Steve Gould with www.Gouldphoto.com shot some new photos for the website and my sponsors. He was able to line up Christy and Jill as models who did a very professional job. After being with them my motorcycle will not want to race anymore.

We were finally able to finish this race from the previous week when the starting lights failed.

Originally there were 5 of us left, one of the riders was not able to make it so this created 2 bye runs as we had already decided the ladder the prior race.

I had to race the same guy who beat me in the previous Snap-on tool race. When the light turned from yellow to green I cut a .01 light. Shortly after that I was looking straight up at the clouds. This is by far the highest I have ever raised the front end. It came up so hard it knocked the wind out of me when the tank hit my chest. To make matters worse, when I let off the throttle to bring the front down, I hit my chest again on the tank when the front wheel hit. I hit throttle again and the bike stood straight up again. I looked like I was riding a rodeo bull.

By this time the Bandit 1200 was long gone. I dialed in at 6.4 as we were running the 1/8th. As I am flying down the track after him I am cussing myself out for my stunt show. When I finally cross the line at 7.090 seconds, my win light came on. I got a miracle He broke out by running a 9.6 on a 9.8 dial.

The next round I received the bye as Mike Wilson on his wheelie bar, electronics laden, primered paint, 8 second 1/4 mile Suzuki raced Joe`s new ZX-14. Wilson won this round out of the hole. I ran a 6.39 on a 6.4 dial in on my bye, good thing it was a bye run.

The next race Mike dialed in at 6.24 I dialed in at 6.4. I cut a fast .047 light to Mike`s .277 at the end of the 1/8 I looked over my shoulder and he was way behind so I got on the brakes just in case to prevent a breakout. Feeling good about my performance I see his win light come on. I still broke out by .008 of a second. The worse thing about losing this race is the NHRA Wally trophy was at stake.

I am beginning to think I will never get a 1st place.

The Points race went well, until the staging lights broke down. I was in the semi-finals when the race was cancelled. We are supposed to complete the race on 8/26 in the morning so I will have the final results then.

The Snap-on tool race basically sucked. It was extremely hot, the staging lights broke down about every other race, and we had a rain delay. When I finally got to race I somehow completely missed the first yellow light and left on the brightest possible green light you could leave on. In effect, I gave my opponent a half second head start. There was not enough track to catch him and I lost. No tool box for me this year.

What a fantastic weekend! The weather was awesome, the skies were clear and there were a ton of motorcycles.

Saturday I entered in the PRO ET class. This division gives me fits. There is a mixture of motorcycles, some are fully decked out with every electronic gadget you can put on it, others have air shifters (like me) and some are just bone stock. This division gets ugly for the non-electronic guy. If your reaction times are above .05 of a second and you can`t be with in .03 of your dial in, you may as well save the entry fee to buy some dinner.

On Saturday everyone runs their test passes for whatever division they entered in to establish their dial in. After all the passes are run PRO ET gets to run their race. I entered in two divisions, Pro ET and Street ET for Sunday. This allowed me to have four time runs prior to racing. Every run was within .03 of each other. The best being a 9.93 sec 1/4 mile., all of my reaction times were below .08 sec.

At this point I am feeling pretty good about the Pro ET race.

I pull up to the line and I am racing an 8 second all out drag bike driven by a guy named Townsend. I dialed in at 9.90. I stage at the light, he pulls in and stages, I rev the bike up to 5K rpms (I typically rev to 4K but I am thinking I need a better launch.) The light comes down the tree, 1 ,2 ,3, I pop the clutch, cut a fantastic .016 light and procede to stand the bike straight up in the air. This is not the type of wheelie you stay on the power through. This is the type of wheelie you let the throttle off unless you want to watch your motorcycle fly past the 60 foot mark on the top of its gas tank. Needless to say that ended my racing for Saturday.

Sunday after a good night sleep in the trailer with my bike. I awoke with new resolve, to win Street ET. This division is more my style, no electronics allowed, air shifters are about as far as the technology is allowed. You can have turbos. You can lower and stretch yor bike. For the most part, it is to entice stock motorcycles to race. I love this division.

My first race, I won hands down, off the line and at the end of the track. The second race was against a friend that I used to race with in Atlanata until he moved to Louisianna. Unfortunately he broke out by .02. The third race was against John Dobrin, also known as Johnny "Turbo", he owns Exoticycles and makes the bolt on extensions for stretching bikes. (Shameless plug... I use them, Highly recommended.) We had a staging problem because they did not have my dial in, they backed us off the line 3 times until they got it right. This must have messed up John because he cut an uncharacteristic .127 light to my .016. The third race , the other guy raised his dial in so he could ride next to me and cross the line first. I ran wide open and did not care if I broke out of my bracket As I suspected would happen he broke out worse than I did trying to catch up. The next run I got a bye.

The last race I went up against a 1989 12.67 sec Honda Hawk. Now in most cases this would seem like a walk in the park. Except for the fact that it was driven by Debbie Knebel who is in 9th place in the points in 2 different divisions. (Street ET was not one of them, she was trying it out for fun.) She beat me. She cut a tremendous .016 light, to my hamburger eating .267. That was the margin of victory. We both ran our dial ins within .02.

After it was all said and done I walked away with a second place. I could not have lost to a better person.