VOL. 55 ISSUE 27 JULY 10, 2018 P105
FEELING GOOD
There have been few times in my life where I
felt better on a motorcycle than in the final run
of day three, across the top of the mountain.
With only three flying runs thanks to delays in-
volving crashes with Davey Durell and Japan's
Akinori Inoue (thankfully, without injury), there
wasn't a great deal of time on track, and at
the end of the second run I was one second
slower than Carlin—a 2:46 to a 2:45.
Another hold-up meant I was the last rider
to leave for the third and final run, which would
be a prelude to the race itself. Plus, I had a
score to settle with the top section of the track
as it had always scared me—maybe more than
it should have—thanks to its massive speeds,
blind cliff corners and enormous bumps, es-
pecially in the final three miles.
A few deep breaths, some positive affirmations
muttered, and the throttle pinned, I came over
the line, and gave a quick yell in the helmet. It
felt good. I knew it was fast, but I was surprised
to see I went 3.7 seconds faster than Carlin in
second place. If only I could always ride like that.
But Carlin wasn't done, saving his best mind
game for last on Friday morning. On the section
of the track on which I claimed pole position on
Monday, Dunne smashed home a staggering
4:07.735, some 4.1 seconds quicker than I could
muster. My time was set on a totally shagged
SC0 tire that had seen two days of riding, but
even with a new tire, I don't know if I could have
gone more than two seconds faster than I did.
Carlin was hugely impressive.
