Season ender for the Washington State crowd. Started off pretty depressing with rain forecast for most of Saturday. In fact, it was a real soaker. John and I sat out the morning practice sessions but Chris went out, because he's an animal and he prefers adverse conditions. Of course he immediately complained about a wet crotch, served him right!! Stopped raining shortly before our first race and John and I decided to suit up. The track was really wet so I'm fairly cautious on the sighting lap. Light goes out, Chris is gone and I'm chasing. Been here before. He's really comfortable slipping around so I figure best to follow him a bit. He's really slipping, but I'm not. Building my confidence a bit and I can see a couple places I can get the drive on him out of a corner. I pass him about 3 times coming out of T4 just to have him get me on the brakes on the outside entering T5. Plenty of bikes had crashed in T5 that day so I just didn't have the confidence to enter that hot. I almost get him a couple times out of T7, we're side by side, but he holds it hard through T8 and gets me into the T9 carrousel. On lap 4 he runs wide through T7, goes off track and I know I've got him now. Perhaps I slowed down to watch the inevitable train wreck in progress, or he's just faster in the dirt. I'm right alongside him but he miraculously enters the track ahead of me!! But he's all jacked up entering the carrousel so I get under him and finally pass him for good and take the win. I find out later John bogged on the start, clutched it and pulled a wheelie, then had some riders pass him only to crash right in front of him.
Rained on and off all night so we wake up to a damp track. We get lucky with no rain the rest of the day and some sun breaks here and there. I'm in pole position but I'm quickly relegated to 3rd entering T1. Obviously I need to work on my starts. I can't believe this next pass works, except John told me it does. I go around the outside of John in T2, a big sweeping high speed left hander. I'm thinking no way is this going to work while I'm in the turn, but it does. John is right behind Chris so perhaps he can't accelerate as easily, and I'm already higher up in the RPM's, having gone the long way around. I think it has to be the right conditions to work though. The next turn, and the next pass, I had already warned Chris about not letting it happen. He has a nice outside line into a tight right hander, but I cut under him to the inside and shut him down for the drive into the immediate left hander that follows. John pops into neutral in that corner and runs off track. John and Chris have a good battle behind me but I score another win and the championship.
I feel really good about my season. I showed up for every round and my bike ran great. John skipped round 5 so he could go to Utah for the AHRMA round. I know the results would be different if John had been at round 5. I can't thank John enough for his advice on bike setup, motor building, racing techniques and just being a general great guy and awesome friend to me.
Chris and I followed each other around a lot this year, pushing each other to go faster. We joked about using the shake and bake strategy. Here we are on the podium doing the shake and bake fist bump. I'm wearing my RC shirt. Seemed fitting.
Alan
