Round 6 was an interesting weekend, to say the least. The troubles started on Saturday, getting to the track - but I'll let Paul or Jon fill you in on that ordeal
Race day had a handfull of surprises as well. We had trouble finding the tires we wanted, and ended up on our 3rd different tire manufacturer for the year! We started with Pirelli, but those tires are hard to find in a 160. We then moved to Continental - but they were sold out. Since the weather was nice, we ended up spending a few extra bucks, and splurging for the Bridgestone slicks. The tire profile feels to be the opposite of Continental - and my first time out - I thought I was going off the track in turn 1, since so much more effort is required to get those Bridgestones to turn in. But - that only took a half lap to get used to. After that - I was in love with the amount of traction you get from those tires! I felt like there were no limits, and it was a great feeling. Speaking of feeling, one minor drawback with the stiffer carcas is that you do feel all the bumps with these Bridgestone slicks - but it's worth it.
During the race day, there were a handful of red flags which set the schedule back a little. This cut in to our practice schedule so much that we did not get a chance to practice and scrub in the new slicks. But, this didn't seem to slow Paul down at all. He was matched up against Todd from Team MTS, and kept up with him for several laps. After which, Todd started pulling away just a bit, lap-by-lap. By the end of his 30 minute stint, Todd was ahead of Paul, but I think it was less than a 1-lap lead.
Next up was Tom from TDR vs. Mike from MTS. Team TDR was able to get a faster pit stop than team MTS, so tema TDR was able to pull ahead in the race for just a bit. But, it wasn't long beforeMike was able to catch back up with Tom. The 2 teams had a fun battle for a while - up until team MTS started having bike troubles once again. Team MTS had to pit in and begin working on their bike.
Meanwhile, team TDR put up a good race for the next 2 hours. During which, team MTS was able to get back out on the track. But, TDR was so far ahead in the race, with 30 minutes remaining, we thought we had it in the bag. But, as fate would have it - with 30 minutes left in the race, Jon had an incident. He was going thru turn 4, and got passed. After he got passed, the rider in front had to slow down a bit - since he was off the race line. Since he slowed down, he was now going slower than Jon - which forced Jon to go off the race line. At this point - this is still not a problem... as long as you back off a smidge. But - Jon was determined to not lose any corner speed on that lap. So determined that he held is speed up until he ran out of asphault! The good news is that the bike suffered only very minor injuries, and Jon didn't even get a scratch.
With 30 minutes still left in the race, team MTS had pleanty of time to catch up. By the end of 3 hours, Team MTS was able to rack up 121 laps, where team TDR only got 117 laps. It was an eventful race, but team TDR had to settle for a 2nd place.
