Last weekend we headed out for the second race of my son's budding racing hobby after an enjoyable first race the anticipation of the second race was high all week and after 3 good practce days at a local track he was raring to give it another go!
We arrived at the track to go through the usual pre-race activities (registration, riders meeting etc) and then to my son's horror he found out this track only had 30 gates and as such the 43 riders for the 80cc 7-12 yo class would have two qualifying heats. He had pretty much run dead last in his first weekend of racing other than getting past a couple of fallen riders so he was fairly negative about his chances of racing in the main.
He get's the schedule and finds he's in the first qualifier while his racing buddy is in the second. From my point of view he looks a fair bit more comfortable in staging and getting to the gate than he did the first race although he is still moping and negative about just doing qualifying instead of the main. I told him to quit worrying about it and either way he was going to get to run two races just like last week what was the difference if they were two main motos or a qualifier and an LCQ? Then I said and if your really worried about just start twisting that throttle a little more and focus on one bike at a time, once you pass that bike focus on the next one and when the qualifier is over see how you did versus worrying about it all morning. Well the gate drops and he gets off to about a 15th out of 20 place start but looks alot more comfortable on the track than he did the previous week in his inaugural race he goes the 4 laps without a crash ( First time he's completed a race without ending up picking the bike up at least once :) ) And he managed to pass a few guys and next thing you know he finished 12th in his Qualifier and is in the main! Well let me tell you I can't imagine this kid being anymore excited if he had just won the lottery only his second race ever and his first ever qualifying heat and he made the main.
The second qualifier didn't go so well for his racing buddy but he looked like a lock when running a strong third in the LCQ (4 transfer) but then a last lap low side in the second last turn cost him 3 spots :( so his day was done.
On to the main my son get's a terrible start after almost looping in the start and is dead last of the 30 into the first turn, he again ran strong without a crash and made it up as high as 18th place (approximately man it's hard to keep track of who's on what lap etc) before a serious casing in the sand whoops after some unintended air left him banging and swapping all over the place until he stalled it trying to bring it under control by the time he got it going again he ended up in 25th. While he was very happy to get into the main he was kinda bummed with the sand whoop incident because he almost had his first ever point in the points race as they only point back to 20th place.
All in all another great day was had at the track by the whole family and dad here is getting more and more itchy looking at the new 250's and a spot on the line in the 250 beginner class :p
We arrived at the track to go through the usual pre-race activities (registration, riders meeting etc) and then to my son's horror he found out this track only had 30 gates and as such the 43 riders for the 80cc 7-12 yo class would have two qualifying heats. He had pretty much run dead last in his first weekend of racing other than getting past a couple of fallen riders so he was fairly negative about his chances of racing in the main.
He get's the schedule and finds he's in the first qualifier while his racing buddy is in the second. From my point of view he looks a fair bit more comfortable in staging and getting to the gate than he did the first race although he is still moping and negative about just doing qualifying instead of the main. I told him to quit worrying about it and either way he was going to get to run two races just like last week what was the difference if they were two main motos or a qualifier and an LCQ? Then I said and if your really worried about just start twisting that throttle a little more and focus on one bike at a time, once you pass that bike focus on the next one and when the qualifier is over see how you did versus worrying about it all morning. Well the gate drops and he gets off to about a 15th out of 20 place start but looks alot more comfortable on the track than he did the previous week in his inaugural race he goes the 4 laps without a crash ( First time he's completed a race without ending up picking the bike up at least once :) ) And he managed to pass a few guys and next thing you know he finished 12th in his Qualifier and is in the main! Well let me tell you I can't imagine this kid being anymore excited if he had just won the lottery only his second race ever and his first ever qualifying heat and he made the main.
The second qualifier didn't go so well for his racing buddy but he looked like a lock when running a strong third in the LCQ (4 transfer) but then a last lap low side in the second last turn cost him 3 spots :( so his day was done.
On to the main my son get's a terrible start after almost looping in the start and is dead last of the 30 into the first turn, he again ran strong without a crash and made it up as high as 18th place (approximately man it's hard to keep track of who's on what lap etc) before a serious casing in the sand whoops after some unintended air left him banging and swapping all over the place until he stalled it trying to bring it under control by the time he got it going again he ended up in 25th. While he was very happy to get into the main he was kinda bummed with the sand whoop incident because he almost had his first ever point in the points race as they only point back to 20th place.
All in all another great day was had at the track by the whole family and dad here is getting more and more itchy looking at the new 250's and a spot on the line in the 250 beginner class :p
