* Checking out the corkscrew – racer Roi Holster, Linda and Bill Brown
* Goofing off on the track walk – Roi, Nick, Bill, unknown scooter rider in back
Well I’m finally getting around to posting my first blog entry for the Laguna Seca AMA Pro Supersport race, coming up this weekend July 23-25th. I blame the Tour de France for being so exciting that I get home at night and watch the day’s stage recorded on the DVR, and then it’s midnight so I hit the hay without hitting the keyboard. Keeping my fingers crossed for Andy Schleck at this point after Contador failed to man-up and wait for him on the Port de Balès.
Anyway, as readers of my previous AMA race shenanigans at Infineon Raceway in May will know, the Ducati 848 I’m racing is borrowed from my friend Pat Blackburn – I picked it back up from him at Thunderhill Raceway at the last AFM round on July 10th/11th. It has been ridden and raced extensively by Pat’s friend Jason Butler amongst others, and it’s a testament to the 848 that it’s running strong and sweet.
* The two race bikes ready and waiting in the back of the Munroe Motors’ workshop
Last Thursday I took both the 848 and my Ducati 999 race bike up to Gerry Piazza in Napa to get the two chassis accurately measured – there are some handling differences between the two bikes and I wanted to see if we could measure them. I could see from the printouts that there some ride height differences, which suggested a coupla changes to try during the practice session on Friday 23rd. Over the next few evenings, Todd and I got stuck in to the bike here at the Munroe workshop…
Firstly we checked the valve clearances… and they were all in spec. I have to believe that’s the first check since the bike was purchased in 2008, and the bike’s been beaten like a rented mule, believe me!
Then we replaced the cam drive belts for prudence’s sake, and threw in some new spark plugs and a fresh airfilter for good measure.
Finally we fitted up the stock wheels and suspension, as Pro Supersport is a stock class and Pat has some fancy aftermarket parts on the bike – and with our own bodywork mounted, the 848 was ready to go.
I’m also taking the 999 to Laguna Seca because I’m entered in a run-what-you-brung race on Friday morning called “Jim Doyle’s Monterey Challenge”. For the Monterey Challenge we practice at 8am, qualify at 10:20am and race at 11:50am and that’s the end of it. Then, right after that race, is the 50 minute AMA Supersport practice session, so I hop off the 999 onto the 848 and go right back out. Gonna be tiring, glad I’ve been working on my cardio at the gym.
My master plan of course is to use the Monterey Challenge race to help drop my laptimes in order to kickstart my efforts for Supersport, so we’ll see…
* Picking up Pat’s Ducati 848 at Thunderhill Raceway, July 11th – a(nother) beautiful NorCal day!
My apologies for the slow posting of this last entry – work has a nasty habit of rearing its head and getting in the way of more fun stuff like racing and writing… Nick.
Second Race Day of AMA Infineon “West Coast Moto Jam” Double-header
Sunday dawned bright and clear, and was an altogether different prospect than Saturday. We’d enjoyed an extra hour of sleep, because the morning practice schedule put us on track at 9:30am instead of 8am thank goodness. And when we got to the track and set the pit up, we found that the intense nervousness we’d felt on Saturday was gone – we were now pro-fessional AMA racers, and we had it all under control. I was about to say to Todd that we’d already met all our goals for the weekend, when I realized there was in fact one more to fulfill: bring the bike home in one piece.
The twenty-minute warm-up practice was simply about kickstarting brain and body, and testing the yet-lighter rear spring we’d thrown on the bike the night before. The lighter spring made the whole bike feel more compliant this morning, without making the bike wallow around at all, and I came in mid-session to raise the rear ride height a touch, which complemented the softer spring nicely.
So now we were ready – just 18 laps of safe racing and we would go home feeling like champions.
* Nick leads Supersport rivals, sometime on Saturday – Photo Credit: Brian J Nelson
We took all the gear down to our e-z-up at the hot pit wall, strategically situated between Yoshimura and Graves Yamaha, and set the bike up on the warmers. We stood by the trackside wall and watched the electric bike race – the TTXGP – which was fantastic. Michael Barnes’ bike was super-fast, absolutely rocketing out of turn 11 across start-finish past his slower rival Shawn Higbee. In the end Barnie’s batteries got weak, Higbee stayed steady, and the tortoise beat the hare. We were all commenting on how the future was unfolding in front of our eyes: a 16yr-old girl wins a National, and silent, zero-emission racebikes were duking it out center-stage.
