Lima Half-Mile
This story has to start just a little before the actual race. As I mentioned prior, Don Taylor was injured at Gas City. He had been riding H-D twins for Skip Eaken prior to his crash. Skip needed to fill that seat and gave me a call to see if I was interested in tossing a leg over one of his bikes. Of course I was! A chance to ride a Harley prepared by one of the best in the business was just too good an offer to pass up!
Though we had talked on the phone several times, when I got to Lima, it was actually my first face-to-face meeting with Skip. Dave and Bart, members of Skip’s team were there to help as well. It felt really good to have a real team at the track to help me! This is something I have never really had but always wanted. Makes a guy feel pretty special!
Went out for the first practice session and had a hard time getting through the corners. Went in good and got good drive coming out, but I could barely turn. During the break the guys made some changes to the bike and it got a TON better! In the first qualifying session I got 16th and then bumped it up to 14th for the overall position. I was pretty happy with a top 15 position considering I had never ridden this bike before this night. I was feeling more comfortable as the evening progressed.
There was Sammy and Jethro Halbert, Jared Mees, Bryan Smith, Nichole Cheza and Mick Kirkness were all in my heat. Got a good start in the top five and soon got in behind Mick who was in the last transfer spot. I followed him for a bit and saw that I was getting through turns three and four better than he was. I slowly reeled him in and on the last lap he dove to the bottom of the track to try and block me, but blew the corner and ended up going high up off the line. This gave me a chance to square up the corner and get a better drive, beating him at the finish line for the final transfer spot.
In the Main event, I got a pretty good start from the second row. I had a good clear shot through a gap and got a good top ten start! Not bad for the first ride on the big Harley. I ran around here trying to stay out of trouble and out of Bryan Smith’s way. He was really running a different line trying to make that Kawasaki work for him. I dropped a couple of spots trying to avoid all of this and found myself behind PJ Jacobson.
Then Dan Gedeon, on the other Skip Eaken bike, went around me and I decided to latch onto him and follow him for a bit. We both passed PJ and then we had a good battle swapping positions back and forth right up until the last lap when Dan got me. He finished 11th with I logged in 12th. I was really happy with this result.
A big thanks to Skip Eaken for giving me this chance and of course thank you as always to my sponsors. I thank them from the bottom of my heart for everything they have done and continue to do for me.
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