Friday:
2:20's with the new turn, 2:15's without (against a personal best of
low 2:12's from March). Was just warming up. Chris was riding his 600
and Nick (#809), Brian (#29), Frank (#80), and Kevin (#680) weren't
there. No one to chase on a production 250. I was getting some sliding
from the rear tire in situations where it seemed inappropriate, so in
the afternoon I mounted up my rims that had a new set of tires on
them. The front tire still felt fine, but I swapped them as a set.

Saturday:
Decision was taken to go with the new turn. High 2:18's. Nick crashed
in the new Star Mazda turn. John Prelock (#357) blew up his motor, and
Nick generously offered his bike to John for Sunday's 250 Production
race, since John was sitting in third place in the points and Nick
wanted to give John the opportunity to hold onto that spot. Very, very
cool and very admirable of Nick.

Sunday:
Low 2:18 in morning practice. Bartlow broke his wrist in morning
practice; he's had a tough season. John Prelock crashed Nick's bike in
turn 1, which touched off much scurrying around and much turning of
wrenches.

250 superbike: I sat out and watched, timing people I was worried
about for the race. I kept thinking I needed to worry about Nick,
forgetting that he had committed his bike to John for the production
race.

500 twins: Did this race as a warm-up. Got a horrible start. Nick
crashed on the second lap, but not before he made an incredible
Klinger-style pass up the west hill. I thought there was no way he
would make that pass work, but he did. But then a subsequent pass up
the East hill failed with Nick in the weeds. This left only Chris for
me to deal with, which I did. Chris told me he and I got 6th and 5th
places at the end.

Nick's bike, now crashed for the third time in two days, spent a while
waiting for the crash truck to bring it back to the pits, and then got
another frenzy of effort applied to it so John would be able to use it
to score some points in the production race. We were successful at
getting it race-ready. John had a minor scare when the bike died on
his way back from getting it re-teched, but a judicious application of
the fuel petcock's "on" position solved that problem.

250 production: Brian Bartlow (#29) was spectating because of his broken
wrist. Thanks to the late afternoon time slot of 250 production, Brian
had time to get back to the track from the hospital to watch our
race. Kelly Winkelbauer (#462) didn't show up this weekend, so with
him out I was gridded on the front row. The front row was

Frank (#80)   Kevin (#680)   John (#357)  [missing Brian]  Me (#995).

I got a decent start (unusual for me), meaning that I wasn't even the
last one from my row off the line, and no one from rows farther back
passed me. I went into turn 1 in third, behind Frank and Kevin. The
first lap was sort of slow, and I worried that the whole pack of three
of us was going to get passed by someone from behind in one fell
swoop. So it seemed important to pass Kevin and Frank and break free,
but I couldn't manage to do it until finally I got by Kevin on the
banking (turn 6) on the first lap and outbraked Frank into turn 1
after driving hard out of the last turn and down the front
straight. The trip down the front straight at the end of the first lap
was interesting, Frank and me side-by-side with about four inches
separating our bikes. Frank kept looking over at me. I knew if I
looked at him I wouldn't be able to resist blowing him a kiss or doing
some other such comic thing, and I didn't want to jinx myself. So I
just focused straight ahead and braked at my normal spot for the first
turn. By the time I rolled off and got on the brakes, Frank was well
behind me. I checked out and opened up a gap. The second lap (after I
passed Frank) was my fastest one at a low 2:17, while I was busy
building the gap. After looking back a few times, I went progressively
slower as I came to believe there really wasn't anyone back there. By
the end of the race I was on full cruise control; I really didn't want
to crash!  The gap was supposedly 8 seconds or something at the end, a
far cry from the inch or so by which I won the Buttonwillow race in
March.

Two things from the last lap I'll never forget:
o) Watching Phill in the starter's tower put down the white flag and pick
   up the checker
o) Seeing John Fosgate and Glen Weaver standing on the top of the
   trailer from which they had announced the race, doing "the wave"
   for me as I crossed the finish line for the win.

Good things from the weekend: My confidence at knowing when a rear
tire is done has increased. The win puts me near enough in the points
to John Prelock (who is still sitting third) that if I beat him
soundly enough at the final race date to be held at Thunderhill (which
won't be easy) I stand a chance at getting third for the year. That's
a much nicer result for the year than I considered possible given my
two DNF's earlier in the season. Of course if things don't go
perfectly at Thunderhill, it might be a challenge just to hold onto
fourth or fifth.