Next up was Supersport – Young Guns, Top Guns and a coupla oldies: me and my pit-buddy Roi Holster. Blood pressure was mercifully hovering at normal race level as we came round for the start. I was gridded as yesterday on row four, inside left, P13… not a great spot but I reminded myself I was there for fun so no biggie. As the lights came on I revved the engine, but just before they went out to start the race I opened the throttle a little more, the lights went out, I dumped the clutch and immediately wheelied the bike. I pulled the clutch back in a little, got ‘er down, clutch back out and punched the gas. Elbow to elbow with a couple of hard-chargers to my right, I had to keep left as we shot up the hill to turn 2. I saw the bikes near me were single-filing into turn 2, so I took a radical line on their outside left and passed about 4 guys going through the corner. As we charged through 3 and 3A I could see I’d regained a few places that I’d lost pulling that wheelie at the start, and I was running in roughly 10th or 11th place.
The race started to string out as the fast guys at the front motored away. I was holding steady behind #34 Robert Tinagero, and as the first few laps passed, I was trying everything to get around him. I dove underneath him driving over the hill from turn 5 into the Carousel, but he just cut across my nose forcing me to stand the bike up a bit to miss him. I showed him a wheel a couple of times under braking, but he wasn’t giving it up. After about 6 laps, I was wondering: “what would Rossi do” to beat him? So I decided to run right up his rear-end and pressure him into screwing up, else plan to pass him on the last lap on the brakes into turn 7 or 9. Suddenly he threw a leg out, I looked up and saw a red flag waving – Joey Pascarella had thrown his donut holes out of the pram again, this time highsiding his bike at the kink before start-finish, forcing the stoppage.
Back in the hot pit, we threw the bike on the tire warmers, added a splash o’ gas and also a 1/3 turn of rear ride height to try help me flip the bike from left to right in the turn 8-8A esses. The restart got called after a few minutes, and this time I used a little less throttle to achieve a great launch of the 848 and a good drive up the hill, again in about 10th place. After a lap of chasing the faster kids in front of me, the afore-mentioned Joey slipped past me at the entrance to turn 3, riding smoothly but not much faster than me – he’d had to restart the race from the back of the grid seeing as his crash had caused the red flag, as per the rules.
I started to slide my rear tire exiting corners and especially at the top of 2 and 3A – I guess that the first 9 laps was all I could get out of it in the way of good traction, and now it was about keeping it on two wheels. I found myself once again behind Tinagero #34, but this time I could not keep up, and he eased away while I practiced the art of sliding the rear tire, the rear end bobbing and weaving as the tire fought for traction. It was actually a lot of fun because it was fairly predictable, and as long as I hung off the bike properly as I fed in the throttle, it wasn’t getting out of control. I actually posted my fastest time of the weekend in the last few laps of the race – a 1:46.6 which I decided was not bad for riding someone else’s bike with minimal practice before racing.
* The view of Nick’s race on Sunday – #34’s back-end… Photo Credit: GotBlueMilk
Back in the pits, Linda and Todd told me I’d finished 11th – just outside the money, but all-in-all we were extremely happy with the weekend… coming home in one piece, a top-ten finish in the books, and stories to tell someone else’s grandkids. We cracked open a bottle of Moet White Star champagne I’d brought to celebrate, and while the rest of the paddock watched Eslick, Rapp and Cardenas battle it out in the Daytona Sport Bike race, we had a quiet few minutes in the pits savoring our weekend and sippin’ some very nice bubbly.
