AFM Round 4 - A Hot Wind Blows

Friday later afternoon we headed up to Thunderhill to meet up with Robin, and Kaitlin. T-hill is only 130 miles from my home, but I didn't get it together and out of my driveway soon enough so we got caught in traffic outbound on Highway 37. Stupid me so the normally 21/2 drive now took 3 1/2. Once clear of the bay area traffic and north bound on 505 I feel the wind knocking the truck around. Not a good sign. Once we got to the track, and started to set up the pit area I knew we were going to be in for a long weekend of sun and wind.
Here's a pic of the pit set up on Saturday. Note tent with the lack of the canvas top. The wind was blowing so hard it would have taken the tent away, but we need places to hang things like the leather suits, the clock, ect.

Saturday practice went OK. I hadn't been to T-hill since November and it showed. I really expected to have more speed, but I wasn't getting it done. I hadn't slept well the night before, and the heat and the wind were beating me up. I really wanted to be close to 2 minute laps, but I was no where near running more like 2:05's. The good thing was that my rear tire was wearing really well so at least the suspension was in the correct range. We got 5 practice sessions in before the new Tag Team race.

The Tag Team race is a cool concept and it's a mini endurance. It's run like a 2 man relay race. 2 riders each with his own bike, The first rider does 30mins then comes in the pits, and exchanges an armband with rider 2, and off he goes. But the really silly part is the Le Mans style start. Click the link for details, but essentially your partner holds the bike, you start across the track, and when the green flag drops you run across the track, jump on the bike, and go. It's crazy, stupid, and a lot of fun.

Here's us practicing the start in the pits. 

Here's some pictures of the actual start.

I got to start the race, and you can see me way in the back. We raced in the lightweight class and started 1 spot from last. I got a good run, and jumped on bike quickly, and took off possibly in the lead in our class, but getting a good start meant that I was heading down the track as the slower runners in front of me were just launching their bikes right at me! So I slowed a little, and 2 guys went bye me, Damn. I got through turns 1 and 2 cleanly, and trying to keep #36 Tom Dorsey in site. My bike had been running hot all day, and I was worried about it lasting the length of the race. We had done 5 practice sessions earlier in the day, and now I'm here riding a 30 minute stint. I was already tired, and dehydrated before the race started, and I knew both me and my bike were going to have a tough time lasting the 30 minutes. I pushed hard to stay with Tom in the first few laps but I conceded that I needed to slow down a bit and stay focused. That would turn out to be harder than at first thought. About 8 laps in I started making mistakes, turning in too early, missing apexes, braking too early. I was getting tired, and it showed. I had to shake the cobwebs out. My mind was wandering. That's a trick to endurance racing. Staying focused. There I was railing into T8 at 110mph thinking what we are going to do for dinner. Yeah it's like that. I started to smell some oil burning, and I couldn't tell if it was coming from my bike or someone else's, and I started to worry, and then I really started blowing corners, time to come in. I rode down the front straight patting my head in an exaggerated way letting Robin, and Kate know to get ready I was coming in on the next lap. We'd practiced the exchange in our pit, and had a good plan. When I came in I put my front wheel to the right of Robin in line with his rear wheel, stuck my right arm out that had the arm band on it, and Kate grabbed it off me, and slid it onto Robins outstretched waiting arm. He already had the bike in gear with the engine running, and was off in a split second. It was a flawless exchange, and we quickly became the talk of the pit area with nods of approval from other teams. I even overheard someone say "that's how we're doing it next time" Well done team. Robin had to do 2 more laps than me, and rode fast and smooth. Thanks to the misfortune of another team we'd been gifted 2nd place, and Robin brought it home maintaining that position.

For Sunday's races I had high hopes. After finishing so well I Saturday I wanted to turn it up a notch, and take advantage of my good starting positions.

First up was FIV, I was gridded way to the left on the inside and when the flag dropped I got a bad start, and lost even more positions as we went into T1 getting pinched off from the outside. I rode hard and I quickly formed into the 2nd pack, the lead group long gone. In front of me where 2 bikes I knew I could pass, but I couldn't get it together. I now know I have good entry speed, but I'm not getting off the corner and on the gas soon enough. Many times I'd have to roll off the gas mid corner to not hit the bike in front of me, then they'd gap me big on the exit, and I'd make up all that lost ground on the entry again. I got spooked several times when people would make a pass on me that was so sketchy my only options where to stand the bike up, almost run off track or they'd crash into me. That kind of do or die block pass is perfectly fine in proffesional racing, but to do that in club racing is one asking a lot of the skill of the people your're around, and two just plain dumb. So I lost a couple of spots, and couldn't get them back because of my bad drives.
I finished way down the order.

650 twins would turn out to be a repeat of FIV. a bad start, bad drives, sketchy passes by other racers, and another bad finish.

So I know what I need to work on. I think I need some suspension adjustments to help me gas out because in a couple of corners as soon as I add gas the rear want to let go, and that's no fun. I'm also having trouble getting the throttle all the way open, and I have to double clutch it. I'll be ordering a new throttle set up to help with that. So another weekend down, and some lessons learned. I'll get 'em next time.

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

Some more pics of the weekend.

Dream Wedding in Carmel

The first week of June I spent 7 days in Pebble Beach / Monterey working on a wedding. Now for those of you that really only know me through my motorcycle antics you may remember that I work in the Event / Entertainment industry doing theatrical lighting. Part of that business on occasions includes weddings. The compnay I work for does weddings all the time, but I don't usually do them unless they are on the high end, and have money to spend. This is one of those occasions.
 The bride and groom were not anybody of note, nobody famous just lucky to be apart of some successful familes that can afford the best. When I say the best they started by hiring the world most famous wedding designer Preston Bailey. It all goes down hill from there. Hartmann Studios built a small tent with clear walls and ceilings, and covered the tent floor with an amazing wood panelling. It was my job to make the place look magical. We had many meetings and hundreds of emails, and still it was a death march to pull it off.
 The design had two sections. Inside the tent, and outside. The trick was that the designers wanted it to be a seamless transition from inside to out, and since the walls were clear what you could see outside was apart of what you could see inside. the original concept was to cover the outside of the clear tent with mini light strand nets, the kind you see at christmas covering peoples hedges in front of their house. After 2 days of struggling with making that work I made the call that it wasn't going to give us the look we wanted. So on Friday I ordered white mini light strands from Colorado and had them overnighted to Monterey, as well as cleaning out the stock that Hartmann had in their warehouse. I'm really glad I made that decision, and wish I would have made it a day earlier. The rest of our lighting consisted of making the foliage, trees, ect .. around the garden area as pretty as possible. Preston's crew hung candles in lanterns around the trees (I can't believe they pulled that off in California) and the end result was a very pretty event. So those of you I know in the motorcycle world might find it hard to believe that I do "pretty" pretty damn good.
 It was a tough event as working in a clear tent is like working in a green house, and the logistics of the jobsite were challenging as well, but working with all the different teams was a fun challenge and the end product was exceptional.

Here's a picture in the tent.

Here's a close up of the tent top

A view from the stage

A view of the garden