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Mid-Ohio, We Made It

We did it. We made the top 20 in the AMA Sports 600 Shootout, which means we get to go back to Mid-Ohio this weekend for the AMA Superbike finale, which I'm really excited about.

Overall we finished 11th, after qualifying a lowly 19th (see Friday post for details). I *finally* had a decent start and moved forward throughout the race. I'm a bit disappointed that I was only in the 1:35 range; slower than the 1:34.1 I had done on Friday in one of the qualifying sessions. We had altered the setup on the bike so much to try and compensate for the irregular tire wear we (and many others) were having, that we just didn't have enough time to find a happy medium. During the race, there was a pack of 4-5 bikes just ahead of me. With some slightly faster times, we would have been in the top 5.

Overall, a huge thanks to James and my dad. They were awesome all weekend; especially in helping get the bike together after my highside Saturday morning. They had the bike ready just in time for the final qualifying session where we qualified on the front row, fastest of the 600s. I was really happy being able to qualify well after crashing earlier.

Thanks also to Brian Van of Sportbike Track Gear. He lent us his pipe to use after ours was destroyed. Without his help, our weekend might have ended early. Thanks as well to Eric Cetnar, who came out and camped at the track with his kids to watch the racing. Thanks again Eric – I'm glad you guys could make it. Lastly, thanks to Jason Pridmore. I had asked for a few tips as he often does well at Mid-Ohio. He was cool enough to call me Thursday afternoon and give me a few pointers, which definitely helped out.

Other than that, it was cool being part of the Team Challenge and hanging out with Dave, Bill and Jeff, while meeting Charlie (Coleman). We had good fun pitting together and going out to dinner each night with Dave, Garry, Eric and Shelley. Monte (from STT) was good for providing laughs Saturday night as well.

I'll post further details about the upcoming AMA weekend as I find them out. It should be a great time. Hopefully we can drop a few seconds and get into more competitive times.

sidenote: Bill (Stranahan) and I signed four autographs for several younger kids yesterday, which was quite flattering. I think they just wanted mine because of my relatively new leathers though. :-)

Cheers,

Eddie

Monday, September 25th, 2006 | POSTED AT: 6:30 AM
FILED UNDER: General, Race Reports