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 Wow….already the end of the season…what can I say…oh right tons…loll
No seriously, the weekend started with the usual Friday morning arrival to do the setup & quickly get ready for some practices sessions during the afternoon.
The Friday practices went great, basically nothing to do but gas & ride as we had sorted out all of the suspension settings during the National a couple of weeks prior to this weekend. Relaxed day really, no need to concern for the lap times as the weekends forecast was calling for lots of rain. ?
Saturday morning started off as usual, a part for the special invitation from our very generous neighbors (the Riedmann’s) for Louie to take a Honda RS250 GP bike out for a spin. Holy cow was that a riot to watch. Louie got off the track with a grin ear to ear, took his helmet off & gave me the detailed run down of how much fun he had just had.
Seeing how much of a blast Louie had had, Roland offered Louie the bike if he wanted to race it in the Middleweight class, not much convincing there….of course he wanted, especially seeing that the PRO 600 heat race was scheduled to be at the complete end of the day, which meant 5 hours of free time.
 After a detailed breefing from Roland, Dave Bissonette & John Chemello on how to launch the bike on a start (obviously extremely different then the 4 cylinders), Louie was off to the scheduled 6 lap Middleweight heat race. As he had signed at lunch & the fact that he had no points going into this event he had to start at the complete back of the grid, 22nd on row 6. He had a phenomenal start, missiled through corner 1 like he was on fire. As the laps went by so did he carving his way through some thick traffic to finish 8th, he would start on the 3rd row for Sunday race. Absolutly crazy to watch!!!
Not long after that was the PRO 600 heat race. Louie had another great start. He ran as aggressive as he could until he started feeling the clutch going in lap 3 of the scheduled 6, at that point the plan was to finish as best he could considering he was loosing power fast. He crossed the line in 6th place, middle of the 2nd row for Sunday’s final. Following that we got to work on getting the clutch changed before the sun went down.
As we were busy working, we were invited to be part of the lobster & steak supper that Dave Bissonnette & the Reidmann’s were having as an end of the year surprise for a few selected ones, what a treat!!! The best lobster supper we’ve had!!!
Sunday morning we both awoke early to get the day started, we had lots of work to do as to our joy it was pouring & the weather forecast was calling for non stop rain all day. Louie is extremely comfortable riding & racing in the rain unlike some of his competitors.
He 1st took out the 250 for a rain riding test to see how it handled in the wet conditions, came in & only had issues with the front wanting to constantly tuck in corners. Following that the front tire was changed.
After that he want out for the PRO practice session, came in made some minor adjustments & felt that the bike was flawless for the afternoon final.
During the morning sessions lots of incidents happened which caused some significant delays. In order to try to regain some time in the afternoon the series had to make the critical decision to shorten the finals by 2 laps each event, which at times could be really good or very bad.
For the PRO 600 race the track was in complete rain condition. I made sure that the tires were blistering hot. The lights went green & off they were, Louie charging as hard as he could, the keeping up with the lead pack he witnessed a couple of the riders in front making some huge mistakes which nearly took two of them out. He ran the whole race extremely hard, showing Karl some front wheels many times but loosing ground on the straightaway, which would be made up like nothing coming into Allen’s corner. Finally he crossed the finish line in 4th place leaving the rest of the riders far behind him. The difference between Karl & Louie wasn’t even a bike length. As excited as I was I knew he was going to be disappointed of not getting that 3rd place, was I right. The points he was awarded gave him the official 4th place overall in the PRO 600 championship, 2 points shy of the 3rd place, so close. Still very thrilled with that, much improvement from the previous year.
After a little relaxing, we started getting the GP bike ready for the Middleweight race, Louie was a little hesitant on doing the race as he was uneasy on racing the machine in the rain after only a couple of sessions of practice. After some reassuring from Roland he was minded to go & get that podium he had just missed.
The lights went green once again for the last time this season & once again Louie missiled through C1, after 2 laps he was 5th & moving his was up quickly through the crowd when the bike highsided between C1 & C2, kicking him off like a bucking bronco. The race was red flagged & the medic team as well as Steve “Doc” Walker were sent out to check on him. He came back to the medic’s office where Doc checked him out as he was still nursing some sore ribs from the National weekend. A part from being very sore he was fine. The bike had minor damage considering how fast it was going when the incident occurred.
We left the track feeling as thrilled of the 600 race & overall finish of the year as feeling very bad & disappointed on falling with someone else’s bike, let alone that Louie was very sore.
Overall we had one of the best weekends ever & are very gratefull for the opportunity of riding the GP bike, HUGE thanks again Roland!!!
We would have never done all of this without many many people that have supported us along this season:… Scott Miller (for the great bikes!!!), Pirelli's Kevin Graham, Chris Chapelle (& everyone that works along side him )(for running such a well oiled enterprise), the CRCA marshalls, the medic team!!!(for the unfortunate incidents you needed to respond to...see you next year!!!...lolll), Steve "DOC" Walker (for always beeing on call & making sure he's alright...me being the nervous wreck and all...loll), the Riedman's: Roland & Kenny, as well as Dave & John(for being some of the best neighbors a team could have, we enjoyed your presence at every single round, always a joy, look forward to sharing the top of row 4 again next year!!...thanks for the 250 experience.....tons of fun....wanna do it again!!!),Dave Oakley (for the kick-ass helmet!!!), Don Empey (for all the great shots....keep em coming...great job!!), Rob MacLennan (same to you...I always enjoy your innovative aspect), EBC Brakes, Moto Newman, Soeurs en Vrac, PhotoActive’s Tony Migas, Litho Select.
We look forward to next year already!! See you all at the banquet!!
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