This was a tough round. First of all, we want to wish Mike Galvan a speedy recovery. This was his first AFM race weekend and unfortunately it ended with a flight to Enloe Medical Center. Miles was really looking forward to racing with Mike, and he hopes to get the chance to do so in the near future! Get well, Mike!
The Clubman Lightweight race started out well. Miles started from the back row thanks to his DNF the previous weekend, but got a monster start and jumped into second place by the first turn. Things were going reasonably well, staying in touch with the leaders when a little red light came on between turns 9 and 10 around lap 3. It went away a little later, then came back around the same place the next lap, but this time stayed on. Miles took a close look and saw that it was accompanied by a temperature warning and that the coolant temp was getting to be on the hot side. Even so, he was able to keep a decent pace to finish 5th. Unfortunately, back in the pits Miles found there was some coolant in his belly pan that had boiled over. Not good.
Miles did what he could to patch things up that evening, and decided to forgo his Novice 650 Twins race Saturday morning to maximize his chances of getting some points in his later Novice 650 Production race. The bike got a little warm during practice, but didn’t boil over. Miles didn’t get as good of a start on this one, and once again the high temperature light came on 2 laps in. This time it was on solid, and Miles had to back off substantially to keep the temperature down. He ended up with a distant 4th place finish, but most importantly, he finished with enough points to stay in the running for the championship.
And thanks, Patryk for snapping some photos of Miles on track.