I'll mention this first, Chris finished ahead of every Canadian rider at Fontana ......
Some of the Canadian riders did have some bad luck, but that's racing.

Steve Crevier 600
Jordan Szokes 750
Francis Martin 600
Clint Mcbain 600
Andrew Nelson 600, 750
Jeff Williams 600

Interesting fact. All the top 20, 600 riders could go into the Superbike race and finish in the top 10, theoretically. The 600 times are as fast as the Superbikes after the first 9 Big name Superbike riders.

I think we found the problem with Chris's Honda F4i that was giving us the surging problems last month at Daytona. After changing just about everything on the bike we found the problem to be the Cam timing sensor.

I didn't want to get to Fontana without a working bike so I bought one from Erion Racing. This bike was fast and handled well. Chris was very excited when he got off the bike. His usual comment on a new bike is it not very good, until he gets used to it. This time, it was love at first ride. From what I can see the Erion Honda 2002 ran about the same times as last year, with Roger lee Haydon on it. That's a good sign.

The bikes are very fast this year, the 2003 Honda's and Yamaha's are just flying. Every year they're faster and faster, some of these new bikes are rumored to be putting out 126 HP to the rear tire, not bad for 600's.

Anyway, Chris did fantastic this weekend.

On friday practice Chris was consistantly in the 1:31's and dropped down and touched the high1:30. Our buddy and coach was on hand to help out Chris this weekend, Nick Ienatsch. Nick always helps Chris out so much. Tuning was done by Fernando Peris, and everyone in the pit area and Nick.

The 750 Superstock was a little messy for everyone as there was a lot of bumping and grinding going on, in the first lap. Chris was gritted in 23 spot after qualifying on his 600 Honda F4i at 1:31 Off the line Chris didn't have a great start but found a line on the outside of everyone and was in about 10th place going into corner one. He was the first one t-boned by a rider. This sent Chris off track and he rejoined in about 27th place. There were allot of other riders, on and off track, Chris shrugged off the hit and ran up to 14th spot before the red flag on lap 15.

By about lap 10, Chris's times had dropped off a bit and I suspected he was getting tired. When Chris came in he showed me his handle bar, it was right up against his gas tank. The fork tube had moved around and put the bar so close to the gas tank that he couldn't get on the gas or brake properly. Fire the Tuner. Chris got his times down to 1:30 in the race. The race was incident free for Chris, after the first lap.

The 600 race was also a great race for Chris. Chris was gritted in the 17th spot at 1:30. The start was not a typical one for Chris, he usually goes into corner one last, I think he was about 25th this time, what he loses in starts he seems to make up on the track. Chris worked his way up up 15th spot, just ahead of Steve Crevier. Chris got his time down a consistant 1:30 and a few 1:29's. Crevier, actually crossed the line ahead of Chris but was penalized 10 seconds for missing the shacane, so Chris finished the race in 15th spot. It was a lot of fun watching Chris stay ahead of so many Canadian riders.

After 2 rounds of AMA

Chris is in 15th place overall, by my estimation that makes Chris the top privateer in the 600 class. Not bad for the youngest rider on the oldest bike.

The next round is at Sears Point, California, aka Infineon. The very exciting news is that Kevin Erion phoned me on tuesday after the race and said that Roger lee Haydon was going in for a wrist operation and wanted to know if Chris was interested in getting Rodger's ride for Sears Point. We said, YES. It's only a one ride opportunity, but of all the people he could asked, he asked Chris. I guess the ride could get cancelled, but Kevin said, it's still on, as of this email.

Take Care,

Fernando