Congratulations to Melissa Appel for taking the win at Barber today! Wyeth Jackson followed in second, with polesitter Melissa Berkoff on an SV650 in third. Congratulations to all!

Women’s Supersport:
1. Melissa Appel (Hon CBR600RR), 12 laps
2. Wyeth Jackson (Kaw ZX-6R), -8.261 seconds
3. Melissa Berkoff (Suz SV650), -9.598
4. Suzy Moody (Kaw ZX-6R), -28.148
5. Meghan Stiles (Yam YZF-R6), -28.449
6. Karen Coleman (Suz GSX-R600), -1 lap
7. Sasha Taranto (Yam YZF-R6), -1 lap
8. Rhonda Gray (Kaw ZX-6R), -1 lap
9. Kimberly Prichard (Yam YZF-R6), -1 lap
10. Anita Thomas (Hon CBR600RR), -1 lap
11. Teri Gorrell (Kaw ZX-6R), -1 lap
12. Sheila Paul (Yam YZF-R6), -2 laps

Not to take away from how awesome it is that there is a national women’s championship thanks to Michelin and Femmoto, but I have to say I am very proud of our west coast gals for putting out a grid of thirteen women roadracers last month at Infineon Raceway. And it would have been fourteen, had Krystyna Kubran’s bike been working, or even fifteen, if Jennifer Lauritzen hadn’t hurt her shoulder, or sixteen, if Svetlana Gorina raced with us, or seventeen, if Deb Barton hadn’t highsided earlier and didn’t have a Formula III championship to go win! SO HUGE LADIES AND I’M SO THRILLED TO KNOW AND RACE WITH ALL Y’ALL!

Thirteen women on the AFM AFemme grid at Sonoma’s Infineon Raceway. Bad ass. Deb Barton, who has joined us on several occasions, really needed to focus on winning the Formula III AFM championship, which she did. Mega congratulations for her! Joy Higa won the inaugural AFemme season championship, but some of us hope to give her some more competition next year! We were sorely missing Jennifer Lauritzen, who was cheering us on with a healing shoulder, and Krystyna Kubran, whose bike decided it didn’t want to go racing, and Cassandra Gaddy, who really needs a race bike, and Angie Loy, who despite tremendous talent and love for her fellow girl racers didn’t make it out, and Elena Myers, who is so fast she doesn’t need to bother with chick races and isn’t even old enough to race at Infineon anyway, and Melissa Paris, who has raced a few Femmoto and WERA women’s races but is recovering from a broken leg, and Svetlana Gorina, who told me she would race with us but then didn’t (insert big sad face here), and all the other girls that Jenny and Crystal and Britt tried to get down here… We could have had well over twenty chicks out there…un-freaking-believable. I’m so stoked and proud of all you girls…simply getting out there is an accomplishment in and of itself, and to see everyone continually growing and improving is just so exciting.

On The Throttle TV and Vision Wells were in the house to film our race from every angle, complete with interviews and whatnot. I can’t wait to see the footage. Stay tuned for updates, links, and so on as I post them up…I am really busy these days with some new business dealings, so don’t expect any award-winning prose…lol.

Love to you all!

Christie

I read on RoadracingWorld.com that racer Meghan Stiles, who’s made an appearance at an AMA event or two, is going to be racing as a team with her dad and her fiance at the Moto-GT1 class at Heartland Park Topeka on August 1st. Bad ass!

Did a little research…Meghan’s 24 and raced in USGPRU for 11 years before switching to 600s. I’ve seen her name pop up in a few of the Femmoto events this year too. Go Meghan! Oh and apparently she’s a big Rossi fan…lol.

I’m always intrigued when it’s said, “slow down to go faster.” In June, at a muggy, cloudy Thunderhill, I was trying very hard to go fast on my little piggy. I was braking later and later, trying to get off the brakes sooner and sooner, and getting on the gas harder, and the results were disappointing to say the least; I was edging into the 2:05s, barely a half second better than my previous best times.

I wore myself out on Friday. Friday night my quads, triceps and pecs were on fire. Saturday morning I was out first in every session, and was the last to come in. I knew if I just worked harder, I’d go faster. I’d better go fast, because I was so nervous about passing people. My friend Zoe had just raced in Portland a week ago, lost the front after making a pass, and got run over by another motorcycle. Miraculously, she was out racing this weekend too, albeit with some bumps and bruises. I was also still holding myself back thinking about poor Eric Arnold, a popular track day instructor who had fallen on the starting grid, been run over a few times and is now paralyzed from the waist down (however, there is hope for recovery, as you may read).

Saturday afternoon’s Formula AFemme race came around and I was hoping to have some good battles with Jenn and Zoe, and maybe even beat a 600 or two. Nah, I was hoping for more than that. I wanted to finish ahead of my SV girls and a 600 or two. I don’t remember much about the race aside from watching Jenn attempting to pass Shelina’s ZX6-R several times, and then towards the end, a newly en fuego Kristy Miller and her GSXR600 came storming through. I was second to last. Basically last, as Lisa’s comparatively underpowered Ninja 250 just can’t hang with the bigger bikes. I felt powerless to make any passes on anyone.

