Series:WMRC
Date: August 20th

Classes raced and results
250 Cup - 1st (Lap record)

I’ll keep things relatively short as I’m writing a more in depth story on my experiences in the 250 Cup for Canadian Biker Magazine, so keep a look out for that article in the next few issues.

There were some pretty big moments for me personally throughout this weekend. One was that James Cyr (my crew for so many years and one of my best friends) and his bride Lidia just had their first child, a baby girl named Zoey, who, I’m honoured to say, is my godchild. If that wasn’t enough, this was the first weekend that my daughter Kodi came along to watch dad race. It might seem odd that although Kodi is already 11 she hasn’t come with me to a race since she was a baby.  Unfortunately with almost all of my races taking place in the US, or in Eastern Canada, distance becomes the challenge.  Karla has brought our kids to a few of the races throughout the years, but they were so small then that they don’t really remember the experience. So, when the opportunity came up to do a test of the 250 Cup in Mission, BC, Kodi said we had to jump at it.

Notes on practice:
I took some time in the morning and walked the track to get reacquainted with the tight (and fairly dangerous) layout that is Mission.  Memory served as the complex hadn’t lost any of it character…go fast, almost stop, turn left.  For this race day I was going to get two fifteen minute sessions to get familiar with the bike and get a direction for our eventual race settings before the race that day.  Not much time, but seeing as the bike didn’t offer much in the way of adjustments, I focused primarily on my timing to get the most out of the 250’s ahem…. power.  I won’t lie to you.  Things didn’t feel “fast” at all.  It felt like I could have a ham sandwich down the straights. Lap times were best measured with a sun dial. What was fun for me was explaining to Kodi what we were looking for with the bike and what our plan was to get things working more efficiently for a quicker time.  In the end she said, “just go faster dad”.  Sage advice.

Notes on the race
I got what might have been the worst start in my career and went from the third row of the grid to the fourth when the flag dropped.  Hilarious.  With some luck and an inside line into turn one I was in third place behind Jordon Aylen, a 19 year old young gun who is doing exceptionally well, and none other than my “old” sparring partner from Mission, Mark Kruger.  I’ve had some epic battles at Mission with Mark over the years and his posture on the bike told me he was up for a scrap.  I managed to get by Jordan going into turn five on the first lap and slotted in behind Mark for the long drive down the straight.  Making my intentions known I drafted by Mark into the lead for lap two.  Knowing I wasn’t going to break away from Mark, my thoughts turned to what the last few laps would look like.  Knowing all too well that lapped traffic was going to play a part, I decided to check up a little and follow Mark for a few laps to see what he had.  The guy hasn’t lost any of his ability.  He was more efficient than I was in the latter half of the lap but if I nailed my timing I estimated I had about half a second on him in the first half of the track.  Not the ideal scenario for a last lap draft pass but I could try to play up to it in the remaining laps.  It almost didn’t happen as I misjudged some lapped traffic on lap six and lost almost two seconds to Mark.  From there I put in my best laps of the race (dropping to a 1:23.08 – Lap record for the class) and managed to get by Mark going into turn seven on the penultimate lap.  Last lap was a burner.  Mark edged me into turn one.  I repaid the favour in turn three and rode the rest of the lap defensively to take a lucky win.  A fun race!

Huge thanks to everyone that makes this possible.
Specifically (for this weekend)

Dave – thanks for the trust in letting us “test” your bike.
James & Lidia, thanks for being such amazing friends to me – Zoey is amazing!
Kodi – thanks for a magical weekend.
Pirelli – Thanks again for the tires to do the job.
Joe Rocket – thank you
Arai – thank you
Motonation – SIDI Boots – thank you Stay tuned -

Oliver