AFM Round 3 – Infineon Raceway (Sears Point) – May 25 - 27, 2007
Haulin’ the mail
I was feeling pretty confident coming into the weekend. I fixed up a few things on my suspension, changed out my spring rates, changed my gearing, and added some orange stripes to my boots. I figured between all the changes, I’d be able to run a bit better.
In playing the last round through my head, and going through my notes on suspension changes I had made, I came to the conclusion that part of the reason I’d run slower on Saturday and Sunday was that I’d made a few adjustments in the wrong direction on my rear compression. I’d had a similar experience in April and finally put two and two together.
Also, I started doing the math after round 2 and realized that I needed to average about 20 points per weekend through the end of the season. After the first two rounds of the season, I suspected it would be tough to do over the course of the season, what with everything that can happen in racing….
Day 0 – Thursday night
I got up to the track early on Thursday night. I’d gotten three and a half hours of sleep the night before, so I was exhausted. As quickly as I could get unloaded and get my pit area set up, I got to bed.
Day 1 – Friday
Early on Friday, the rest of the folks started to show up. I was anxious to try out my new suspension settings. I was guest instructing at the track day, which normally means that I also lead sighting laps in the morning. Since we weren’t running a slow group for the day, we also skipped the sighting laps. No worries – just right out to riding.
The track took a little while to warm up, so I didn’t push very hard in my first session.
By the last session before lunch, I turned another 1:50.x lap time. It was a huge confidence booster to pull that out in the beginning of the day.
In the afternoon, I went out riding in a group with a few other riders, including one of the guys from my Open Twins class. I had diced it out with him in the ’05 season, but had nothing for him during the ’06 season. During the session, we traded places a few times and I started feeling pretty good about having “something” for him during the races on Sunday. We were starting to turn some pretty good lap times until a rider went down in turn 2. Since I was a guest instructor, I threw up a hand and pulled over to help the rider out.
I went out again in one of the later sessions with one of the full time instructors. She took off and I chased after her for a few turns. I passed her and tucked in behind some slower riders. When she came by again, I took off after her. I was having a blast, but then coming through turn 2, we found another crashed rider. We both stopped to help him out.
I went back out in the last “A” group session for the day, but got held up by a bit of traffic so I didn’t have any great lap times. I did, however, wheelie coming through turn 3A, which was pretty exciting for me. After the session, I was beat, and sat down for a few minutes. I decided to go back out in the very last session of the day. It turned out the track was pretty empty by the end of the day, and I got some clean track for a few laps. I put down another 1:50 and was feeling pretty good going into the race weekend.
One important thing I realized during the day was the cause of the headshake I'd been experiencing. It had caused me to adjust the suspension to try to reduce it, but trading off the headshake meant slower steering (and therefore lap times). I had originally thought the headshake was the result of my geometry being off. I noticed it only happened as I started pushing faster and faster out of turn 6. I started playing it through in my mind and finally realized that it happened when I was leaned over going over a seam in the pavement. If I stood the bike up when I went over, the problem went away. So I went back to the settings that allowed me to steer more quickly!
Dunlop had discontinued the type of rear tire I had been running, but I could only get my hands on one of the new ones. I normally put on a fresh tire for race day on Sunday. I decided it would be wise to test my new tire out before I could race on it, so my plan was that I could run one day on the new tire and race on it if I liked it. I had a backup of my old tire with two days on it – it should work okay since it was a medium-hard compound tire anyway.
At the end of the day, I knew I was tired. I had ended up riding almost five hours on the track, and my muscles were starting to ache. I have this muscle ointment that I’d been using since college called Bigeloil. It’s like Ben Gay, but it’s liquid and dries completely. It’s also not meant for human use – veterinarians use it on race horses. I always figured that meant it should be strong enough for me.
Day 2 Saturday
I woke up and immediately noticed that I was aching all over. I felt like I was in for a long Saturday and Sunday of riding. I got my warmers on first-thing so that I could set my rear tire temperature after the tire had had a chance to get hot. The new Dunlop tire runs at 23 psi HOT. That’s wildly different from the standard tire pressures for Dunlop. 27-28 is much more typical.
Session 1
The track was cold and it was still pretty foggy, so I wasn’t too upset about being being put in a slower practice group than where I felt I belonged. Even though I had run a few 1:52s in the races the previous round, they put me in a slower practice group than what those times would qualify. Since I didn’t bring my lap time sheets with me, they refused to put me in the faster group.