Miserable. Bleh. And I felt like crap, so tired, sore, and disappointed in myself.

I had zero energy, mental or physical, left over, and was feeling pretty adamant that I didn’t want to race on Sunday. I felt scared, I just wasn’t into it. So I was a good little pit crew member for James and did everything I could to support him in his racing. It was fun watching the races, and Jenn and Zoe did really well and I was happy for them. I wasn’t really bummed to not be out there until my energy came back, oh, on Tuesday or so. Then I was like, “dammit! Why didn’t I just race?!?!”

I decided to hire my boyfriend, James, to work with me at a track day a week later. Huddled up after a few sessions inside our air-conditioned, but otherwise piece-of-shit trailer, I sensed (I’m being politically correct here, I really believe that he flat out said it) that he was telling me that I wasn’t a natural at this and I was going to have to work very, very hard to be good at it. I was enraged. I don’t think many women can go from zero motorcycling experience to racing mid-pack in the super competitive AFM 650 Twins class the way that I have. I may not have been popped out of the womb being awesome like James, but I’m pretty good.

I probably have too much ego to ever be truly great at sports. But anyway, I cried and cried in my dirty, ugly trailer and then went out for another session without him to just ride around and shake it off. Against his instructions, I used a lap timer and pulled a 2:04, something I’d never done before. I felt better. James had apologized and consoled me, and also given me some really great tips for improving my riding and finding the best lines around the track, and by the end of the day I felt, um, not terrible.

A few weeks later I spent a week involved in a motorcycling related endeavor. I can’t say a whole lot about it, except that being there was not beneficial to my self-confidence, at least not at first. I came away from it feeling like a crappy racer, a crappy person and like I’d never be good at anything, ever. It wasn’t fun and I don’t really plan on going back.

During the four hour drive home from this thing, just a day before packing up and leaving for the next Thunderhill round, I was crying a lot until I started to get angry. How could I let this person make me feel this way? How could I let anyone control my feelings about my self worth like this? How could anyone underestimate my abilities and not recognize the value I can add? I was pissed. And when I get pissed, I start to rock. Being pissed fueled the first few years of my racing hobby, but I’m past that, so having a new fire in my belly was just what I needed.

I came home with a new determination and energy, not just to succeed in racing, but to make more out of my professional life as well. I had planned to not make the same mistake I did in June; I would only ride two out of the three days, Saturday and Sunday, but when this important workshop came up on Saturday, I decided I had to miss out on Formula AFemme, practice Friday and race on Sunday.

“This person” (NOT James, James is incredibly supportive of me, if only a little blunt sometimes) is a perfectionist, and I rode in Friday practice like he was behind me, critiquing my every move. I rode my lines as perfectly as I could ride them. I positioned my body like I was Ben Spies rocking World Superbike. I swallowed my fears and made passes when appropriate, and they stuck like krazy glue. Over time, the passing became less scary and I was pleased. I looked down at my tach on the approach to turn 7 and spied a 2:03.5 on my lap timer. I screamed like a little girl at a Justin Timberlake concert and then screamed again. I turned some more 2:03s. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

“Don’t get too excited, you still have to do that in the race,” said James. I knew he was right, but I didn’t care. I felt improvement and I felt faster without trying hard at it, just by striving for perfection in my lines and body positioning. I ended the Friday practice day feeling very good about life. I was sad that Jenn had destroyed her bike and was hoping she’d be healthy enough to race again next month, but on the personal front life was groovy.

Saturday I was gone. I was dying to know what happened in AFemme and put in calls to Zoe, Joy and Shelina. I was sad to not have been there.

I came out with another 2:03 in our only round of Sunday morning practice. Again, not hard. 650 Twins was race #1, and Formula IV was race #6. I was pleased that they were both before James’s race, Formula Pacific, which is always the 8th race of the day. All I wanted to do was just exactly what I’d been doing on Friday. A good start, perfect lines, perfect body positioning, and passing when appropriate. I really didn’t overtly care too much about the results or the lap times.

Off the start, I found myself up in a pack that I was sure would soon leave me, but I hung with them. Guys like Mike Adrian, Spencer Smith and Brian Bartlow. Guys I’ve always thought were much faster than me. I raced around with them and it didn’t feel like hard work at all. I made a pass on Mike Adrian, although he got me back before the end of the race (a red-mist fueled pass, he said, heh heh). At one point I saw a 2:01 on my lap timer and couldn’t believe it. I was high on life and finished the race, super pumped up and feeling victorious. Really, really couldn’t believe it.

Amazingly I did even better in the second race and finished ahead of some fast dudes. Even more amazingly, it seems like everyone went faster this round, so even though my laptimes might have put me in the top ten last month, this month it was only good enough for 17th place in both races. Ah well. I was still feeling so good about it all I didn’t care. As long as I keep doing what I am supposed to do, and take it one lap at a time, one corner at a time, the results should come.

What’s ironic is that I may not even be able to make the races next month. My tennis team might be in heavy duty playoffs in Folsom, and our team has a good shot at going to a national championship for adult recreational teams. The girls on my team are really into it and counting on me and I’d hate to let them down. I might be able to race AND play tennis depending on the timing of it all…that would be an adventure!

