SARAH SKINNER PRESTON (USA): WERA West #02, Las Vegas

WERA Round 2: Las Vegas Motor Speedway

Friday track day:
I decided that learning new tracks this year was going to be one of my major goals. Each track poses a different challenge to a rider; some tracks play to your strengths while others don't. Some people like to watch YouTube videos to learn the track, but I feel unless you are sure of the rider in that video, you might end up seeing other riders' mistakes. This time around I studied the track map closely, and I probably should have walked the track before going out on it, but didn't. I spent the first session of the track day taking it slow to learn lines and get a feel for the track surface. By the second session I felt that I had learned the track and had picked up my speed greatly. The rest of the day I spent trying to increase my accuracy, improve body position, and tried making some changes to the suspension. My goals for the day were to try to stay focused on what I was doing and not on anyone else. When I was on track I focused on my riding and not getting sucked into someone else's style of riding. Every time I came off the track I debriefed what I was doing and honed in where I needed to improve.

Saturday:
Morning practice went well with me spending the first session helping to show someone around the track and the second session picking up the pace slightly to make sure that the suspension issues had been fixed. The day before we tried to make changes, but it ended in the front end being worse than when I started. I actually spent most of one session wondering when the front end was going to come out from under me. After the two practice sessions were done I was happy to find out we didn't actually have any races on Saturday so that Tim and I could go take a little time to go the strip. It gave me to time to relax and get away from the motorcycles for the afternoon.

Sunday Races: 
After getting a good night's rest I woke up early and I had to try to get my suspension working before the races started that afternoon. Luckily Jeff Kyee was able to help getting my suspension in working order for the afternoon. During the quick practice session I found that the suspension appeared to be much improved since the day before. Being confident in the machine you are riding is one of the most important things. Without that confidence you hold back and don't push as hard as you normally would. I felt ready when it came to race time and finished all three races in third place, even though I had two pretty horrible starts the first two races and had to go through the pack of novices and a couple experts to gain the third place position. I made my personal goals through the race by staying consistent throughout which showed in my lap times that were only fractions of a second off from each other. The third race I went out mentally not ready, but had a good start and still kept up the same lap times without even mentally pushing myself to go faster. I guess it's time to kick it up another notch!

Thank you Tim for helping me all weekend - Brian, Dave, and Randall for keeping my bike ready for me - Kamal for guiding and coaching me over the weekend Barry from KFG and Jeff Kyee for helping with my suspension. My sponsors: The Rich Oliver Mystery School, Go Pro, Suomy, Sunstar Sprockets, ASV, Twin Air, Spy Optics, Cycle Gear Racing, Black Heart MX, O’Neal Motocross, Woodcraft, Vortex, Galfer, and Works Connection.

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