Humbling - AFM round 3

Last weekend May 6-8 was the 3rd meeting of the 2011 racing season.
The race weekend started early with me dropping off my bike with  KC at BRG for the new motor to be broken in and tuned. We had finally finished the getting everything swapped over, and the new motor was ready for it's time on the dyno. I picked the bike up on Thursday before the race weekend. It had been thoroughly thrashed and finely tuned so there would be no problems once at the track. I had not been sleeping well this week. Something about the new motor and the expectations I had put on myself left me nervous, and I would wake up about 4am every morning unable to fall back asleep.

I showed up Friday to Sears Point for the Kiegwin's track day around 7am, and found my spot. I had helped Dave Wallis with the paddock layout map so I was very familiar with where all the vendors would be set up for the weekend. This round I would be pitting with KC, and his BRG trailer, both as part of the sponsorship, and to help with any issues that should arise from the new engine. My Friday practice was pretty uneventful. I took it really easy the first few sessions trying to get a feel for the new motor. It was a great feeling. The engine had a great harsh growl to it. KC had worked some magic on the stock motor and the compression was definitely up, and not only could you hear it, you could feel it when you stood behind the bike. The exhaust exiting the shorty muffler with a much higher velocity, and feeling like someone was slapping you in the face. Oh vroooom... Out on track the bike pulled hard out of the corners from 6000 rpm to 10k rpm, then it flattened it, and it was time to shift gears. It was faster for sure. I spent much of Friday trying to get my head around the new found speed. I was still trying to work on getting on the gas sooner coming out of the corners, and with the faster motor I was getting to the next corner more quickly. Now I had to figure out how to get into the corner with the same speed I had last month, but that's not such an easy thing. Friday night KC brought the trailer that is both hauler, home, and work shop when at the track. Kate came up and we got our little camp resettled, and we had a cold windy (again) dinner.


Saturday we only get 4 practice sessions, and I needed to pick up the pace. Again I tried being smooth getting off the brakes, and getting on the gas. There was a ton of traffic and I don't think I ever got a clean lap. I was lapping in the '52's which I thought was decent considering the slower riders I had to fight my way around. Mid day Jennifer from Werkstatt came by with some flyers she had made up to try and get some new customers into the shop. I was a little surprised to see that I was prominently featured on the cover of the flyer.

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Back on track I was having a little issue when cracking the throttle open. The engine hesitated just a tiny bit, and bogged a little. KC plugged in his laptop to my bike, and made a change to the fuel map.

KC explaining what he's doing

He tried leaning out the fuel mixture a little in the lower RPM to see if that helped. I went out for some more laps to confirm it did not help. We plugged the laptop in and made some more changes which made the problem worse. More laptop and we went back to where we started.I spent a few moments trying to relax and clear my head then went out on track and did some warm up laps with the afternoon races. That little bit of focus really made a difference. I swear that one flying warm up lap was my fastest lap of the 2 days.

Me not buying it

Saturday night we hung out with some friends in the pits after we made our dinner, but it was just too windy and cold and we ended up hiding out in KC's trailer before heading to bed.

Iron Clad Balls

When we had a break at lunch Kate and I took the opportunity to share a joke we'd been working on for some time. Maybe some of my long term readers with remember the post Testicular Fortitude. Our Ducati racing friend Scott Miles had taught us that phrase, and for awhile Kate has been scheming a way to put it to good use. Well we decided that what we needed was some bottle TF. With the help of Kate's brother Mark, we came up with this.  Because what every racer needs is more balls.

More Balls required

I rode like ass in the Sunday morning warm up sessions. I knew I would need to find a mental breakthrough if I was going to stand a chance in the first race which was by the way the first race of the day so I didn't have much time.

