get an awesome photo sequence of me going through turn 9:
