Series: WMRRA
Date: May 29 - 30

Classes raced and results
600 Supersport - 3rd
600 Superbike - 3rd
Formula Ultra- 7th

It's now Monday morning on the first ferry home after an all night drive home. I'm working on only two hours of sleep so bear with me as my naturally fluid (read run on sentence) writing style may be particularly on form today.

A challenging weekend for the team and I for sure, although, as you'll read, one that helped me adjust my attitude when I needed to.

As ever, a quick special thanks to some key people this weekend. Tom and the crew at Pirelli - thanks for the help this weekend in hunting down a solution to challenges. Barry Wressell, thanks for all your assistance with our suspension and other various needs. You rock bro. And a huge thanks to my crew chief Don Beck. As the weekends go on we're becoming more comfortable with each other and ultimately having more fun.

Updates on my team:
I'm happy to update you all that some of my team are well on the road to their respective recoveries. Brent Prindle (my sponsor and good friend) is now back at home after several weeks in the hospital, and Dale Zlock is back at home recovering after some surgery.

Notes on practice:
Spokane is one of the fastest tracks that I race. It's one of the easiest tracks we race in terms of technical challenges, but you need to bring speed and AHEM… fortitude for some of the key corners. Also, it's not what I consider the safest track out there, but WMRRA does what it can to make things as good as they can be. So, with that I found myself up to speed relatively quickly despite the very cool temperatures and unrelenting wind. It's the desert - what should I expect?

Race one 600 Supersport
Racing 600's is like going to a buffet dinner with a group of starved axe murderers. The antics and ensuing carnage that occurs is mind baffling. In this case take our three red flag restarts and ultimately a race that was moved to the end of the day. As I'm a glutton for punishment I have to tell you about the second restart and what was possibly the worst start of my entire career. From pole, no less, I managed to nip neutral on the start and go absolutely nowhere when the light went off. From basically dead last going into turn one I managed to actually make my way into fourth place (sorry to those that I passed aggressively) before, you guessed it, another red flag came out. On the final restart I redeemed myself, or so I felt, by leading the field into turn one. Regrettably I simply didn't have the pace of the two leaders and managed to bring it home in third.

Race two - 600 Superbike
Don and I talked between the races and opted for a geometry change to hopefully assist us with the challenges I was facing on the 600. To put it mildly I was about one and half seconds off the pace whilst at my relative, almost crashing, limits. Does not bode well. We gambled with what we thought would work given the conditions and my sensations on the bike. Regrettably our gamble was a step in the wrong direction and the lap times in the race were even further off the pace. I was extremely lucky to get a podium here given my pace, or lack thereof. My lap times were so bad that when I came in Don asked me if my balls were "painted on" or really there. :o) Told you we were starting to get along!

Race three - Formula Ultra
To be completely honest I was in a funk before this race started. Our ZX10R had developed some challenges that would require me to ride the 600 in this race and I wasn't looking forward getting my ass kicked down the ultra long straights by guys on 1000's. Thankfully we had learned from our previous errors with the 600 and had made some changes that were really working. I got a great start and went into turn one in about fourteenth place. After a few laps where everyone sorted themselves out I got into a rhythm and worked my way forward. I had the best race of my weekend battling with Jake Rower on his CBR1000. After a race-long scrap where we swapped positions two to three times a lap I managed, with some luck and my best lap times of the weekend, to nip him at the line. Don was quick to notice the smile on my face and ask how much fun it was. He was right. I had been smiling the entire race in a total battle for what was eventually seventh place. Certainly a reality check and stiff reminder that I am doing this to have fun after all! Thanks Jake, great race!

What's next? Well we have lots going on. The ZX10 needs some love so that will be taking up a lot of our time.

Stay tuned, next race in two weeks time!

Oliver