AHRMA at Willow Springs

AHRMA stands for American Historical Motorcycle Roadracing Asscociation. AHRMA is a nation series for vintage motorcycle racing. They only have one west coast round, and it is held at Willow Springs in April on the 3rd, and 4th. Having raced at willow as recently as February I was excited to get back there, and pick up where I left off.

To attempt to save money I loaded my bikes, and most of my pit equipment onto the trailer, and I had my friend, and teammate Jim Hoogerhyde tow my trailer down. Getting to the hotel Thursday night turned out to be quite a chore. After we picked up Jim's current girlfriend, we made Jim's required stop at Farley's coffee shop and hit the road around 8pm. We finally made it to the hotel in Rosamond around 3am where Jim had a room shared with friends Jim Reagan and owner of Werkstatt Jennifer Bromme. You can read about her weekend here. Jen's blog. I slept on the floor, and it was a damn fine floor if I do say so. About 3 hours later we where up and ready to hit the track.

Friday after getting my registration all sorted out is a practice day. AHRMA is a series classic, vintage, or just old racing motorcycles, and if ever there was a place to see rolling history an AHRMA race is where to go. These bikes where not built to sit in a museum, and it's great to see something there is only a few of in the world out doing what they where meant to do: race. Since most vintage race bikes are single cylinder, or twin cylinder machines AHRMA has classes for modern bikes in a separate classes called Sound of Singles, and Battle of the Twins, or SOS, and BOTT respectively. Friday is a practice day, and Saturday and Sunday are race days so with only one day of practice I went out and tried to quickly get up to pace. I was riding on my older rear tire that was on the later half of it's life span. Tire management would turn out to be my Achilles heel. As I've stated before in previous posts willow is hard on tires, and my worn out practice tire didn't even last all day Friday. By midday the tire was completely shagged. On a side note I've used that term "shagged" to describe worn out tires before but I didn't really know where the term came from. Friday I knew. By midday the right side of the tire looked like a piece of 70's shag carpet. I switched to my 2nd rear wheel that had a tire with only 2 races on it, and I really wished I hadn't. Hind site is 20/20, and I would have been better off calling it an early day on Friday and saving that tire for the races. Friday was a lot of fun. I got play on the track with Jim, and there was gratuitous but pinching by all.

Saturday is a race day, but there where a couple of practice sessions in the morning, and again I would probably would have been better off skipping these. My first race was the middle weight class, or BOTT F2. I was racing up a class against larger displacement bikes. The grids for the modern bikes aren't very big compared to AFM standards, but what is? This would be my 4th race weekend of the year so I was comfortable with my bike now so when the green flag dropped I got a great launch and took the holeshot into T1. Holy shit I'm leading the race in F2!. As I tipped it into T2 I told myself to keep my head down, be smooth, ride my lines, and hit my marks. Don't worry about what's behind you if the faster bikes can catch you they will. I think I lead 3 laps before this bright orange Ducati blasts past me on the straight. I pulled right up on the back of him as we entered T2. I thought if I could get in front of him in the tight stuff I might be able to hold the lead on the final lap. As we approached T8 he definitely gapped me. As we approached the exit of T9 there where slower bikes in front of us. He easily passed a guy on a supermoto just before the apex of the turn, and I set up to go around the guy just past the apex, and that's where things went horribly wrong. The guy on the motard suddenly stood his bike up and ran wide right as I was about to make the pass. That left me with the choice of trying to get on the brakes to keep from running into the back of him, and standing it up and running off track. Neither of these choices is a great option at 100+mph. So I ran off track and I remember looking right at the wall on the outside of T9 thinking "how am I going to get stopped in time" Thinking that I was not going to make it I chose to try to enter the hot pit, and I easily made that happen. I looked up at the pit marshal, and he seemed to know exactly what I was thinking "now what do I do?" and he motioned for me to come on through. I dropped a gear and powered through the hot pit coming back on track in 4th place. I quickly disposed of one of the Buell's, and set out to catch the other one who had inherited 2nd place from me. As we entered T2 he ran wide, and I crept up the inside to take 2nd place. Either he didn't see me, or thought he could take the position back, at the exit of turn 2 my opponent came back onto the racing line at full speed and we came together at 100 mph. It made a loud crunching sound as fiberglass and metal became interlocked. For a brief moment we where locked together and looking at each other. Then he was gone. When the bikes became disengaged I was left in a terrible tank slapper, and off into the dirt I went again. I got back on track, and by the time I made it through T3 a red flag was out. My opponent had gone down and stayed down. That was the end of the race. I was credited with 3rd place.

My 2nd race was the BOTT F3 or lightweight, and I thought since I had finished so well in F2 I would easily win F3. Complacency is a killer. I got the holeshot easily and led much of the race, each lap getting slower and allowing the 2nd place guy to catch up. He made a clean pass on the last lap and I couldn't really do anything to get back by him. By this time the right side of my tire was shagged, and every time I tried to make time up on him I would slide the rear, and I thought it just wasn't worth throwing it away. My previous off track excursions took some of the wind out of my sails. I finished 2nd.

Sunday had me worried since the right side of my tire was so worn and we had 2 more races to do. I flipped the tire on the rim putting the worn side of the tire on the left side of the rim. When it was race time I definitely had better grip on the right side but now I nothing on the left, and even though there are only a few left turns they are all slower, but you need to drive hard on the exit, and each time I tried getting on the gas at the exit of those turns the tire would slide. I finished 3rd in BOTT F2 after inheriting a position when the orange Ducati crashed out of the lead. I had to race on BOTT F1 after a technical issue, and I only did a few laps in that race. I wasn't going to finish on the podium, and my tire was sliding at the exit of every corner, and I brought it in early figuring it just wasn't worth staying out there and being a danger to myself and everyone else.

It was a great racing weekend. We had several SFMC members, Harley, Miles, Jim, myself, and friends of the SFMC, Jennifer, and Johnny all racing. It was fun having soo many friends to hang out with.

A special thanks to Deb for making coffee, and breakfast, and being a great all around pit wench, and to my dad for hanging out and letting me use his truck.

A little note about that orange Ducati. I knew it was a pretty bike, but after the races where over someone explained to me that it was a NCR Ducati . A hand built custom rumored to cost $50,000.