| Mark E. Gunnison | www.MGCPA.com |
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April 1997:
Return to the racing pageMay 1997: 
My first nervous weekend of racing.
My first time through technical inspection. It Passed!
The bike started leaking oil after our first one half day of practice. So, we when home early missing the first race of the season.
June 1997: No pictures but I had a lot of fun.
July 1997: No pictures but I still had a lot of fun. Improved my lap times from 1:30s to a 1:24.
August 1997:
My last novice race.
Relaxing between races
July was a perfect racing weekend. I graduated from novice finishing seventh (only one bike in my class beat me). I was able to get my lap times down to a high 1:21.
My 1986 GSX-R was too old to race out of the novice class. So, I decided to get a 1993 CBR900RR. I was hoping to get a smaller, easier to learn on, bike but the price was too good to pass up. Although I had graduated from novice, by getting 76 points, I still had to attend OMRRS's racing school to move up into the faster classes. My plan for the August weekend was to attend the racing school Saturday morning, practice with the novice riders Saturday afternoon and race with the big boys Sunday. Unfortunately, late Saturday afternoon while practicing with the novices someone new to racing crashed directly in front of me at the apex of turn two. I ended up flipping over the bike landing on the curbing on the outside of the turn. I broke my collar bone into four pieces! That put me out of order for the rest of the racing season....