First we’ll start off with Formula AFemme, the AFM’s recently created racing series for all women. It’s funny, Evelyne Clark, the grande dame of WERA, was talking about the WERA Women’s C Superstock class: “some races have no entries, others 1 or 2, then we have those few who have 5 or more…”

Well, AFemme had only six racers this month and it felt like a huge disappointment after rounds with 9, 10 and 11 entries. Deb Barton had to keep things running at her San Francisco motorcycle shop, Scuderia West, Lisa Mazurkiewicz didn’t race her 250 (I don’t blame her, she is the only 250 that had been racing AFemme and thus there probably aren’t any other racers to play with), Jennifer Lauritzen had an unfortunate incident involving a USGPRU kid who ran out of gas on track during Friday practice and annihilated her bike and her shoulder, and I had an important workshop in Martinez I needed to attend to help out my career so I can afford to keep racing.

So six chicks. Still pretty damn good in the grand scheme of things:

1 25 Expert HIGA, J. 2:00.652
2 636 Expert MILLER, KRISTY 02:01.764
3 493 Novice MOREDA, SHELINA 02:03.582
4 925 Expert REM, ZOE 02:05.381
5 881 Novice MENAS, STACY 02:09.535
6 41 Expert REILLY, KATHY 02:13.937

A big welcome to Stacy Menas, who I didn’t get to talk to all weekend, for coming out for her first roadrace. An experienced drag racer, she got a legendary start (which I didn’t get to see) in both AFemme and her Clubman (a race for brand-spankin’ new racers) races. I was delighted that Kathy Reilly also raced, she raced years ago and did quite well and was riding a friend’s borrowed SV650. Kristy Miller’s times are also starting to come down…I think she’s gunning for you, Joy! Congratulations all around, ladies!

As for how the girls did in the other races…

Joy Higa, Expert, Yamaha YZF-R6

Formula I, 12th of 33 finishers, 1:56:610
600 Superbike, 13th of 25 finishers, 1:57:331
750 Superbike, 17th of 23 finishers, 1:58:710
600 Production, 11th of 26 finishers, 1:58:528
750 Production, 12th of 21 finishers, 1:58:786

Shelina Moreda, Novice, Kawasaki ZX6-R

600 Superbike, 25th of 25 finishers, 2:05:830
Clubman Middleweight, 5th of 11 finishers, 2:03:930
600 Production, 22nd of 26 finishers, 2:03:648

Zoe Rem, Expert, Suzuki SV650

Formula IV, 29th of 31 finishers, 2:05:997
650 Twins, 25th of 30 finishers, 2:04:317

Lisa Mazurkiewicz, Expert, Kawasaki Ninja 250

250 Superbike, 3rd of 4 finishers, 2:18:846

Christie Cooley, Expert, Suzuki SV650

Formula IV, 17th of 31 finishers, 2:01.979
650 Twins, 17th of 30 finishers, 2:01.504

Svetlana Gorina, Novice, GSXR-750

Open Superbike, 18th of 19 finishers, 2:04.112
Formula 40 Heavyweight, 17th of 24 finishers, 2:03:103

Gwyn Lewis, Expert, Honda RS125

Formula III, 16th of 16 finishers, 2:10:646
Formula II, 9th of 9 finishers, 2:10:319

A lovely race report from the talented Mrs. Lauritzen, who had a triumphant weekend after feeling disappointed in previous rounds. Congratulations Jenn!

AFM Round 4 @ Thunderhill Raceway 2009

So I haven’t had time yet to do a write-up of all the fantastic racing that went on, but I will say that Joy Higa hit the 56’s for the first time which is an incredible achievement. Her finishes were all solidly in the top 15 of the most competitive race club in the country’s most competitive racing classes. Jennifer Lauritzen also made huge strides on her SV650, garnering her highest finishes ever and some new low laptimes in the 2:04’s, which on an SV is MOVIN’!

Zoe was her usual fast, aggressive self and had some pouty boys protesting her on Sunday for close passing. I haven’t seen anything from her that is all that different from a somewhat aggressive guy rider, so my theory is that because she simply sticks out with the pink “zoe” on the back of her leathers, she’s a more obvious target! I envy her ability to just boldly tuck herself into tight spaces, and it was especially sad this weekend with how much of a wuss I was with my own passing. I think I was just so mentally and physically exhausted from riding hard all day Friday that by Saturday afternoon I didn’t have much left. Lesson learned!

Kristy Miller is also getting her groove back – although instead of having a lascivious affair with a hottie in Jamaica, she’s been having some fun in Hawaii and it’s clearly helped her riding! Shelina Moreda worked through some struggles with lines earlier in the weekend to come up with a holeshot and strong finish in AFemme and some new low laptimes herself.

