Peter Lenz rolls with the punches and takes 4 wins in SMRRC season opener
Mar 20, 2007, From a Press Release
When you add up one highside, a trashed Arai helmet, a completely roached rear tire, and 126 race laps what do you get? You get a very busy and eventful weekend that resulted in 4 wins, a 2nd, a 3rd and an 8th for Metrakit Canada backed Peter Lenz at the SMRRC season opener this past weekend.
Having first turned a wheel at the Stockton track Saturday afternoon, Peter was instantly on pace at the Bay Area’s mini hotbed, home to both AFM regulars and Hopper Racing’s Vision Hayes.
The track was cold at the start of Sunday morning and Peter’s warm-up was finished before he completed his first lap. Peter highsided his Metrakit 80 on his out lap landing squarely on his Arai Helmet. “I want to thank Bruce (Porter) of Arai, he gave me a really good helmet. When I crashed I put it to really good use and I think we did a really good job (destroying the helmet) this time. I highsided and hit my head and now (the helmet) is all gone but at least I saved my head,” explained Peter after the crash.
After taking a break and being looked over by the trackside medical staff, Peter headed out in the last warm-up session of the morning looking no worse for wear. Though the same thing couldn’t be said of his Z Leathers or the retired Arai Helmet. When the green flag dropped you couldn’t tell he had been tossed across the track just an hour earlier. Peter jumped out front in his first heat race and took his first win of the morning securing a straightaway lead by the end of the eight lap heat. He followed that up with several other performances that saw him move through traffic resulting in him securing front row starts in all seven of his classes.
After winning both the Formula 50 and Super 50 classes by a good margin, Peter had a difficult time in the 80 class. This wasn’t the result of an aftershock of highsiding the bike earlier, but rather because he found himself at the back end of the pack after a poor start. He worked himself up to fourth position only to find himself in seventh after having his front wheel chopped as he drove underneath a rider that didn’t expect him to be there. He recovered and began again to work his way up into fifth when Peter again had a close encounter that saw him drop back to ninth, this time behind a torquey supermoto. Having never raced against a fast supermoto rider while on a MiniGP racer, Peter spent the next five laps figuring out how to pass someone that was three times as wide going into the corner (due to being sideways) and had 4-stroke torque coming out. Peter finally got underneath him on the last corner to take a hard fought eighth place finish.
The closest race for a win came when Peter and ex-AMA Pro Racer, Bryan Edginton, slugged it out in the Expert Trophy Dash. “I was stuck behind him and couldn’t get by. He kept changing his lines and I couldn’t fit. I rode on the grass a couple times when I tried to pass him on the outside. And when I went underneath, he would pinch me off. He gave me a real good race, I want to come back again and race him,” explained Peter.
Peter was fired up after that close race and put his head down and won the Junior Stars race by a whopping 18 seconds. Next up was the Formula Extreme race. Peter fell off the pace when the very abrasive surface of the Stockton track took Peter out of the running. His flat track grooved rear tire shredded causing massive rear chatter resulting in Peter dropping three seconds off his pace from earlier. “I couldn’t keep the gas on, the rear was bouncing all over. Whenever I turned the throttle and leaned over the rear would start hopping. It started to hurt (my bottom) it was bouncing so much,” commented Peter. He let both Bryan Edginton and Hopper Racing rider Vision Hayes go for a comfortable third finish while D+W Images supported junior rider Josh Serne brought his Kawasaki motard home fourth after spending most of his practice learning his new Metrakit MiniGP 50.
The last race of the day was the NSR Cup. Peter grabbed the early lead, pulled a gap, and maintained the gap as necessary based on what was communicated to him. “I rode hard until I had a three second lead then backed off. Then I just watched what my dad showed me my gap was. If he showed me two fingers (showing a two second lead) then I would turn a quick lap to get it back up to three fingers,” explained Peter.
Having never rode the track prior to Saturday afternoon Peter was happy with the results: four wins, a challenging second, an effortful eighth and a tire induced third for the day. Peter remarked on the day, “I think we did good. I’m glad my Grandma and Grandpa where there to see me race. My dad had to fix Phil’s (Phil Gaze of Metrakit Canada) 80, I hope he doesn’t get mad that I crashed it. I am going to put my Arai in my room and take it to school to show them that it was a big crash and it saved my brain. I want to come back!”
Peter is scheduled to race next in Vancouer, BC for the Canadian national mini road race series season opener. You can keep up with Peter via his website: http://www.PeterLenz.com
2007 Sponsors
Metrakit Canada (metrakit.ca), California Superbike School, Arai Helmets, EDR Performance, MiniGPX, Pro Caliber Motorsports, Miller Paint and Graphics, All Things Drywall, Vortex, SpyOptic, Tranquil Velocity, Speed Graffix, Echo Alley Web Development.
About Metrakit Canada
No other company offers young road racers the equipment, program, opportunity and relationships to achieve world-class success in road racing that is available through Metrakit and Metrakit Canada. To learn more about Metrakit visit their site at http://www.Metrakit.ca.