With many thanks to my friends for helping make a great weekend possible:- Pat Blackburn of Trackside Moto for the loan of the 848, Maestro Todd Chamberlin of Munroe Motors for doing so much the work for the love of racing, my friends at Ducati North America, Dave, Jim and Nikki of Catalyst Reaction Suspension, Scott and Eric from Arlen Ness Leathers, Kyle USA, HJC Helmets, TCX Boots, Senor James Siddall of Super Plush Suspension, Tim, Rick and gang at Leo Vince USA, Yoyodyne, Dennis, Terry and the crew at Sport Tire Services/Dunlop, Jim from Vehicle Systems, and of course pit boss extraordinaire Linda Jung.
Race Day!
I was rudely interrupted at 5:15am by my alarm. A quick bodycheck revealed only minor stiffness and no headache or hangover, which presaged well for the day. After loading the truck with goodies assembled from a quick stop-over visit to Munroe the previous evening, and the requisite flyby a local coffee shop, we arrived just before 7am at the track, which was covered in foggy cloud or cloudy fog. We set-up the pit and got the bike on the tire warmers, leaving on the 18 lap qualifying tires from yesterday, as I was deliberately going to test the new rear suspension spring only and not try to improve my qualifying time. I’ve been around the race track enough to know that you can’t go fast when you don’t feel like it, so you choose those times to try different lines or suspension settings or something, and allow yourself that you will be more in the mood to go fast at another time.
* The principal suspects – Nick, Linda and Todd
The track was damp enough from the fog for the qualie session to be delayed an hour. It was still cold and cloudy at 9am when we headed out onto the track, but before I even got to turn two I could feel the rear was significantly smoother. I bombed around for a few laps and came in for some minor adjustments to both front fork and rear shock. Todd said he could tell the bike was better ‘cos he saw me race a coupla kids out of turn 11 and even pass one of the snotters on the brakes into turn 1.
I went back out for the last few minutes of the session to test my changes, keeping my competitive impulses under control. Yesterday, when riding through fast turn 5, I had had to hold a neutral throttle because the 848 would unnervingly bounce towards the outside of the sweeper, whereas now I could roll on the gas because it was more stable. I had a clear thought that we’d found a set-up that I could race on – meaning it felt like I could attack a corner or ride closely with another rider and not be in dire danger from my own unpredictable motorcycle.
Back in the pits we mounted up a fresh pair of tires, topped off the gas, checked critical fasteners for tightness, polished the paintwork such as it was, attended to all details we could possibly think of, and by noon we were ready to race. We took the bike, generator, stands, tire warmers, tools and miscellanea down to our trackside hot pit in front of the main grandstand, ready for the “fan walk” of the hot pits where the riders and crew stand by their bikes, riders in their leathers, and talk to the fans and sign autographs. I had about five people ask me for my autograph, and I even didn’t know a couple of them – it was cute!!
The horn blew and we got ready to race. Firstly we did a “sighting lap” where the racers cruise around the track waving at the fans. You ride up to your grid position, your crew puts the bike onto the stands and warmers for about 3-4 minutes as the racers relax under the umbrellas, building excitement into the show I suppose. Then the warmers come off, the crews vacate the grid, you go around one more time for a warm-up lap at speed, come round and grid up for the start.
* Nick top o’ turn 2 in his nice new Arlen Ness leathers – Photo Credit: GotBlueMilk
I had wound up in 13th place on the grid, because Matt Sadowski had bettered his Friday qualifying time this morning and bumped me down one spot. Unfortunately this meant a change from the ideal outside-right position on the third row to a much worse inside-left fourth row start. I decided it didn’t matter because I was going to do as well as I could with the tools that I had, and keep my cool.
The AMA officials cleared the grid, the red flag went away, we clicked first gear, the lights came on, I revved her up, and bang – the lights went out and I launched the little 848 off the line. Everyone was starting well but I had a little extra oomph from the two-cylinder Ducati engine and I eased past a coupla guys as we shot up the hill to turn two. Looked like I was in about 10th place, but no time to think about that, I had to hang off the bike and get on the gas.
I was riding at about 95%, not really trusting the suspension or the tires that much, trying hard, but keeping a cool head. One guy came past me on the inside into turn 3 and then another into the Carousel turn 6. I followed the line of bikes through the dip, searching for the limit of rear tire traction with the throttle. I had set the geometry of the bike up fairly conservatively because of having to use stock triple clamps in this class, but the back of the bike was set too low and I was dragging my toes in most corners.