The results:

1st, Joy Higa, 01:59.878
2nd, Zoe Rem, 02:04.928
3rd, Shelina Moreda, 02:05.734
4th, Kristy Miller, 02:05.987
5th, Jennifer Lauritzen, 02:05.998
6th, Christie Cooley, 02:06.272
7th, Shandra Crawford, 02:18.513
8th, Lisa Mazurkiewicz, 02:23.040

Aside from her 56’s, Joy Higa’s new wrap on her bike was all anyone talked about this weekend though. Check out the way it reflects the sun. Simply amazing!

WERA National – Miller Motorsports Park

What a weekend!!! It was all made possible by my friend Jeff Havlik who allowed me to car pool with him to Miller. Sure, my old truck would likely have made it…. But I sure would’ve been beat to crap – and broke! Thanks again Havlik!!!

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This was apparently announced just a week or two ago: AMA Pro racing introduces Women’s Motocross Championship

They mention 18 year old Ashley Fiolek, the “first full factory rider in American motocross history when she was signed to a contract with Honda Red Bull Racing.”

Makes me wonder if an AMA national women’s roadracing championship will ever come about. And how it could be successful. Personally, and at no surprise to anyone I’m sure, I think it would be awesome. I’d bet there are twenty to thirty female racers in the U.S. who would do a fine job populating such a series.

I’m not saying I think this is awesome, or terrible, just that it seems like a “thing.” It seems as though the more commercially successful womens’ sports give women the opportunity to look pretty. Tennis, The NCAA Women’s Softball World Series on ESPN, with their pretty braids and bows, beach volleyball…have to say it’s pretty tough to show off a sexy bod when you’re clad in ten pounds of colorful leather and a full face helmet. I guess a part of me feels it’s unfortunate, and related to my occasional general frustration that I can’t just move through life unnoticed (men and women notice and evaluate women based on their physical appearance, usually without even realizing it), but another part of me accepts it as the way things are and looks for ways to work within the system.

Blah blah blah. Anyhoo. I still think a women’s pro roadracing series would KICK ASS! So it’s not as obvious in motorcycle racing as it is in, say, football, that men are naturally more equipped with the physicality and aggression necessary to be world champion racers, but it is and will likely always remain that I do not believe that we are on an equal playing field. Playing against other women isn’t just more fun for me, it’s more legit. I feel it’s fair. I don’t feel a sense of unfairness being on the grid with men, shit, I have no other options and I love racing so much because it’s fun and when the face shield is down, it’s just you against other racers. But when I step back and think about it…about the aggression and boldness it takes to sneak yourself in between a racer and a curb as you’re both leaning in towards the apex…the physical strength and timing it requires to flick a bike from one side to another at speed…I just find it more fun and satisfying to compete against my fellow ladies.

There will always be female athletes that are so exceptional that they can best many of the opposite gender. I’d certainly consider myself to be more bold and aggressive than a man who’s been club racing for several years but hasn’t quite figured his way forward through the pack yet. But do I have the built-in chops to compete equally with a Ben Spies, a Kenan Sofuoglu, or a Mladin? Forget about the years spent training and developing skills, I’m just talking natural, born-in equipment, in the brain and in the bod.

Again, don’t get me wrong. I love racing, against men, against women, and I don’t have a chip on my shoulder or am looking for excuses. I am still just as driven as ever to crack the top ten of my competitive AFM 650 Twins class. But having raced a couple women’s races now, it’s freaking rad. It’s amazing. I can’t explain it. I day dream about a women’s pro roadracing series. This new AMA Pro Women’s Motocross Championship just makes me think it might happen even sooner than I thought.

So I’m in the passenger seat of the E150 driving back from World Superbike weekend at Miller Motorsports Park. Few people likely knew that there were two women both attempting to qualify for World Supersport; Canadian racer Marie Josee Boucher and Melissa Paris.

“MJ” Boucher was pitted next to the garage me and James were unloading the van into on Thursday, but SBK moved her in to a garage near Melissa and the other World Supersport privateers. I was glad when her mechanic told me she had an ’09 Honda CBR1000RR, because the ’06 I was looking at looked like bringing a knife to a gun fight.

Both Melissa and MJ’s laptimes on Friday were down near the bottom of the list; they weren’t dead last, there were one or two behind MJ, and maybe five or six behind Missy. They were both hovering right around the 107% qualifying time. During Saturday’s qualifying, Missy made the cut, along with Chip Yates and Oleg Piankh, and MJ was just tenths of a second off. I was really hoping that both of them would make it to the show.

In Saturday’s GTU (600cc bikes) race, Elena Myers placed 14th against some of the nation’s top club racers and some AMA regulars, and then 16th on Sunday in the GTU (1000cc bikes) race. Way to go! I love the quiet intensity about Elena…and that she wears eye make-up and nail polish too.

When the World Supersport race came around, James and I were packing up the van and I dragged him over to the grandstands to go watch. It looked like Melissa had two, maybe three racers behind her, and I wondered if she had recognized that she was back in that place where you’re measuring your results based on how many boys you put behind you, rather than how many away from the front you are. I know that when I started racing my SV in the AFM, I just wanted to put more racers behind me at the finish and it was usually only a handful. I’m glad I’m closer to the front now!

