Saturday, August 30, 2008

AFM Round 5 Sears Pt

After my bitter disappointment at T-hill I had found some new motivation for racing at Sears Pt. Sears is a very technical track with no room for rest. the rider is constantly moving around. You blow one turn, and it blows the timing, and rhythm for several turns after. For some reason I'm good at Sears Pt.

There was a trackday on Friday hosted by Lance Keigwin and I had signed up for that back in January. Good I needed the extra day.
I was still having issues with my brakes overheating, fading, and giving me no confidence in pushing the front end. Friday went well, and I was feeling smooth and aggressive.

Saturday practice is short now because of the races held in the afternoon so you have to make the most out of the 4 you get. I tried some different brake fluid recommended by Zoran and that helped. I had a much better feel, and could drive much deeper on the brakes, but they would still over heat after about 6 laps, but that was better than before.

Sunday I was in races 1, and 5. The first race of the day, and the first race after lunch. I was again feeling confident and aggressive, and those are huge elements to going fast in a race.

I'm good at starting, and when the green flag flew I had a plan on where I wanted to be on the track, and I followed through with it driving deep into the rows in front and charging up the hill. Nobody passed me going into T2 which has been a weakness for me before. I had been practicing passing people going into T4 and that paid off in this race as I was easily able to gain a spot going down the hill into 4. The race would be a dog fight the whole way. There where about 6 bikes in front of me as we lined up going down the back straight for the first time, and I was determined to get around all of them. I passed all of them. Sometimes I would get passed back, and start all over. It was fun fighting for every inch. I finished 15th, and was happy with that.

The 2nd race was more of the same. I got a good start, and then started picking people off, while at the same time fighting to hold my position. Good times. As the race was winding down on the last lap I could feel myself getting tired. I knew I was running out of energy, and starting to make mistakes so I took a long glance over my should to see how close 616 was to me. Drats he was only a couple of bike lengths behind me. So I started riding really defensively. I would get on the brakes super late, and take a tight inside line. This is not the fastest way around the track, but It keeps the other person from being able to get up inside. I did this going into T's 7, 9, and 11. I stayed in front by just a couple of tenths of a second. He came and found me in the pits, and I told him I was sorry that I had to ride so defensively, he told me I was an asshole, but that's racing, and next time he'd better get in front of me before the last lap. I told him "yup" and as he walked away I smiled and thought "good luck with that" game on.

Despite riding so defensively that last lap of my second race FIV, was the fastest lap of the weekend, keeping my record of the last lap of FIV being the fastest time.
I turned a 1:51.9. Finally I broke into the 51's. A personal goal of mine. Yesterday I bought a new Brembo racing master cylinder. Hopefully this will cure my fading brake woes, and allow me to use the brakes the way I like to. On the ragged edge!







As always Thanks to the people that help me go faster.
Jennifer at Werkstatt Motorcycle Repair
Dave Moss of Catalyst Reaction
Dunlop, and Terry at Sport Tire Services
Paul Fine of Fine Design
Julio from Tommy's

AFM Round 4 Thunderhill

The T-hill round was forever ago. I didn't write about it then because I didn't do very well, and I was disappointed. It's hard to write about things post them to the world when you aren't feeling positive about it. I need to get over that, and just write down whatever happened good of bad.

I used to think I was pretty good at T-hill. The truth is I suck there. My results from earlier in the season, and at Sears led me to believe I was a better rider than I am. I think I am still a good rider I just have exposed some weaknesses.

I'm not going to got into extreme detail. I practiced Friday and Saturday and I knew my times weren't where they needed to be. I didn't have much confidence going into Sunday and it showed. On the first lap of the first race there was a crash in T2 immediately in front of me, that took focus to not be apart of, a couple of turns later in T5 another big wipe out just in front of me, and now I'm thinking "what the hell am I doing here" The race was restarted, and I finished a lowly 22nd.

The 2nd race was much the same. I would get passed, and not have any motivation to go back after the person. Again I finished a lowly 22nd.

I went home with my tail between my legs, broke, disappointed, and wondering if I wanted to keep doing this.

A Little Rock 'n' Roll

I wanted to write about something other than motorcycles. (I'll get to that next) So I wanted to share about two recent projects I was involved in.

The first was called The Unforgettable Tour When we where first told about the show it was dubbed "the largest Indian rock show to ever come out of India" OK Whatever. Note to self: If someone ever says they are doing a large Indian "bollywood" style show. Believe them. When we fist saw the renderings and lighting plots we surely thought someone was putting one over on us. Not the case. This truly would be the largest gathering of Indian movie/entertainment stars to ever tour outside of India. The lighting design was by two British designers that where very cool guys. The lighting rig consisted of at least 80 moving lights, multiple Soft LED video curtains, and one large video wall in the center. We thought for sure when they saw the price of all the gear that most of it would go away, like it had in other Indian rock shows we had done. Nope instead they cut us a deposit check. Ouch!

Walter and I redrafted the plot so it would be in a format we where used to working with, and got to work figuring out all the data, hardware and what not needed to put this together. When the producers asked if we could provide the hardware to fly in entertainers at two different times we thought we'd heard it all.

The process was a great experience. Kevin Reilly, Walter Holden, and myself all worked on different pieces at the same time. We really utilized the drafting software to it full potential. That was a great experience.

Then came installing the show. We added Greg Kunit to mainly manage the dimmer beach, and a extra pair of eyes never hurts. There where over 70 chain motors, and 9 universes of dmx data for all the moving lights. We got the entire rig in the air, and I had started flashing out the system when we called it a night. The following day we came in early, and I continued ringing out the system. The LD's came in around 12 noon, and saw the rig for the first time.

This was there 3 show on the tour, and it was the first time they had seen the whole rig. So far no one had been able to get the entire system up and running for them. When I told them we had installed it in one day Paul the main LD said "That's normal, 1 day. 1 day for rigging, and 1 day for lighting" When I told him we installed the entire rig, rigging, and lighting in one day the look on his face was the best compliment you can get. "Fuck me" he says. Thanks Paul, we thought so to!

When it came time for the show we had three Grand MA lighting controllers FOH, and 1 GMA light backstage all networked together through a pair of MA NSP's controlling 9 universes of lighting, and 5 universes of MA media servers, and the only thing that connected FOH to backstage was one orange fiber optic cable. This was the most high tech show I'd ever seen. They where truly using the latest and greatest everything on the cutting edge of technology.

When the lights went out and the first entertainer took the stage, and the 15,000 person crowd screemed the scale of the whole thing came into focus. This really was the largest show to come out of India. But when one of the performers flew out over the audience in a steel basket the crowd went absolutely ape shit. To these people it was like seeing The Beatles, Elvis, Madonna, and Barbara Streisand all on the same stage.

When the show was over, and we had packed it up, and put it back in it's three semi trucks the four of us went to a bar in Alameda at 7am, 23 hours after we had started that day. Tequila and Budweiser at 7am. Rockstars.

Here's a link to some online photos. http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/5582382_dpGm3#P-1-12

I have more pic's on my work computer I'll post later.

The other rock show I worked on last weekend was The Outside Lands Festival

Impact did all the backstage VIP, and hospitality tents, and we did one stage. the Sutro stage. That part got handed to me, and I worked with the producers to design something interesting, and cheap. It was a great time. Three days of rock and lighting mainly in the day time. Friday I had Cold War Kids, and Beck, Saturday I closed with Cake, and Sunday Widespread Panic. Only Beck had an LD for the rest I ran the lights. It was a lot of fun, and I hope to get to do some more.

Here's a link to some photos