After three or four laps I saw someone crash their brains out coming down the hill into the turn 9 chicane, their bike cart wheeling through the grass next to me as I braked. We kept rolling for another coupla laps, I was riding closely behind the guy in front of me trying to see a way past him, when he suddenly stuck his leg out and I saw a red flag from the flag station. Looked like someone else had crashed in turn nine, their bike lying in the middle of the turn.
* Nick leads Joey Bagodonuts on Sunday, albeit temporarily – Photo Credit: Brian J Nelson
We cruised back to the hot pit and my trusty crew of Todd and Linda got the bike onto the stands and warmers on the tires. Todd added a splash of gas to the bike, adjusted the rear ride height to raise the back up a bit, I had a sip of water and we were ready for the restart.
This time I moved up to P12 on the grid as one of the crashing kids wasn’t making the restart, getting my coveted outside starting position. I got another good launch and again was about 9th or 10th into turn 2, and again got passed in pretty short order by a coupla faster guys.
I was really enjoying my ride – the 848 felt decent at least and I was feeling strong – but this time it only took three laps before the red flag was waving again. Back in the hot pit again, Todd said that rising star Joey Pascarella bagodonuts had crashed in turn 10, a high speed right-hander with no run-off room, and the race was stopped so the track workers could get to him. We got the bike ready for yet another restart and sat on the pit wall waiting, but after a few minutes the AMA race officials told us the race was called complete, so we looked up at the score board and there I was in 10th place, with Elena Myers winning her first AMA National – good for her!
We had just met our ultimate goal of the weekend – a top ten finish – which now made me a professional racer as I had won a staggering $250. Why I gave up on those golf lessons makes no sense now.
We checked my lap times and the lighter rear spring had let me drop another whole second and get into the 1:47’s. As a new professional, I immediately got hold of my new manager, James Siddall, who located at a small fee (sorry, inside joke) another rear spring that was lighter still. Todd and I got the thing fitted onto the shock between swigging beers and chatting with friends, and we wrapped up for the evening feeling as if we’d landed on the moon, it was awesome.
Practice and Qualifying
We were keeping to a relaxed schedule this morning because the show only started around noon, and I needed to change my attitude from mechanic to racer and that meant inner focus and calm. We got to the track around 9am, unpacked all the gear, and went to the official AMA rider and crew chief meeting at 10am. Some of the AMA top brass were on hand to throw out a positive report on how hard everyone were trying to make the series work, and to acknowledge the racers and teams for all their efforts. At one point we were told we were the “stars” and “the future of the sport” – and I was thinking they forgot about the “past of the sport”, oh well.
After the meeting we bumped in to our friend James Lickwar who’s been working on RoadRacingWorld and Vesrah teams for while and he told us they’d had luck with the soft, as opposed to the medium, compound rear tire. We went back to our pit and slipped on a set of the soft compound front and rear tires ready for practice. These D211 GP-A “spec” tires are cheaper than the full slicks I would normally buy, but are, by reports, more slippery, so I wasn’t expecting to set any personal best lap times this weekend on a borrowed bike with greasy tires.
The morning fog and clouds cleared up by around 11am, thankfully warming the tarmac before we went out. My plan was to work hard in the 50 minute noontime practice session to get used to the bike and adjust it to my needs, and then to try my best to qualify in the first qualifying session this afternoon, rather than wait for the second “qualie” session at 8am Saturday morning which would be cold and damp. We also decided to top the tank up and aim to get in 18 laps of practice to check fuel consumption and tire wear, in preparation for the 18 lap race.
My practice pace started out slow as I ran the bike for the first time on track, and got used to the tires. I came in after about 6 laps to raise the rear of the bike, which felt a little low, and to reduce the compression damping adjustment in the rear shock because the backend felt very harsh. Basically if you feel a problem in your hands it’s usually the front forks, and if you feel it in the whole bike or in your butt it’s the rear shock. I went out for 6 more laps and came back in for another adjustment to the shock because of the same harsh rear end problem. I know that a bike that’s set-up to go fast feels too stiff at slow speeds, so I kept building speed to see if the suspension started working. I finally came in at the end of the session with our target 18 laps in the book, and a reasonably well running bike with unyielding rear suspension.