I was so bummed when I saw her hesitantly put her little hand up as she puttered down the straightaway six or seven laps in. I don’t know what happened, some sort of mechanical obviously, but I know that her Facebook status message says “Melissa Paris is absolutely gutted.” I know it must be disappointing to not have achieved your goals, but jeez louise, can’t you take some satisfaction at having been the first woman to qualify for a World Supersport race? That’s history, and not all of us girl racers will ever get there. So PBAC says be happy, Mrs. Hayes.

As we crossed the line into Utah, I said to James, “I can’t believe people bitch about this drive. I mean, I’m not having a bad time, are you?” James shook his head. “That’s ‘cause they’re bitches,” he said. I laughed.

So we’re almost to Miller, short for Miller Motorsports Park, a mecca of motorsports near Salt Lake City. The track is big, wide and beautiful, with a lovely flow, and they’re holding World Superbike here this weekend where all eyes will be on Ben Spies, America’s latest great roadracing hope. I’ll also be keeping an eye on Melissa Paris and Marie Josee Boucher, who might be the first two women to ever race in World Supersport.

But what we’re really here for is to make some money. James is entered in the big-purse Larry H. Miller Superbike Challenge, and I’m stoked to be his mechanic again. I even have an official Team Suzuki collared shirt, which I was so excited about that I had to buy some cute new sneakers and jean shorts to wear it with.

It’ll be a great weekend, win or lose.

Also on my mind today is Sutton Helvey-Chandler, the racer who was killed six days ago at Barber while practicing for the weekend’s WERA race. She collided with a cornerworker who was on the track, supposedly to remove a dead bird, and they were both killed. She was a wife, mother and an HR professional. So tragic, and it hits home so much more because, well, we were even the same age and it could have been me.

Of course, once your leathers are zipped up and the face shield is down, and you stretch left and stretch right as you head out from your pit to the track, these thoughts are long gone. They have to be. It’s when you’re back from the race weekend and faced with unopened mail and hungry cats that a little part of you wonders why on earth a girl like you feels compelled to do this.

And yet I do.

I think about the risks. Isn’t it crazy not to? I feel very at peace with multiple scenarios. I love my life and want to continue living it, and would feel sad to inflict pain on those who love me, but I have to say I wouldn’t be devastated if my life ended. How could I be? It would just be a dark, fast, silent close to a fantastic life lived.

And not to trivialize paralysis, but I don’t fear it. I’m at a time in my life when I’m enjoying to the fullest those things I can do with an able body; there are a hundred thousand things I’d love to do and see and learn about and experience that don’t require legs. Shit, there’s even wheelchair tennis tournaments. Full body paralysis would be tough…I might have to pull a Million Dollar Baby in that scenario, but hey, Christopher Reeve was strong enough to fight through it.

I think that James thinks I’m a bit weak for thinking things like this through. He just puts it all out of his mind, puts his head down, and races. But he’s a racer, and I’m just a girl learning how to race. Maybe someday I’ll be a racer, but I hope that doesn’t mean I lose my penchant for deep contemplation.

I hope that everyone has a safe weekend. One of our AFM SV girls, Zoe Rem, will be racing at Portland this weekend which is cool because I don’t think there are even any girls, let alone fast girls, up that way until you get to Canada. I love all my racer girls… It takes a lot for women who haven’t grown up with it to get up and go racing. You all continually inspire and challenge me. Kick ass and stay safe.

xoxo
Christie

Thanks to Joe, from 4theriders.com!

Joy Higa with the holeshot into turn 2, Zoe Rem on the left, Christie Cooley on the right.

Kristy Miller, shoulder probably out of its socket in this picture. Madwoman!

Deb Barton climbing up the hill, Lisa Mazurkiewicz in tow.

Shelina Moreda & Deb Barton.

Not my favorite picture in the world. Although I’d get Zoe in this race, she’d get me back in both of the “co-ed” races the next day.

Cassandra Gaddy, Zoe Rem, Jennifer Lauritzen, Kristy Miller.

Congratulations to Kristi Martel and Krystyna Kubran who rode the WERA six hour endurance race together! Not only does it look like you girls had a blast, especially with your matching outfits, but your team won third place! Holy crap, that’s awesome! Someone please blog back to me about how the afternoon went…I heard it rained a lot there this past weekend!

I really can’t explain why I love this women’s race so much, but I do. I love that we’re all out there on the track at the same time, all battling each other; it’s simply awesome. I love that there are so many of us, whereas other women’s races happening around the country are sparsely attended. I love the supportive environment; not only are we supportive of our fellow girl racers, the community at large seems quite interested in the class and enjoys watching it. I sincerely hope that the AFM Board of Directors will vote to continue the class throughout the rest of the season.

This past weekend’s women’s race featured some good battles. Woman vs. woman, woman vs. self, woman vs. ground. Joy Higa and Deb Barton had a good race with each other, and from what Deb told me, she felt comfortably in the lead until she had a near highside coming out of turn 9 and decided to dial it back a notch, and that’s when Joy Higa, hot on her little RS125’s tail, made her move.