I would have to turn a couple consecutive 1:52s to be able to move up to the faster practice group. I took the first couple laps easy because my tires seemed a bit finicky on the first couple turns. The bike felt like it was turning poorly – I guess I’ve finally reached the point where the tires can “speak” to me. After a couple laps, a few guys went by me and made some aggressive passes, so I decided to go after them. By the end of the session, I felt pretty comfortable, so I started pushing. As it turned out, I put down a pretty respectable time – a 1:53, and the fastest lap out of everyone in the practice group. I guess those new tires do work pretty well!
Session 2
Inspired, in the second session I ran up to the front of the line to go out for the session. I had open track for the first lap out and felt pretty good. I was really starting to get into the pace when I came around for the second lap. One of the riders was just coming out for his “out” lap – coming out of pit lane – and he cut in to the apex of turn 2. This is frowned upon because you need to be up to speed with traffic before you blend into the racing line. I was furious, and after checking up to avoid crashing into the back of the rider, I put my head down to crank out some good laps. I turned a couple 1:52’s, so I was able to move into the next faster practice group.
When I came back into the pits, I noticed my tire was starting to wear badly. After only two sessions, I was not happy! I went and talked to the tire guy and one of the suspension guys. As I had suspected from looking at the wear pattern, it was “rebound” tear, from the rear shock having the wrong rebound damping set. He took out a few clicks of rear rebound and told me to try it out.
Session 3
Now I was in the faster group. I had even more confidence now that we’d adjusted my rear rebound. I started hammering a bit harder. I threw down all 1:52s and 1:50s, so I was feeling great! The tire didn’t look much worse after the session, but I was nervous.
Session 4
I made a couple small adjustments to the suspension, but ended up running a little slower in the last session. I felt the rear was starting to slide a bit worse.
End of day
I knew the tire was a problem. I talked to the tire guy and he generously offered to give me someone else’s take-off tire that was in good shape so that I could get through the weekend. I wouldn’t normally be excited about getting a used tire, but these new Dunlop tires are pretty damned grippy once they’re up to temperature.
I did my standard procedure of a tire change after my last Saturday practice, putting a new front tire on the bike. As I was taking the belly pan off to get the bike ready for tech inspection, I noticed I had a large amount of oil in my belly pan. NOT GOOD. I assumed it was the oil filter, so I tracked down a filter wrench from another racer and cinched it up a bit more. I cleaned everything up and it got through tech without any trouble.
I did a cursory clean-up job on the bike since I had some friends coming to watch on Sunday. I took a shower, hung out and drank a few beers, and then covered all my aching muscles with Tiger Balm in the hopes that I wouldn’t be too sore going into race day.
Day 3 - Sunday – Race day
I woke up and checked my tire pressures first. I was worried about my rear tire, but decided to give it a shot with the tire flipped around.
Sunday practice
I went out and was spending almost all my attention on the rear tire. The first couple laps were pretty dicey. It was sliding in most of the turns, left and right. I chalked that up to the tires needing to get up to temperature – the track was cool and the fog hadn’t burned off yet. After a couple more laps, and what I thought would be hot tires, I was spinning the tire up in a few of the higher speed corners (the exit of the carousel, where I broke my collarbone, and at the exit of turn 8A, which is normally my fastest turn on the track).
I came in and immediately went to talk to the tire guy, and he offered to do the change-out right then. I knew it would take a while to get the tire back up to temperature and set the pressure correctly, so I went and ripped off my rear rim and took it to him.
While I was waiting, I took a peek at whether my oil leak was better. Sure enough, there was another thick deposit of oil in my bellypan. I did a quick visual inspection and everything looked normal. Then I remembered having a “mystery” oil leak on my old bike. I checked the oil cooler lines and sure enough, they had backed out more than a half-turn. I cranked ’em back down and that was the end of the problem.
The tire guys finished up with mounting the take-off tire, and I remounted the wheel and was good to go. Or so I thought… I decided to double-check where I was at on my front fork preload. On the first fork, I was 5 turns off from where I expected to be. On the second fork, I was in about the right spot, but as I was turning the pre-load, the fork cap started coming loose and spinning off. Crikey! I scooted over to Scott from Desmoto and explained the issue. He told me to loosen the triple clamps and use a special tool that he had. I did it, went and returned the tool, and got back in time to head out for a few runs in the hot pits to test my forks.
On my very first run I bottomed out the forks. That’s not good, since I wasn’t even braking all that hard yet. Fortunately, my teammate Dan (the Man) brought over my fork preload adjuster. I dialed in more preload and took another run. Better, but still using a bit too much travel. I added a hair more preload and then went out to race – wherever it was at now it would have to do.
