Went out first round in street ET on Saturday due to a redlight but here's a quick race update for Sunday. I want to thank my wife for hanging in there with me this past weekend at the XDA race in Maryland. It was a hot one to say the least. We did arrive on friday to check into a hotel, travel to the track to get set up, register and have all bikes teched in prior to race day on saturday. A fellow racer was nice enough to have saved us a decent pit spot.
I entered 3 classes- street ET on my old Honda CB750, pro ET/top sportsman on my purple car tire Kaw aka "Barney" and 5.60 index (1/8th mile class) on the small tire bike we affectionately call "Harry". There was 170 bikes entered into pro ET vying for a chance to qualify for the top sportsman (T/S) class which consists of the quickest 32 bikes. While prepping to go to the line, my lovely cousin Alicia Loney came to hang out with us for the day. After 2 rounds of time runs on saturday, I was able to qualify in the 14th spot out of those 170 bikes to make the T/S field with an 8.08 ET. T/S runs its eliminations on sunday so i parked the bike in preparation for sundays race. In street ET i dialed the bike in at a 10.57 ET but redlighted in first round. Due to the heat, i didn't buy back into the race. In the 5.60 index class first qualifying run, the bike would not shift. At the end of the track, i remembered i had taken an air line a loose while doing maintenance and had not hooked it back up to the shift cylinder. Wooo, at least its a simple fix and i had one more shot at qualifying the bike. Next qualifying session the bike ran a 5.57- a tad under the index but i could live with that number. Always better to be too quick than to slow. With the high bike count and several oil downs, it was late when we finished up, got packed up and back at the hotel.
We arrived at the track sunday morning and got all the bikes out for the start of pro ET eliminations. I use this round to dial in the top sportsman bike. I dialed an 8.08 against a slightly slower opponent and won the round. Next up was street ET on the Honda. I dialed a 10.60 to my opponent quicker 8.90. Because i've been redlighted so much on this bike, i concentrated on going green. Unfortunately i hesitated to much and had an awful reaction time, i also drug the clutch out to long which hurt my ET. My opponent caught me before the mph cone and crossed the line first, turning on his win light. I elected not to buy back so i could focus on making rounds with the other 2 bikes. Plus the heat was brutal. We were once again graced by the presence of family at this event. My cousins Altha and Damon Loney came to support the Loney Motorsports team. They may not know it, but having family show up to cheer us on was the highlight of the event for me . Next up was the first round of top sportsman. My opponent was Robin Procoppio. She is one tough racer and i've been paired with her 2 times this season- each ended in a victory for her. Needless to say, i had a mission to overcome this deficit because she was standing in between me, and round #2. I dialed an 8.08 to her 8.06- virtually a heads up race. I knew whoever had the best reaction time should be the winner of the race. I kept my cool and zeroed in one the christmas tree to be sure i cut a good light. When the tree dropped green, i knew it was a race to the stripe. I began looking over my shoulder about 3/4 track and she was at least 2 bikes behind. By the mph cone the gap was still the same so i lightly rolled off the throttle and got the win. Moving on the round 2. They were calling the 5.60 index class to the staging lanes when we got back to the trailer. We rolled up to the lanes for pairing from card draw. As luck would have it, i got paired with my team mate, RJ. Dang it. RJ is 17 years old and is as sharp as they come so i knew it would be a battle. Mind you, there were 52 bikes in the class and I paired with my team mate. Fortunately for me, when the pro tree lite up, i was out first and looking back at him all the way down the track. I had just enough to roll out of the throttle to take the win. I ran dead on the index with a 5.60, RJ ran a 5.64. Great race.
the day moved forward, i ended up still in the 5.60 index class with 6 bikes left out of 52. I was also still in the sportsman class, now down to 4 bikes left out of 32. Moving to the semis in top sportsman, i dialed up to an 8.09 against my opponents 7.83. The tree came down and i felt i was a little late, down track it became apparent that i was right when my opponent closed the gap before the mph cone and was in front to take the win. The bike only ran a 8.16 at 150mph on the 8.09 dial in- something is going wrong with the bike so it'll come apart this week for a complete rebuild before the next race at the end of August. We had to hurry back to the pit area to get the small tire bike for the 5.60 index eliminations. I was now laddered with the same young fella that took me out in the 5.60 class the weekend before at the Rockingham race. Well, i just needed to concentrate and try to cut a better light in hopes of winning this round to move into the semis. The tree dropped and i lead the race most of the track. He then closed the gap as we were nearing the win stripe but i decided not to lift. I broke out with a 5.59 and lost the round ending our race weekend. While i didn't win either class, i collected some much needed points and two small checks for my effort. At the end of a long, hot and crowded race event, Nothing was broken and i didn't get hurt- it was a good weekend of racing. Next event is in a few weekends at Piedmont Dragway where we plan to compete in the 5.60 index and ET bracket classes for the KOG race.
