Thursday
Our dear friend Pat Boyd (#48) of Team Shoulder Check was travelling with Yves as Thursday practice was reserved for National classes. Michelle travelled Thursday evening to be able to attend her Friday practice sessions. This weekend was going to be challenging to both Michelle and Yves. Yves suffered a big crash in June at this track due to suspension issues which lead to a tire failure. Kevin of Pirelli was on hand this weekend to help Yves sort out these suspension woes. Yves’ first morning session was simply to get his markers on the track and start debugging the suspension. Yves went out and did 10 laps in the 30min. practice session with a best time of 1:33.906 for 15th fastest in that session. The afternoon session was plagued with a wet track. Yves was there for fun this weekend so he had very little intention on running in the wet. Therefore Thursday’s activities were already over for us. Michelle arrived later that evening and we got ready for Friday’s practice.
Friday
Friday was a similar day to Thursday. Hot and humid. Michelle was first up for a 15mins. practice session. Like Yves, she had not been on a race track much this year. And she had not been at Mosport for more than a year. Her first practice session was simply to get oriented with the track again. She felt a bit discouraged as many of the other women racers had been taking part in the week’s long list of track days and were already up to speed.
Yves was up next. The amateur 600 sessions were split in two as there were too many riders. Yves was once again focusing on suspension settings. But at the same time, Yves needed to post at least one good lap in case Friday’s times would be used for qualifying. This was a 20min. session so it doesn’t leave a lot of time to work on the bike during the session. Yves got to do 8 laps and posted a 1:31.382 giving him 6th place in that group.
Michelle had another practice session in the afternoon. She focused on her shifting and being in the proper gear and was able to reduce her lap times by 6 seconds.
The final practice session for us was Yves. The tires were getting near the end. These were older tires from a previous race weekend. But they were ok to use for our suspension tuning. But unfortunately, they were starting to slide and Yves struggled to get a good lap. That session, Yves was only able to post a 1:32.965 for 13th fastest. However, Yves did use that session to see if he could last the entire 20mins session at that pace. His lap times were all within half a second of each other.
Saturday
The morning featured more practice sessions for both Michelle and Yves. The afternoon would host the final race for Michelle and Yves’ official qualifying session.
Yves pushed hard in the morning’s session as the weather forecast was iffy for the afternoon. This meant that there was a good chance that this morning’s practice times would be used instead of qualifying. With fresh tires, Yves pushed hard. Again the groups were split in two. Yves was part of the fast group of riders. In that session, Yves posted a 1:30.782 on lap 9. With one lap to go, Yves tried to set a faster lap but lost the front wheel in turn 3. Lucky for Yves, he was able to keep the bike up with his knee and stay on the gas until the front wheel hooked up again. A scary moment for Yves and a faster lap was not meant to be…
Michelle’s final race was up that afternoon. For the first time since her first race, she had a great start and joined the racers in front of her. Unfortunately, a racer in the expert class a few rows in front of her had a mechanical failure and she was unable to maneuver around her quickly enough to stay with the pack. Byturn 2, Michelle had lost her lead. She was able to keep up with one rider for a lap, but that rider came into pit lane and found herself alone with no one to motivate her to go faster. Michelle was disapointed of her finish (not finishing last, but finishing really far behind), but all variables considered, she did well by finishing and finishing in one piece. Regardless of her finish, she was happy to be able to get out there and support the series by making the starting grid bigger by one bike.
The official qualifying session for amateur 600 was up. Weather was holding ok so we had a nice warm and dry track. Yves tried very hard to get a fast lap. Unfortunately, Yves couldn’t manage to time his exit of turn 5b properly to get “hooked” on the back of another rider and catch a draft up the back straight. With 4 mins. to go, Yves pitted to discuss with Michelle and fellow racer friend, Yanick (Pro #96). With only two minutes to go, Yves was sent back out to try and post a good time. While exiting pit lane, Yves exited at the same time as another fast rider. Yves rushed to follow him but that rider had the similar thought. He got on his brakes and made Yves go in front so he could catch Yves’ draft on the back straight. Both riders now passed in front of the starting line with 47 seconds left in the session. This was Yves’ last lap to post a good time. Yves stayed on his butt and concentrated on his 5b exit to benefit from the draft. That’s when Yves posted his best time of 1:30.436 for a 12th place qualifying position. Yves would have liked to have been in the 1:29s but was very pleased with this result.
Sunday
Another day of iffy weather. We spent most of the day sitting around as it rained on and off. The only thing on our schedule for the day was Yves’ final. It was up in the afternoon. Like usual, Yves’ race kept getting pushed off to make time for feature races in prime weather conditions. Finally Yves’ race was up. The track was dry and it looked like a promising race. Yves was relaxed and road up to his starting position without much anxiety. The green light and Yves gets a decent start. But that’s where Yves’ plan ended. No no, Yves didn’t crash. But since Yves hadn’t race much this year, he forgot to plan further ahead than his start. So Yves got passed a lot during that first lap. In all fareness, it didn’t help that everyone had warned Yves about a major problem in turn 5b. The rain had brought a stream of sand/mud accross the track. Many pro riders had crashed in that spot in the previous race. Regardless, Yves kept riding. A few crashes happened here and there. The most annoying crash was someone who crashed in turn 2. Unfortunately, his front fender remained in the middle of the track. Literally in the middle of the downhill run and right in the middle of the width. It stayed there for the majority of the race. This made turn 2 very tricky as it’s a blind corner. So you would take your normal line and have to alter it once you could spot the fender. Yves was not running smoothly so he decided to keep his pace down. His lap times averaged in the 1:33s. He finally managed to make a pass on someone going into turn 8 after benefitting from a good draft. Unfortunately, the race was red flagged on that lap so they counted previous lap positions. Yves finished 19th but finished in one piece!