Time to race.
Race 1 – 600 Superbike
Again, I had a pretty miserable start. I got off the line well, but after a few seconds, as the inline 4-cylinder bikes revved up, they started swallowing me up. I got through the first few turns without any contact and things started settling down.
I looked ahead, and my teammate Tim was about 8 spots in front of me. Crap. He had gridded next to me, so I had expected to be somewhere near him after the start.
I got around a couple slow guys quickly in the back half of the track, where I’m stronger anyway. But there were two bikes between me and the pack that Tim was leading. I took way too long to get around the two guys, and actually had two more bikes come up past me while I was trying to get around them. Damn! I passed one of them back within a lap, but the other guy took off.
At the halfway point of the race, I was starting to think I wouldn’t be able to catch Tim. I passed two bikes on the next lap, but I was still one bike back from the pack he was leading and there was a big gap between our bikes and his pack. I decided I needed to at least try, and made my move in turn 8A. I lined the guy up and gave him a little gap coming out of 7 and then just closed on him. I came past him before the breaking markers going into 9 and started to drift to the inside so that he didn’t try to come back past on the brakes. I made turn 9 cleanly and then realized I had open track and a big gap up to Tim’s pack.
I put my head down and gave it a shot. I realized I was gaining on them a bit over lap 7. Coming into turn 1 I wasn’t yet in contact, but they started jostling with each other in turns 2 and 3 and I closed in to the back of the pack. I knew it would be a stretch to try to pick off all 5 bikes between 8A and turn 9, no matter how good I was. I slingshotted out on the outside and ended up taking two of them. I gave one of them a bit of room in turn 9 since it was a close pass, and that killed my drive coming out. I saw him actually come through the turn right beside me and I was careful to leave him room and not run him off the track. (He later came by the pits to congratulate me on a good race and to tell me he had a fun time dicing it out with me – a classy guy!)
On the exit of turn 9, Tim was in front of me – he had been passed by two of the bikes in his pack and they killed his drive coming out of 9. He had a gap, and because of my line on the exit, I couldn’t get close enough to make a move on the brakes going into 11. However, there was a debris flag flying at the entrance to 11 and I looked over and saw a cone that had been knocked onto the course. I had some closing speed on Tim, and I saw he took bad deep line to get around the cone. I was about 10 yards back from him and thought I couldn’t do it, but then I saw him shake his head – probably frustrated with his line selection and drive coming out. Smelling blood, I just pinned the throttle and lined up to shoot up Tim’s inside. I saw I was gaining on him, but the finish line was closing really fast. I clicked into 3rd, then 4th gear. I slingshotted past Tim in the closing yards – the fourth time this season now that I’ve beaten one of my teammates in the last turn of the last lap of the race. I ended up beating him by two-tenths of a second.
Result: 30th out of 59 starters
Best lap: 1:49.517
Race 2 – Open Twins
Feeling confident after my first race, I was excited to throw down in the class that I “focus” on. I’ve been racing Open Twins for a few years and was particularly frustrated with my results in the class the previous year.
On the start, I got away pretty cleanly, but realized I was pretty far back. A few guys came flying past in turn 6, but then two riders crashed out in front of me. I held my line and tucked in behind two guys I had run with in the 2005 season. After a couple laps, I closed in on the first one and watching him, I felt like I might be able to make a move. I came past him in turn 11, but he outbraked me going into 1 and regained his position. I stay on him and a few turns later, I made my signature move in turn 8A. Unfortunately, I missed my braking marker, shot a little wide and he and a few others bikes came through. Fortunately for me, these were the leaders of the other class that was racing, so I hadn’t given up any “real” positions. I tucked back in behind them and closed back up on my Open Twins competitor.
I was getting ready to line him up for turn 8A again, and was close on his heels coming out of the carousel and driving toward turn 7. As I went in to the apex of turn 7, all of a sudden there was a bike there. I figured that it was one of the leaders from the other race, and being a front-runner in that class, he’d have pretty good control of his bike. I pushed wide on the turn to give him space, but he overshot the turn and went wide and deep. Unfortunately, his rear wheel took out my front wheel as he came through and I crashed out.
I slid a little bit, and held up my head so that I wouldn’t scratch my helmet. I was going maybe about 60 mph when I went down, but it was all pavement in that section of the track, so I was able to just slide out with no issues.
