Wednesday 27 October 2010

Gaining speed/confidence

From our friend Danker of the Sang Froid Riding Club, Oregon. What a trooper.

An update from the Pacific Northwest: Saturday was an excellent motorcycle day! A big group of us went up to Woodland, WA to race vintage motocross with the Hammer & Tongs guys. The track was awesome and the weather was perfect.
Then we all loaded up in the afternoon and drove to the Oregon State Fairgrounds for Indoor Flattrack Racing! We all ran our vintage mx bikes with knobbies, except for three friends who had raced a 100mile cross-country race in the high desert of Eastern Oregon--they ran their modern dirtbikes. Also, Travis brought out his RT360 that he's been building--hopefully he'll send you some pics soon--and beat an XR750!

Anyway, I had never done it before (except on a CT70, which kinda doesn't count) and got a slow start on the first race--but got in the groove, passed a couple of dudes and was gaining speed/confidence. UNTIL going through a corner, perhaps a little tighter than I had been, my foot hit something solid and twisted back against the footpeg of my DT250. POP! Look down and,
oh my--my boots pointing the wrong direction... Bummer, spiral fracture of the tib and a great big break on the fib.

Having never had the benefit of formal training--Chris Carr, where are you?--what was I doing wrong? Is it foot out, toes up? Toes down? The footpegs on the DT stick way out; are short pegs the way to go? I had a blast and want to run again--but definitely don't want a repeat. As I sit here eating painkillers, I'm thinking about getting one of those trophies!
Cheers, Dan

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