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Solid results at the C.M.D.R.A.’s season Opener
The first stop on the CMDRA 2010 schedule was at Eagle Motorplex in Ashcroft, B.C. on May 29th and 30th. All the top teams were in attendance looking to gather every possible point towards the 2010 Championship.
Things got off to a rough start with Mother Nature reeking havoc on Saturday. Rain was off and on throughout the day resulting in the qualifying being pushed to Sunday. It was an early morning on Sunday since the plan was to run a short test and tune first thing, then three rounds of qualifying, and then straight into eliminations. The racers were essentially running a two day schedule in one.
The weather Sunday morning was adequate at best with little or no sunshine to heat the track surface. In Pro Street, tuning would be the key to making a good run. Put just enough power down to have a good pass without turning it up too much; causing the rear wheel to spin.
Ethan’s morning test pass went well. He was simply trying to get a feel for the track and ran a soft 8.82 @ 166 mph. In round one qualifying he turned up the boost a little and had a clean pass with an 8.15 @ 173 mph showing on the scoreboards. For round two he turned it up a bit too much and had to chop the throttle due to a big wheelie and ran an 8.46 @ 175 mph. On Ethan’s third and final qualifying pass, he spun the tire leaving the line and posted an 8.35 @ 176 mph. After the dust settled Ethan found himself in the unfamiliar third position by less than a tenth of a second behind Glen Fraser and Dave Burleigh.
In the Mission Springs Brewing Company Street Class Ethan was aboard his championship winning 2009 Suzuki Hayabusa “Snow White” as the 2010 Hayabusa hadn’t been delivered in time for this event. Qualifying in this class is based on reaction time and Ethan spared little time in putting up a good number. In round two, Ethan had a great launch with a .019 second reaction time which put him in first spot by a large margin over the rest of the field.
In the first round of eliminations of Pro Street Ethan lined up against Rob Aston who qualified right behind him in fourth. EB Speed’s turbocharged GSX-R1000 spun severely off the line giving Rob a huge lead right from the start. Ethan had set the bike up to put down a fair bit of boost, so when the tire finally regained traction he was able to get around Rob just before the finish line running an 8.30 @ 182 mph to Rob’s 8.58 @ 170 mph. In round two, Ethan was going against the number one qualifier; Glen Fraser who had just put up a 7.9 second pass in round one. Knowing Ethan was in tough, he dialled in a bit more power into the boost controller. As the lights went green Ethan spun the tire again and struggled to regain any traction the entire quarter mile. Neither of the two had good runs, but Glen came out on top, 8.36 @ 185 mph to Ethan losing 8.49 @ 181 mph. Glen would go on to take the event win.
In the Street class Ethan was pitted against some stiff competition. For round one, he had a great reaction time and was able to judge that his competitor was going too quickly and rolled out of the throttle right near the finish line taking the win as he broke out. For round two, Ethan had a bye run and pushed the limits of “Snow White” running a 9.64 @ 148 mph on a 9.60 dial-in. In the semi-finals, Ethan lined up against his good friend and rival Leigh Gallant aboard his stretched Kawasaki ZX14. Ethan’s 9.619 @ 142 mph (9.60 dial-in) was good enough to take the win over Leigh’s 9.523 @ 145 mph (9.50 dial-in). Ethan was able to carry his momentum into the finals where he crossed the line with a 9.64 and took the win.
Some aspects of the weekend in Ashcroft went nearly perfect while others
did not. Ethan will be making some adjustments to the Pro Street GSX-R1000
prior to the next event. In the Street Class Ethan will be aboard a new
2010 Suzuki Hayabusa, leaving “Snow White” to officially
retire from racing.
Photo's by Laura Millsip
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