Whoops, corrected a typo, I said I started 11th but that was the wrong race, the last race I started 14th and was in 8th when I crashed out...
Why did I upgrade from a 600 to an R3? For fun!

Lots of reasons actually. Mainly, the small bike racing thing has intrigued me for awhile, it just seems like a freakin' fun time. It's also considerably cheaper on tires and fuel, which leaves more money for doing other silly things. It's something different and new, which I like. The small bike race grids until now have been full of Ninja 250s. All of those Ninja 250s are eventually going to be replaced by more modern fuel injected bikes, and I think the R3 will be one of the strongest in it's class. I wanted to help lead the charge developing the R3 as a race bike, solve a lot of the problems and answer a lot of the questions to help make it easier for more people to get into road racing and track riding. I also have known for awhile that racing smaller bikes makes you better, a lot better. And I want to get better. I want it to be easy to go fast, to be in total control of my riding, and able to read everything the bike is doing as easy as I can read this post. All of your mistakes and bad habits are amplified when you only have 30-40hp and a 300lb bike. You must be silky smooth, and you learn the limits of the bike and yourself much better. The lighter bike also reacts easier and gives great feedback, and is a little more forgiving of mistakes before you fall down.