JDay Season Finale - Retro Style - Central Village, CT

Saturday was the last race of the 2012 JDay series at Central Village, CT. John decided to call for a retro weekend, so riders busted out some really cool old gear.

I called pops to see if he could help, he came through…sent me one of his old jerseys from “Champion” …a Husky dealer from way back in Michigan. I thought it looked pretty awesome and it did match my Moose pants well. Fortunately mom came to this race with her camera in hand…



See where I get my smile from?


This was also my very first A class race – I entered the A250 class. Dad decided to mount up a new tire for me, awesome! Before the start I was pretty nervous…after all…I was going to play with the BIG boys. My goal was simple…ride as best as I know how and work as hard as possible…results didn’t matter at all, I figured if things go right I could maybe crack the top 10 or 15 or so.

Moto 1: When the flag went up things got busy…my bike started right away, but I froze a little…I was a little intimidated. Once we got around the first turn I realized that while towards the back of the pack, I was actually not in a bad spot and started to gain on some of the guys in front of me. This gave me a little more confidence and I started to feel like I belong here. The course consisted of quite a bit of moto (a really fun track), a grass track section with a bunch of sweeping turns, a sandy uphill with a weird step in the middle that through your rhythm off pretty good, and a fun woods section with a nasty downhill. Pretty soon I worked myself in to the top 10 and started to flow pretty good. I made a few good passes, got passed a few times, all in all had a great time racing and really didn’t feel any pressure. Unfortunately when battling with another racer in one of the sweepers, the wind blew the course ribbon right into me and it wrapped itself around my rear brake - red ribbon...yay...Santa came early!!!…I lost braking for about a lap or two and went down a couple of times, giving up my top ten spot. By the time the moto was over, I had pretty bad arm pump from wrestling the bike without rear brakes, but managed to finish 13^th…not bad for my first A class moto. 

Moto 2: This time I felt much more relaxed at the starting line, I wasn’t nearly as intimidated as I was in moto 1. The flag went up and I actually got a good start! I was mid pack and feeling great! The A class guys race hard, much harder than what I’m used to, but they race clean, and most of all, they don’t pull stupid moves. You can really trust these guys as far as their line choices and abilities go. I loved it and got more and more confident. At one point I had worked my way up to 7^th place, and I was still moving forward. Apparently I was just really hard on my front brake, as I cooked it and lost front braking power. This was a little tricky, I needed to let the brake cool off but didn’t want to slow down. I figured out a brilliant way to do that….crash J. I laid the Husky down in a flat corner and fell back to 12^th place, the good part?…the brakes came back a little bit. I pushed hard and got back up to 8^th place, ultimately giving me a 10^th place over all. I’m really quite happy with this result, this motivates me to train and work even harder! My goal for next year is pretty clear, I want to establish myself as an A class rider and be competitive in this class.

This was a great way to close out this season…and what a season it was. I have experienced quite a bit this year. From getting used to New England dirt/rocks, ripping it up and doing well, dealing with mechanical issues, scary injuries that sidelined me for quite  a while…all things that I guess are best described as the highs and lows and the rush racing provides to me that most people probably don’t understand.

I was fortunate to have some great sponsors this year and hope they know how much I appreciate their help! Thank you to Moose Racing for the awesome gear and parts help, Kenda Tires for giving me awesome traction, Summit Clothing for the cool shirts and shades, Panic Rev - the man above,…of course a huge Thank You to mom and dad for supporting me the way they do. Thanks to the Rummels for letting me train and ride at their farm! Huge Thanks to my Grandparents!!! A shout out to Pete “Speedy” Laubmeier – he’s helped me get my head straight, JD Friebel – another great resource and mentor for me, and the rest of the Wisconsin crew.

2013 is just around the corner…we’ll probably run a few of the winter JDay’s in preparation for the next season and hopefully we can start 2013 out with a bang. 

Thanks for reading and taking interest in my progress

Braap

Hunter “747” Neuwirth