I arrived at New Hampshire International Speedway around noon on Wednesday to find they had been running open practice since Tuesday morning. Cycle news had said Wednesday afternoon only. I guess I wouldn't have gotten there any earlier since I was renewing my Massachusetts drivers license Wednesday morn anyway. I figure you can never can have enough drivers licenses, I like to spread the points around, and when the cops ask why I have Virginia tags, I tell em "doesn't everyone own 2 homes?". But thats another story as to why I started racing. Anyway they charged me full price to practice half a day ($80) and I paid it. The bike was in Pro Bike trim, and the motor was freshly rebuilt, so I was taking it easy. I discovered my new short wheel base setup wasn't giving me the ground clearance I needed with the low profile radial on the rear. Since Thursday was Vintage Day, I mounted my high profile vintage (read narrow) bias bly (yes I know, this is the same setup that helped me crash at Daytona) and continued to relearn the track and break in the motor. I could have fitted longer shocks to the long swing arm, but I was determined to make the short wheelbase work due to the tightness of Loudon, the second tighest track the AMA runs. Thursday I finished my conversion to vintage bike (non-remote reservoir shocks and narrow front rim as well) and ran the 750 gp race (i had a 992cc motor, you won't tell will you?) I took third behind the Team Obsolete Harley and Triumph Triple, I wonder what size they were? Really Pat Moroney and Yvon Duhamel could probably beat me on mopeds. I was involved in a battle with Kurt Liebmann on his factory Honda 750, (which was faster then my bike) and Richard Moore (runner up in this years 24 hrs of Lemans) on a borrowed triumph triple. I held third most of the race, Kurt got by me and I couldn't pass him on the straight. I waited till the white flag (last) lap and passed him when he balked at a back marker in turn 3. Friday, pro practice started and I was getting the feel for the track. The motor was beginning to free up and I had Phil Flack (the Dunlop man) mount a 591 bias ply DOT tire on my wide pro rim, the tire was not quite as tall as my vintage tire, but taller than my low profile radial slick. Dunlop doesn't make a tall slick, and while Michelin had a 150/70 Hisport radial rear that looked interesting, since I have a deal with Phil, I was committed to the 591. This ended up being my race setup. 18" DOT on the rear and 17" radial slick on the front. The gearing ended up being perfect and I was really beginning to blitz, draging my knee just about everywhere. This was a bit of a problem, as I have never been a knee dragger, and my leathers don't even have pads or velcro for them. I figured this was not the time to try and incorporate knee dragging as a security means into my racing skills, that will wait for my new leathers (which should have been ready for Loudon, old ones are damn embarassing). My new leathers are being made in the style of the uniforms from Star Trek, The Next Generation, and should be here before my next pro race at Charlotte. Now that the motor was broken in, I torqued the heads and adjusted the valves and changed to Mobil 1 synthetic 5W-30. I was also ready to start tuning for power. I moved the ignition advance up 2 degrees to 34 and switched from long track plugs to short track plugs (Autolite 4052 to 4054). I also began to lean out the carbs as since this was a new motor with different cams, compression, etcetera from Daytona, I had been very conservative on initial setup. In Saturday mornings session I got down to 1:27's which was a second faster than my time last year and since everyone was saying the track was slower this year (redesigned last turn chicane, was safer and slower) I felt great. Times for the old Loudon were around 1:17's, this new track with 2 more turns is considerable slower than the track 2 years ago, of which not a single meter of tarmac remains. It started raining after the endurance race (weather had been perfect till then) and it rained all night off and on and Sunday morning practice was in the drizzle. The soft front slick had a suprising amount of traction and I still felt comfortable. Kenny Roberts in his book says a slick is as good as a treaded tire as long as the rubber is warm and there are no puddles. Being 3 weeks out of a cast and not a person that likes racing in the rain I was out for survival. Also since there were only 10 guys signed up for GP1, I knew I only had to finish 1 lap in order to make money and points, insuring my retention of my National number for next year (yes, a number once earned, can be kept by getting a single point per year forever). Anyway race time came and they gave us 30 extra minutes to change our tires if we wanted, cause it had just started to rain hard. I decided I wasn't going to run around like a chicken with my head cut off just before the race mounting some unknown quantity. I stood there under an umbrella and Steve Crevier offered me this advice while looking at my front slick, "stay away from puddles". Great. They gave us a sighting lap and a warm up lap so guys could scuff in their new tires. Once back on the grid, the number one board went sideways. After this the flag can be thrown anywhere in the next 10 seconds. I counted to 2 and hammered on it. It must have taken Polen 30 feet before he blasted by. Nigel Gale went by into turn 1a and Adamo into turn 3. When I went past the starter the first time, I saw the meatball flag (for jumping the start) and my number on his board. Next time around I pulled down pit road to pay my stop and go penalty and renetered the race. At that point i just kind of rode around to an 8th place finish. I had no front fender and couldn't tell if the rain was slowing, and as I tired, I became very inconsistant into turn one. On the last lap I saw Kurt Liebmann up ahead. Not knowing if he was ahead of me or not, I gassed it and passed him. As it was I was lapping him, but it made the finish exciting for me. Polen lapped me three times, and after the first time he did, I was praying that Adamo, on his butt, wouldn't take me out. Its unfortunate that all the tuning and preparation go out the window when it rains. I don't think I could have finished very much higher (maybe 6th) if I had spent $300 for rain tires, and I certainly wouldn't have won it back. If it was dry, who knows? This coming weekend, I'll be at Summit Point, and then 2 weeks later (july 4th weekend), Charlotte Motor Speedway. Its is there where I expect to eat my words about the Moto America bike never beating me as Eric will have 2 time WERA Formula 2 Expert National Champ Cliff Bigoney on his bike. See you at the races.