Kristy Miller, fast girl and all around bad ass, apparently had a tank slapper towards the end of the race that threw her shoulder out of its socket. This is all second hand information and I’m waiting to get the story from the woman herself, but apparently she wriggled it back into place and kept going, and it somehow came out again. “All she wanted to do was finish the race and get a prize, so she rode out the rest of her laps one handed,” said my source, with that “holy crap, what a bad ass” look on his face. Very impressive! Great job Kristy!

I made a shameful, shameful racing mistake on the first or second lap. I saw a wheel coming up on my inside going into turn 4, and Deb Barton, who’s several seconds faster than I am, hadn’t gotten by me yet. I left the door open and saw Shelina Moreda’s shiny blue Kawi sneak by. ARGH! God, I was so pissed at myself! Never, EVER, leave the door open for anyone, EVER! But I wasn’t that pissed, because I hadn’t seen anything faster than a 2:01 from Shelina in practice, so I didn’t feel that passing her back would be a problem.

Well, it was a big fucking problem! Shelina woke up that afternoon and decided that she was there to race, and I was working my ass off to close the gap. I just couldn’t believe it. It didn’t compute. Lesson number two learned: never underestimate your competition. You’d think I’d have learned that lesson already with years of competitive tennis under my belt, but mental toughness in sport is a constant, frustrating, and rewarding battle.

I couldn’t quite believe that I’d managed to stay ahead of Zoe Rem, Jennifer Lauritzen, Cassandra Gaddy, and Kristy, and quick glances behind me showed that as long as I kept up a good pace, they’d have their work cut out for them catching me. But that still left Shelina, who I figured was in third place with me in fourth towards the end of the race. I edged closer and closer, but so infuriatingly slowly. By the white flag I felt hopeful I’d be able to make a move before the checkered.

Let me preface this next paragraph by saying I had just been talking with Deb Barton about how I’d never experienced a lowside, and felt that I had much to gain by pushing the limits of traction of my front tire by braking deeper and deeper up towards my apex. I talked about it with curiosity; I wondered almost pleasantly what sliding along the ground felt like, having seen dozens of videos of racers gliding along pavement and then somehow ending up on their feet.

So when my front tucked before the apex at the top of turn 7, it did so very decisively and with seemingly little warning. Poof. It was just gone. Gone, daddy, gone. And gliding along the pavement? Nope. Somehow I was rolling, hearing my beautiful Arai helmet knocking and bumping along the ground, and seeing the much talked about phenomenon of sky, ground, sky, ground. And my butt hurt. Like someone took a chair out from underneath me that I was about to sit on.

I looked over at my sliding bike and saw sparks coming from it. “This can’t be happening,” I thought. I got up and watched the field go by, then joined them for the cool down lap. Boo.

So, ladies and gents, I give you the semi-official results:

1. Joy Higa, 01:51.3, Yamaha R6
2. Deb Barton, 01:50.4, Honda RS125
3. Shelina Moreda, 01:53.5 Kawasaki ZX6R
4. Zoe Rem, 01:54.578, Suzuki SV650S
5. Jennifer Lauritzen, 01:54.5, Suzuki SV650S
6. Cassandra Gaddy, 01:55.085, Kawasaki 636
7. Kristy Miller, 01:55.6, Suzuki GSXR-600
8. Denise Howard, 02:07.0, some sort of older Honda I think
9. Lisa Mazurkiewicz, 02:07.409, New Kawasaki Ninja 250R

DNF, Christie Cooley, 01:53.453, Suzuki SV650S

So, some special congratulations to Shelina Moreda for riding like her panties were on fire. She looked smooth and in control, and I know from the tales of her street riding that the woman is fearless and capable, so I’m sure with a little more time she’ll be even more competitive on that sweet Kawi.

Also, Jennifer Lauritzen, myself and Zoe Rem all achieved new personal best laptimes this weekend. Woo hoo! We’ve all been having problems with our SVs, so it was nice that we were all able to go out there and haul ass for once. I was especially glad that I was able to come back from crashing on Saturday (and getting hit by another bike in practice so hard I got the wind knocked out of me – that’s a whole ‘nother story) and keep pushing myself on Sunday to my new low. I guess new tires really do help a lot, too.

And finally, a big thank you to Svetlana Gorina, a woman who was instrumental in the creation of Formula AFemme; she spent a good deal of time Saturday afternoon helping me put my bike back together after my pavement surfing. For whatever opinionated, dramatic reason, she hasn’t been racing AFemme, and I spent a lot of time last week arguing with her over email about why she should race AFemme, but in the spirit of “not words, but deeds,” my high school motto, Lana’s been great to me. I don’t understand her opinions and don’t agree with the public and confrontational way that she has been known to express them, but she really helped a sister out this weekend. Come race with us!

Hopefully I’ll have some pictures up soon.

Check out Melissa Paris’s thoughts on her upcoming World Supersport debut.

Elena Myers is on SpeedTV tonight, I think at 7:30 Pacific Time. Here’s a link to the news on Roadracingworld.com.

My weekend was spent at Infineon for the big AMA races. Aside from the sweltering heat, it was a fun weekend. I got to hear AFM racer Jennifer Lauritzen’s husband light it up in the announcer’s booth. He’s a natural and so enthusiastic!