Race 1 Forumla IV
I did a few practice starts in the hot pits to try to get a feel for the way the new motor would react. I lined up on the grid, made a plan, and focused on being ready. When the flag flew I got a great launch, but I totally chickened out after that. The buildup to the race weekend all caught up to me at that moment. Too much stress, not enough rest, and too much time in my own head left me lacking confidence and it showed going up the hill into turn 2. Whenever someone would show me a wheel I'd let them through. By the time we went through turn 5 I was probably in 12th, and had a 10-15  bike gap to the pack in front. I told myself not to worry, don't panic and do anything stupid. I had 8 laps to get it together, and they'd come back to me. That moment showed some real maturity. I guess after 8 years you do learn some things. As we got into the braking zone for turn 7 I made up half the distance, another half of that braking into 9, and right on their tails braking into 11. However the real excitement wouldn't come for another half of a lap. For whatever reason the AFM started the 250 Superbike class in front of us again. 250SB is mostly made up of 250cc Ninjas which are about 1/3 as fast as our bikes, and it took us  1 1/2 laps to catch them. The next 6 laps would be a game of traffic. Going into turn 10 I made a mistake judging where to pass one of the slower bikes, and I got hung up, and 3-4 bikes got by me. I shook my head and vowed that wouldn't happen again. In fact I told myself that as I chased down the bikes in front of me, if they passed a lapper I would too.  No matter how late I had to brake, no matter what line I had to take, I wasn't going to let them get away. I don't think I knocked anybody into the dirt but I know I made some scary close and tight passes while trying to keep my adversaries in site. My buddy Robin had made a great pass on me coming down the hill out of 8a, and I returned the favor going into T1. I honestly didn't mean to pass him there, but he got hung up by a slower rider so I forced the issue, and cut under both of them. It was frantic and scary diving bombing the Ninjette's. I really hope the AFM figures something out and puts the little bikes either in their own race or at least behind us. I ended up finishing 9th which was no where near where I wanted to be, but considering the carnage on track I was happy to finish at all.

In between races I tried to chill out and turn my focus inward. I needed to find some more confidence. I really needed to stop over thinking everything, and just ride. I put my head phones in and listened to some chill music transporting my mind away from racing motorcycles. At one point I looked up and saw KC's apprentice Billy cleaning the bugs off my bike. For some reason I couldn't look at him.

Race 2 650 Twins 
I was much more focused and looser this time around. When the green flag flew I got a good launch, and didn't chicken out, as much. I went through T2 in roughly 8th place. I tried to stay with the front group, but I just didn't have the pace. I put my head down, and tried to run clean laps and not make a bunch of mistakes.
At some point T2 had a debris flag flying, and I didn't see any debris so I stayed on my normal line, and when I gassed out of the turn my rear wheel started to come around. I don't know if there was something on the track or not, or if the terrible wind had caught me out, but I was definitely crashing,. Luckily I was falling to the right, and I pushed hard on my right knee and started to stand the bike up while staying on the gas. The rear wheel dug in, and we were off. Woo-Hoo. That was fun. On the last lap I was getting tired, and while trying to hold a tight defensive line through T4 I got on the gas too early and had a big slide which slowed me way down. I thought I was safe but going through T5 Scott Reavy #555 came through, and then nearly crashed trying to get slowed down into the T6 Carousel. I probably could have come back under him, and if we were fighting for a podium spot i would have, but I couldn't say for sure Scott knew  I was there and didn't want to end the weekend in the crash truck so I let him have it. I figured I'd take a shot at him either in T7 or T9 on the brakes but I wasn't close enough any of those times.

I ran a best time in the last race of 1:50.4. Tying my best time from last month. It seems like kind of a disappointment, but truth is with the wind being so bad I couldn't even shift into 6th gear going down the back straight I had to figure I would have done 49's easy. Some things were learned, and the bike will go back to BRG for some more tuning to try to get it to rev all the way to 11k rpm, and maybe pick up a couple more HP.

Why do I title this post Humbling? Because I felt so humbled to be so well taken care of. Whether it's Kate feeding me, taking the tire warmers off, of prepping the bed at night, or Jennifer making flyers for her shop with me on the cover, or KC tuning my bike at the track or his apprentice cleaning my bike up. There are so many people that have reached out to me this season and are helping in so many ways. Sponsors, friends, everyone. There have been so many people that I feel very humbled to be so well taken care of. Now lets pick up the pace a little and deserve some of that care.

Here's a few more pics from the weekend.

Gerry Piazza stops by

Explaining

Ugly Doll keeps an eye out

Frozen Ducky

Shiny Balls

WTF?

Leading the back pack

Thanks to the people that help me go faster.
KC at BRG
Jennifer at Werkstatt Motorcycle Repair
Dave Moss of Catalyst Reaction
Michelin and Alex of AFMotorsports
Julio from Tommy's
Paul Fine of Fine Design