The turnworker came over and helped get the bike off me, since my leg was caught under the bike on one side. I stood up and did a quick self assessment and realized that only my ring finger on my right hand was hurt. I was starting to think to myself… “I can race again as long as it’s not my braking fingers!”. I walked over to the ambulance, and they did a quick check and put a bandaid on my finger and let me go. I went over to the bike and checked it out really quickly – all in all, not too bad. The photographer came over and started talking to me. He was set up in the turn, but he missed the whole thing!
Fortunately, I have a folding brake lever, so my front brake was totally intact. I rode the bike back into the pits and started sorting out what I needed to get back out and race in my last race of the day.
Result: Crash out in lap 5
Best lap: 1:50.108
Reassembly
I needed a rear brake peg (I had one of those), I needed a right rearset (I’d have to look around), and I needed a new right clipon (I had one of those). I was able to duct tape my fairing back together and my windscreen. Other than that, I was good to go.
First things first, though, I saw that my rotor had made contact with the ground, so I took the bike over to GP Frame and Wheel to get checked out. He said the rim was fine, and that the rotors would get me through the day but they would need some work after the race weekend.
The DMLers (DrunkenMonkey, especially) helped me rip the bike apart and put it back together. I got it together in time to go cruise up and down in the hot pits and to take a warmup lap with one of the other races. Everything on the bike felt good enough to ride. I had been icing my finger and the feeling had returned to the fnger. I wrapped it up with a few bandages because it was seeping blood, and I was good to go. Out on the track, my finger stung a little bit while I was riding, but since I wasn’t using it to brake, I wasn’t too concerned.
Race 3 – Formula 1
I need to average 20 points a weekend to get my AMA license by the end of the year. I had originally thought I’d pull down a few points here and there across a few different classes. Realizing I’d missed out on about 15 points from the Open Twins race, I was pissed. I realized I needed to get my act in gear and have a good finish in my third race.
The wind had really picked back up by the afternoon and I didn’t plan on running very fast lap times – just focusing on my position and trying to pick people off.
I got away from the line with an okay start, but again, a few guys came past me in the first few turns. I made my way by one of them, but it took me a while to regain contact with the others – a pack of 600s.
A guy on Gixxer 750 came by me going into turn 7, and I thought I’d just line him up for the exit of turn 8a, but I couldn’t quite grab him. The Gixxers have a bit more motor than I do, so it’s tougher to pull one of them out of a turn. I was eventually able to get by him, but on the following lap I could hear him behind me in every turn. I blew turn 4, and then a few turns later I missed a shift between 6 and 7. He came by me and I never pass him back. I held my position on the last couple laps and crossed the line.
It turned out I finished 30th – my best finish for Formula 1. I netted enough points to stay on-pace for getting my AMA license. And on top of everything else, I ran my best lap time on my last lap of the last race. That’s a real tribute to the new Dunlop tires – but I’ll take some of the credit, as well!
Result: 30th out of 42 starters
Best Lap: 1:49.440
Thoughts on my riding
So what was different between last month and this month? I hadn’t ridden at the track in the month between the rounds. I hadn’t even really done any physical conditioning. I made only small changes to my suspension setup. So how was it that I ran 3-4 seconds per lap faster?
I credit two things.
First, making the right changes to my suspension. Yes, they were all small adjustments, but small adjustments that were incremental improvements.
Second, working at greater consistency in my riding. I was much better about using reference points in nearly every turn and braking markers all around. After watching the pros, I had a few better ideas for lines through turns. But most of all, I was really focused on hitting my apexes in the key high-speed exit turns, allowing me to get on the gas hard and early and really get good drives.
Parting thoughts on the overall weekend
I now move up into the revered AFM practice group 5 (out of 6). This will be a huge help because running with the faster guys will help me see where I can carry more speed into turns and where I can improve my lines. I credit most of my improvement in the 2005 season with having moved up practice groups, so I’m hoping I can continue to make strides now that I’m with the faster guys again.
A *HUGE* thanks to the DML crew for really being a true pitcrew for me. I never could have gotten back out on track without their help. A few specific mentions here:
-DrunkenMonkey for really helping me fix the broken bits on the bike, getting it sorted out, and getting me back out on the track
-Dan the Man for the help with my suspension in the hot pits before the morning races
-Dan the Man, Spidey, and DrunkenMonkey for hauling my crap to tech so I could get my bike reinspected after the crash
-Dan the Man and Spidey for helping pack up my stuff at the end of the day
I’d like to thank my main sponsor, eBay Motors, again for helping make the effort possible this year. Sorry for scratching up the leathers! I’d also like to thank Helmut from Helimot leathers. The suit held up REMARKABLY well after my crash – from what I saw, not one stitch broke on my suit.