| Parts Canada Round 1, ICAR, Mirabel May 27-30 |
 |
 |
 |
 Another race weekend for the Raffa Racing team. We arrived at Icar Wednesday afternoon to drop off the trailor & setup the pits, it must have been 45 degrees with the humidex factor, a scorcher to say the least. Unfortunatly for this event our tuner couldn’t be there with us as he was booked to work with the Buell team, real bummer.Thursday’s practice sessions only began in the afternoon, which was a good thing because the Pro sessions are very long & costly on tires. They went very good right away, Louie already running his qualifying times from last year. Friday’s practices went even better, he managed to find even more time around the Icar layout only by making some minor suspension adjustments & gearing change. Saturday morning Louie was within milliseconds of making the Superpole for the Superbike class. Following lunch was the scheduled Pro 600 timed qualifying session, that went very well, he was able to put a flying lap towards the end of the session to put him in 8th place for Sunday’s final right behind Cody Matechuk & Dave Estok. Sunday morning’s practice session went pretty good, although Louie was having issues with the front end always feeling like it wanted to tuck from beneath him, unable to resolve the issue we got the bikes ready for the finals. Pro 600 final: The roll out was done flawlessly, the bike & rider we’re as ready as they could have been. The lights went green & Louie launched our Yamaha R6 off the line like a missile, making several passes in C1. He had made his way up to 6th place when in the C3 on the 2nd lap he lost the front end & lowsided, sending him & the bike straight for the guard rail. He was examined by the medical experts & cleared to go back for the PRO SBK event if he chose, which he did. Got back to the pits & had our friend Sylvain prepare the backup bike for the SBK race scheduled a little later that afternoon. Pro SBK final: Louie went into that final still pumped with adrenaline from the circumstances of his incident. Again the lights went to green & away they went pilling into C1 as wide as they all could. Louie got stuck behind a slower rider & didn’t feel aggressive enough right away to make the pass as he didn’t want to fall again & Icar has this way of not forgiving when the road racers go down. So he eventually made the pass but by then some pain had set in & he chose to pull off slightly mid race. Overall even though the incident was somewhat serious we still walk away from the weekend satisfied as Louie went in there without too many expectations & was on average running anywhere between 5th to 9th every time he was on track. So some very fast & consistent times every time out.
|