Whiplash 2009,Final Race, Speedworld Lucas Oil Track, December 2009

Coming into this race at the Speedworld Lucas Oil Short Course I was 8 points behind the senior pro leader nick. So I needed to get 1st and for him to get 3rd or worse in order to win the championship. My race engine is still blown up from the baja pre run so I put my dads HRC 07 engine in my quad and hoped for the best. Short course racing isn't my strong suit and nick is very good at it so I didn't have high hopes. Also my battery wouldn't hold a charge so I had to be pull started all morning.

There were 6 of us on the line to start the race and when the green flagged dropped everyone pulled away from me. I was close to last after lap 1. I eventually made it past nick, it sounded like he missed a gear (turns out he blew up 4th gear). Around the 5th lap I got around #39 and #40 greg conroy and my pit told me I was in first. Then my seat came loose. I was nervous about losing it so I sat down the whole lap to keep it on then I stopped in my pits to fix it and get new goggles. While I was pitted everyone I had just passed got back around me.

I got back on the track and the front of my seat came loose again, I decided to let it go and hopefully the new LSR rear seat latch would just hold it on. I made my way up to what I thought was 2nd place and my pit told me I was 35-40 seconds behind greg #40 who they thought was in 1st. I remained 35 seconds behind for most of the race. With 8 minutes to go I was pushing as hard as possible and I closed the gap to 20 seconds. Next lap 10 seconds and on the last lap I was 5 seconds behind Greg. I was entering the whoops while he was exiting them and I was gaining on him. Then I came over a left hand blind hill turn and saw a guy on the ground moving off the track. I moved around him and kept going and I noticed I didn't see greg in front of me. Turns out he stopped to block traffic for the downed rider because he is a swell guy.

I thought I had won the race but it turns out Rick #21 was in front of Greg and I the whole time. So I ended up in 2nd but Nick had bad luck with flats and his tranny and finished 6th so I won the 2009 Senior Pro championship by 2 points. If I hadn't made it past Greg I would have lost by 3 points. I am super happy with the championship although I would have liked to duke it out with Greg on that last lap. I didn't expect to finish this well when I moved up to Senior Pro for this season. Especially since I missed the first firebird race with the death flu or food poisoning.

Next year will be very different since I am not sure how many of us are doing the whiplash season. I am committed to the entire Best in the Desert season (4 of the 5 BITD races conflict with whiplash dates) and I know both Greg's and Rick are doing WORCS full time.

My vholdr HD helmet cam gets covered in mud halfway into lap 1 but here it is:

http://vholdr.com/node/54570

Thanks to the LSR seat latch that I installed last month, it saved my butt this time! I gotta figure out why my new desert tank won't properly latch the front of my seat.