WOW!!! What an experience!!! Races at Daytona, impressive track but the banking is the most impressive thing! In my category, 75 racers form everywhere in the United States and in Canada go there for this "Bike Week" event. I was already at Daytona Bike Week 2 years in a row, for the party and the atmosphere... but now, to be one of the racers, participate, be in the garages, sleep in the infield track, meet other racers, achieve a dream, that is awesome... the excitation is at the maximum and on top of that, during the Thursday practices, I'm a lot faster than I was expected, compared to the other racers. The week-end was starting in a good way, I'm so excited, I'm dreaming, I have a smile open thru my ears. My team mates Doug and Trevor are excited too, we tease each other to see which one will see the others in the back...Shaun and Tom are there to help us, they are mechanics... a chance because Doug had problems with the water pump shaft and they had to take the part from my street bike R6 to install the part in Doug's bike... The atmosphere is awesome, great and excited!
During the practices on Friday, my lap times are improving again and I love the track, I'm more and more comfortable, more and more confident. My new techniques are more natural and I was having fun like I never had. I think that is my best race week-end ever, even before my 3rd place! Effectively, Saturday was rainy, Trevor, Doug and I are really fast on the track compared to others racers (we are used to bad weather in Canada!) and we hope that the race will be in the rain... Yes, I took the start in 7th place and I was 2nd in corner one which I kept my 2nd place almost all the race, but without so many efforts because the 1st position was too far... I played too much prudently and one racer passed me the lap before the last one and there was a red flag in the last lap, so I finished on the podium...WOW, INCREDIBLE! I can not believe it!
We were supposed to stay quiet during races and not supposed to party at night...What do you think? Impossible, races are like that for me, having fun during the day and during the night too... the night before my 3rd place, that was the big party, with beer, wine, port, chocolate... good dinner, guitar, new friends and go to bed at 3 o'clock on the morning! The only night where there was not a party was the night after my 3rd place! I had deception, the guys were gone for 1 or 2 hours on the "Main Street", to do some shopping for gifts and come back not too late... however, their vehicule was towed and that took almost 3 hours to find a taxi to go back to their vehicle... Since they were not back before 11h30, I found a little party with a World Endurance racer, Chris Will and his 2 mechanics... He shared with me some funny stories and I talked about my trip this winter, the races, his mechanic Mike was very funny and again, I had a lot of fun with these new people!