Also spent some time chatting with Jon Forman, an AFM board member, about Formula AFemme, which he called “a spectacular success.” The current plan is to discuss AFemme again at the June 11 board meeting, but it leaves me wondering if we will be able to race AFemme June 12th and 13th at Thunderhill. Perhaps I should give Zoe and Joy an email, or maybe even “Dr. Jonny” himself (Jon’s a Ph.D. or researcher in some really complicated sounding scientific profession and is super smart) to see what’s up.

I also got to take the Skip Barber Superbike School KTM RC8 for a spin around the track as part of the traditional “fan laps.” Unfortunately some wahoos squidded it up in turn 1 (they probably didn’t know where to go because of the cone-created chicane) and created a big scene, cutting our three fan laps short to one. Ah well, it was still fun and I got some sweet pictures:

When my friend Josie’s father passed over a year ago, she said that she was going to one day have a Tiffany blue bike dedicated to him Well she finally did it…here is her Honda CBR600RR in all her aqua blue glory:

Josie’s a quick, plucky girl, the kind of person who does what she says she will do, as evidenced by above. She says that when she is out of school and making money, she will race, so I’m looking forward to seeing her out there beating boys. Love ya Josie!

As in, World Supersport, not Women’s Superstock. You’ve come a long way, baby!

From a press release issued to RoadracingWorld.com:
http://roadracingworld.com/news/article/?article=36506

I was pumped for Sunday. PUMPED! After a seemingly unending quest for the perfect pair of roadracing boots, perfect boots naturally being the answer to all my riding flaws, I was loving my new Alpinestars Super Tech boots after a day of practice and a failed 20 lap race. They are white, they are awesome, they are disco boots and make me want to shake my money maker. In addition to being dazzlingly white and sassy, they have the perfect traction on the bottom, the perfect thickness of sole, and fit reasonably well around my delicate female foot.

I just knew they were going to help me turn the bike better. Don’t ask me how I knew that, but I did. I delighted at the thought of tossing my old race boots in the garbage can at home, even though they’ve been with me since my first month of motorcycle riding. Sometimes it’s just time to move on!

Anyway, I had two pretty good practices in the morning. I felt confident that James, Zoran and I had sorted out the weird electrical shorting problem I was having with the fuel system.

I was excited for Women’s Superstock; I was hoping to jump ahead of Joy and her R6 on the start and stay ahead of her through turns 1 and 2, then maybe hang with her as much as me and my little v-twin could, and I was also stoked that I talked fourteen year old SV racer Marisol Lacour into joining us on the grid. Novices Nadine Lajoie and Kristi Martel were absent this weekend, so Marisol was guaranteed a first place finish for WSS Novice.

I head out on the warm up lap preparing to hit all my marks and get in the zone, but as I was driving out of turn two my bike felt funny. I shook my money maker (just to be clear I do not actually make money racing, that’s my boyfriend’s job) right, then left, then right, then right again, and as I started to pin it through the infield, wringing the throttle’s little neck made no difference as my bike would not rev much above 8,000 RPM. It’d hit 8 grand and then feel boggy and weird, and not really go much above that.

Ugh.

It continued to feel really weird through Riverside and then coming down out of Lost Hills. It was un-raceable. I really didn’t know what to expect on the start or throughout the race, or if I’d be doing more damage to my bike, so I brought it in after the warm up lap. I was so sad.

As for the rest of the girls…

Krystyna Kubran…
Shandra Crawford…
Joy Higa…
Marisol Lacour…

I think they all had good weekends. I’ve been so busy lately and I really need to get serious about some money making initiatives, of which this is not one. KK managed to put a few boys behind her in her big girl bike races like A Superbike, Formula 1, and A Superstock, Shandra mentioned that she had a good little fire lit under her ass thinking I was behind her all through the women’s race, Joy put down a 1:57 in WSS which is pretty damn awesome, and Marisol continued to make forward progress out of the doom and gloom that a nasty highside can hang over your head.

So before we get to the bad, let’s talk about the good:

• Krystyna Kubran is ever closer to sub two minute lap times on her R1
• Shandra Crawford did an awesome job announcing the play-by-play action in today’s solo 20 races
• I ran into Tori Spelling, who was at the track to support her husband Dean McDermott’s first ever motorcycle race. She was beautiful and thin and soooooo Hollywood! Look for her and Dean’s trackside antics on her Oxygen channel reality show, Home Sweet Hollywood
• Lost without my lap timer and strolling around the track during practice like I was picking daisies, I came back to find that I’d done several fast lap times including a 2:03, faster than last month’s race times
• And even though I was looking at my tachometer and not the flagger when the green flag dropped, I still got a good launch from the fifth row and ended up in fifth position by turn 3 in the Solo 20 lap race

And, the bad…

There are only FOUR chicks here this weekend. Boo! Where are my ladies at? So far it’s just myself, K.K., Shandra and young Marisol Lacour. Oh, and that cute little girl in pink who went screaming over to the go kart track on her supermoto. Krystyna can’t race Women’s Superstock because it’s a race limited to 600cc machines and smaller, and Marisol hasn’t raced it before, even though she’s been to the WERA races, so I’m guessing it’s not her thing. So it will probably be myself and Shandra representing in race number two tomorrow, Women’s Superstock, unless Joy Higa decides to show up. Angie Loy was planning on coming but wasn’t able to make it.