The rear tire was completely tore-up, proving the poor compliance of the suspension, and Todd smartly suggested we change to a medium, and thus more durable, compound rear tire. We looked at my best lap time, which was a 1:49.5 and I took the conservative decision to keep the shock as-is and not make a radical change, because we were quickly approaching the short 20 minute qualifying session at 3:30pm with no recourse if we made a change and went in the wrong direction.
The qualifying session went by in a whirl: I ran 6 laps at about 85% effort to warm up, the bike feeling pretty decent, came in for a sip of water, one eye on the countdown clock, made a small adjustment to the shock, and went back out to put the hammer down for the last few minutes. I chopped a full second off my previous best time and put a 1:48.2 in the book to qualify in 12th place out of 22 entrants. Not bad for a pick-up team with a rattle-can paint-job.
Back in the pits and out of my leathers, I canvassed opinions from suspension guru James Siddall, and from team owner Daric Cheshire of Cheshire Motorsports, quickly arriving at the unsurprising consensus that the rear spring I was using was way too stiff. Todd and I rode around on the Munroe team scooter until we found a friendly face at Chris Perris’ pit, Evan, who lent us a 15% softer spring, which we mounted onto the 848’s shock before packing up the pit, and going home for an early night.
Today was a long day. It started at 8am at Kragens – you know where to go – picking up more cans of red paint to finish the bodywork.
While Todd was polishing his handiwork off, I pulled the clutch out and put in a fresher clutch plate pack. On the dry clutch engines this only take 15-20 minutes, but on the wet clutch 848 it took an hour and a half.
I then ran around a bit buying stick-on race numbers and some white paint to paint on the number plates. I went home to get my truck, my riding gear and my tool box, and when I got back, Todd was beaming like a new father and the bike looked good enough to race a national.
We loaded her up, grabbed the boxes of spares, chemicals, tire warmers, extension cords, generator, and other paraphernalia, and I headed out.
I took the bike down to tech, which was pretty straightforward once I got the required Dunlop, AMA and Sunoco decals placed on my belly pan. It was nice to see quite a few friendly faces in the paddock, from back in the day when we were doing the Pro-Thunder series 8-10 years ago. I mentioned I was racing in Supersport to a coupla old pals and I think “dumb-founded” is an accurate description of their faces.
Todd and I walked out to the entrance gate to get our credentials at the AMA registration hut, then back to the pit to get the wheels off and down to the nearby Dunlop trailer to get fitted with the “spec” Dunlop 211GP-A tires everyone in Supersport and Daytona Superbike has to use this year.
Finally we took the forks off and over to Jim at the Catalyst Reaction trailer to install the tricky new Ohlins NIX cartridges that just came in yesterday, meanwhile Todd and I changed the shock spring while we were waiting – not a quick task on this model unfortunately.
Got back to the shop by about 9:30pm, dropped off a coupla unwanted items, picked up my darling Performance Friction brake pads that came in just this afternoon, and got home by 10:15pm exhausted and ready for a bath and bed after writing the race-log – can’t skip the log!
A proud dad – Todd and the 848 now ready to race
View of the plush Munroe Motors pit area, front forks away getting gussied up
Starting to get excited about the weekend. Had to “calm myself down” a couple of times to stay focused on the job at hand. More goodies were showing up – the new CRC bodywork, a coupla items for my 999, and a new 30mm NIX fork cartridge kit from Ohlins. I spent a couple of hours in the afternoon creating and sending out the Munroe newsletter about the upcoming weekend, and got some quick responses from friends wishing me luck. After work, Todd and I got stuck into mounting up the new bodywork, and then painting it with rattle cans from Kragens in their “Super Red II” color.
We unfortunately ran out of paint prematurely, so we’re going to have to finish the painting at 8am tomorrow morning when Kragens opens. We left about 10pm again, coughing and hacking from the acetone and paint fumes, even though we were wearing respirators.
Todd musing on how he got talked into this stupidity
