Overwhelmed is something I am getting used to these days, in a 6 week span I traveled to Minnesota, Arizona, California, Dublin, and the Isle of Man... Fooking Hell! 12 flights in 6 weeks might be a bit much! But hell it's all worth it in the end and we only live once right?!?!?
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| Adam running through "Crash Corner" out at Chuckwalla Valley Raceway |
So the February round of the CVMA out at Chuckwalla Valley Raceway went a bit smoother than the January round. We walked away with a few race finishes and had an absolute blast out there with these guys and gals. If you get a chance to go race out there I highly recommend it, really reminds me of racing up in Minnesota at BIR in the old days where everyone is friendly and helpful!
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| Part of the MRA Crew from Colorado that made the trek to go racing! |
Saturday I only had the one race, Formula Twins, lined up on the grid and had a good start but decided to run wide and off the track a bit before crash corner and lost 4 spots right off the bat... Kept it upright and sorted myself a bit and kept going. Wound up with an 8th place finish and was happy with that. Not too shabby for a stock engine with about 20hp less than most of the grid. ;)
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| Adam cruising around on the Supertwin. |
Sunday I had the Formula 2 and Lightweight Shootout races to do, started off with the Formula 2 and man what a fun race! Had some great battles out there and had an exciting last lap last turn jumping the curb after pushing the front and having one of the guys sneak up the inside me but I got the drive and finished 5th! Nothing like a little curb jumping to make things more exciting right? Next race up was the Lightweight Shootout, was looking forward to this as it was a couple of laps longer and I like the longer races. Got a decent start and was up in second for the first set of turns, Andy Palmer motored by me on the next straight and I just tried to keep in their draft on all the straights and brake as hard as I could to keep up. At the end of the first lap I had a huge slide in turns 2 and 3 and had to clean my suit out a bit. Went into the next left handers and had no issues, so I was like ok lets go pretty hard into the next right handers. Whoa as I go full lock again and feel like I am on my flat tracker... Took it easy the rest of the race on the right handers, finished with a 7th and was really happy with that with how bad the bike was sliding around! Got back to the pits and the right side of the tire was almost to the cords on the right side... Guess that explains that!
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| Adam with a good start here. Just need my race engine back to keep up on the straights! |
Got home and unpacked everything that week after and started packing for the Newcomers Weekend over on the Isle of Man. The following Wednesday I jumped on a few planes and arrived the following morning on the Isle of Man. Was greeted by John Batty who picked me up with Raul Torres from Spain and we started doing laps around the Mountain Course. The next 5 days were a blur! Evenings were spent in the pub, mornings we went up to the TT Grandstand and went for laps with different people almost everytime!
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| Brendan O'Donnells Pub for a pint, from left to right: Diane Batty, John Batty, Adam Bauer, Damian Horan, Raul Torras, JD Mosley, and Davy Morgan what a bunch of nutters on the piss! |
If you have never been to the Isle of Man it truly is a special place, whether you are racing, spectating, or just vacationing the place is amazing. The willingness for people to bring me around for laps and gain course knowledge through them is absolutely amazing. I have had the honor to ride with past multiple TT winners, current TT winners, Marshals, and even people that have just lived there long enough they just enjoy driving around the course! In the 5 days there I ended up getting 22 laps in of the course, this doesn't sound like much but we are talking 37.73 miles per lap here... Massive Thanks to Jim Hunter, Ann Kinvig, and Caroline Etherington for hosting the event and getting all of the world class instructors together to help us newcomers have a safe and enjoyable Manx Grand Prix this August.
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| International Newcomers Hosted by Jim Hunter top right with Savas Kosmidis (USA), Carsten Svendsen (Denmark), Raul Torras (Spain), Julian Trummer (Austria), Richard Vuillermet (France), and Adam Bauer (USA) |
Next post will hopefully be in a few weeks about the MRA's 1st race weekend since our first weekend got cancelled because of snow... Grrrrrr... Lots of stuff going on lately with having to sell my house, moving to New Mexico and Minnesota, and figuring out all this racing!
Cheers till next time!
Cheers till next time!
