In our last episode we left our guy in his misery to spend the entire summer in a full arm cast after tucking the front end of his SV on T-1.

I know, I know, save the drama for your mama. But I have to say after spending 8 weeks in a cast, I was chomping at the bit to get back out on the track. Once the cast was removed, I figured 3 weeks should be ample time to get my strength back,… yeah right, I wish. First off let me say, that I had plenty of time over the summer to think about my crash. I wanted to carefully review the events leading to the incident; so that I could at least walk away saying I learned something.

After carefully analyzing all the information available to me (ex.: pavement, bike, sky…repeat 3 times) I have come to the conclusion that I have learned nothing! Okay, maybe I’ve learned a little something, after all crashing does suck!

So I spent most of my summer watching races on SPEED TV, going out to the track to watch my buddies race, watching on bike footage of my home track and I kept rotating through all three of Keith Code’s books reading one after another. I was just trying the best I could to keep my head into it. So after 3 weeks of being cast free, I put the SV back together, minus paint on new bodywork, Nothing says to the world I crashed recently like a dented tank with primer bodywork!

There are only so many hours in the day and as per usual, I pulled a late night putting the SV back to its former glory the night before we were leaving for the track with finishing touches the morning of our departure. My buddy and I packed up the RV and trailer and head out to the track for my first track day since my crash.

First mistake… we went to a new track. Besides having more demons in my head than I anticipated, I found myself on a unfamiliar track, so I was lost as hell. I’m all over the place through out the morning sessions. I couldn’t hold a line if it had a handle on it! Compound this to a cornucopia of other struggles. I was incredibly tense, missing shifts and just generally slow all the while a million thoughts running through my head, like don’t crash dummy! And they ask me why I drink! I should also mention that my arm really wasn’t really back to full strength yet and I was really having a tough time braking hard and flicking the bike, but I pressed on the best I could.

By midday I was at least feeling smooth and hitting my lines. Most importantly I was beginning to relax and actually starting to enjoy myself. At the end of the day, we packed up and headed for another scheduled track day at our home track.

Now the one benefit of getting my first track day out of the way before stepping foot on my home track, was that I had the benefit of getting the first track day gitters out of my system, so I felt way more relaxed right off the bat. Our home track does have much more hard braking areas than the previous track from the day before, so I was a little concerned about my arm strength. Also we hooked up with a couple of buddies and a bunch of familiar faces were pitted around us. This was definitely a plus, everyone there new what I was going through, and the words of encouragement were helpful.

I immediately felt smooth, relaxed and I was hitting my lines, but I couldn’t get back up to speed. Just to give you a idea as to how slow I was going, I was lopping off 3-4 seconds off my lap times with each session. My goal was to get back to my original lap times by the end of the day, however a toasted rear wheel and a arm that was getting just too tired and weak to brake hard came between me and my goal.

On the plus side, I was dragging my knee around the corners, made some nice passes, and felt as relaxed as I could be under the circumstances. The only downer was I was still about 6 seconds off my usually pace. I have a few more track days schedule before winter, then it’s me and the SV in the garage for more tinkering in preparation for next race season!

Thanks to everyone who sent me e-mails after my first article, it was really cool to hear from all of you and it was nice to receive so many well wishes for a speedy recovery.