I am sad.

And, after my kickass first lap in the Solo 20, my bike blew a fuse – again – as I was driving onto the front straight, ready to tuck me and my double d’s under the bubble and chase down Stephen “Neil” Foreman. I’ve been having this problem for a month and a half; it’s happened three or four times now. James and I kept meaning to go through my bike head to toe and locate the source of the problem; it’s been the fuse for the fuel injection system that keeps blowing. Zoran told me there was “probably wire touching some-vhere” (Zoran typically doesn’t use the words “the”, ‘a”, and so on, and speaks with an awesome Balkan accent). So I’m a girl who, maybe four years ago, barely knew how to check the tire pressures in my car, so for me to look through my bike and try and find something like this would have been like trying to find a contact lens in the Mandalay Bay wave pool.

So I got hauled back to my pit by the crash truck, changed, and started to strip my bike down. Seat, tail section, replace fuse, lowers, uppers, GPR steering dampener, tank, airbox. And then wait for the real bike “surgeons” to come in and work magic after the nurse has prepped the patient. James put a resistor in somewhere but then it started blowing the fuse immediately upon switching on the kill switch (which also activates the fuel pump). Zoran came over to help, and James took my tank back off again and turned it upside down, which brought our attention to the sound of something clanging around inside my tank.

Turns out there was some device inside the tank that had broken off – a device only on California motorcycles used to help bikes comply with environmentalism stuff. Anyway, it’s a metal piece, and it was I guess bumping into some wires or something on the fuel pump inside the tank.

Keeping my fingers crossed that the mystery problem has been solved and I can go have some fun tomorrow and finish some races. I really feel like I had a shot at Neil Foreman today; at least now I haven’t depleted my energy like everyone else did in that grueling 45 minute race.

Hungry, dirty and sweaty, we went back to our Hilton Garden Inn in Bakersfield (a rare splurge), cleaned up quickly, ate a tasty meal at Macaroni Grill, then went driving around the east hills of Bakersfield. We ended up on a beautiful bluff, on a road called Panorama Drive, with a liquid red sun sinking behind the picturesque oil fields. And yes, they were actually quite lovely at that time of the evening.

Joe Salas, creative genius behind 4theriders, was one of my earliest motorcycling mentors. I happened to be on a “Snellbux” ride with him almost three years ago and I remember him demonstrating to me how to hang off the bike, looking a bit like a big gorilla in tattered leathers (this should have been a red flag) clinging to a small tree. Although Joe was beset by a few unfortunate crashes, his words and advice were really helpful and got me off to a good start.

He’s also a great photographer and a big supporter of the lady racers. He contacted me proactively this week asking me if I would like photos of the girls for my blog, and of course I said “hell yes!” Thanks a million Joe, your support means a lot to us.

Jennifer Lauritzen, Christie Cooley

For the first AFemme race, we were gridded by bike number, which meant I was dead freaking last on the three row grid. Fortunately I got one of my best starts on record and can be seen here rocketing past Jennifer Laurtizen. I’m pretty amazed because I feel like I can even see the front end of my bike raised up from the weight transfer. Why don’t I get starts like this in my normal races? Maybe because I knew it would take everything I had to out-start Zoe Rem, who was a row ahead of me and takes off faster than a rocket ship and has no fear dicing through starting lap traffic.

Joy Higa in the lead, followed by Angie Loy & Christie Cooley

I even found myself side by side with Angie Loy. I can’t remember if she was on the second row or in the first. But I was like, “holy crap, that’s Angie next to me.” We were both following Joy Higa up the hill into turn 2.

Zoe Rem, Jennifer Lauritzen, Deb Barton, Cassy Gaddy, Shandra Crawford

I think Deb Barton is coming up “round the outside, round the outside, round the outside” (a bit of Eminem stuck in my head this morning) on her Honda RS125, because she gets by me before turn four I believe and eventually settles into second behind Angie “Pony” Loy.

Holeshot-lina Moreda taking the holeshot in Clubman Middleweight

A pretty epic photo, one to treasure. This is Shelina Moreda, in her second or third race ever, taking the holeshot in Clubman Middleweight, a race only for the newest racers. Those are all men behind her. Just FYI. It’s pretty much her life off the track too, hee hee.

Future AFemme racer Josie Gomez

Josie Gomez is going places, this much is true. I think she’s only 21 or 22 and finishing up school so she can start making money to come racing. She’s already fast on the street and does the occasional track day. Come racing Josie!

See what us AFM girls have to put up with? Grids so freaking big that when I started on the back row of my first 650 Twins race last year, I was gridded 74th of 74 and could barely see the green flag. As you can see I am starting to put more and more boys behind me. Good thing, because the starts are extra scary when you’ve got dozens of excitable noobs gridded ahead of you.