I was having a great session until I caught up with someone who was dead set on not letting me pass even though I was faster than him in the curves. I come up on the guy at the 8:00 mark in the video. at 9:10, coming out of turn 18, I pass him but he decides to not let me pass him. His bike was a little faster than mine in a straight line. Since he was doing this in the front straight, I backed off before turn 1. Immediately after that, he was so slow in Turn 1 (9:32) that I decided to jump past him coming out of Turn 2. I got the jump on him but he decided to open up his throttle. You can't see him in the video but he is right next to me at 9:40, on the right as we come down the hill towards Turn 3. I did not want to hit him or run him off the track and there was not enough time to slow down to let him past and still make the turn because he did not want to let me through. My personal opinion is that he should have backed off. I had been passing people all day in this same place. Everyone else just allowed the pass to happen.
Nobody cares if you and your bike can go fast in a straight line. Twisting the throttle in a straight line does not take any skill. If you are slower in the turns, let the guys and gals who are faster get by you rather than putting others at risk by trying to race them. Wait until you're in Expert group to ride like that.
With all that said, this was an important lesson. I need to ride assuming that someone might do this when passing them, even though this is not racing.
I held off posting this for some time. I have injuries and discomfort from the crash that I will be dealing with for quite some time. The crash doesn't look bad in the video. I landed hard on my shoulder and that, in turn, caused at least three ribs to separate at my sternum. It is challenging, at times, to keep a good attitude about it. I needed to share this. I'm not mentioning names but I hope the rider sees this at some point and realizes what happened.
26 сен 2024
