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Woke up for an early phone conference with Zoe, who was staying in Pat’s RV up at Thunderhill and could better gauge the likelihood of a nice day. It really didn’t look that great, and I wasn’t that bothered to go, so I declined on the 5 hour roundtrip.

One thing I’ve found being a racer again is that when you’re racing at track ”A”, getting some practice at track “B” is not that helpful – you have to change your bike set-up, and more importantly it confuses your dreams and visualizations about what you’re doing on track.

Racing is such a mental game – it’s critical to create a solid belief system about you and your bike, and to have a clear picture on what you’re doing at every point around the track, and what you want to do. Therefore it’s best if you focus on one track at a time.
So I went to the shop, unloaded the gear and got back to work.
Firstly I took the bike out on a test ride – San Jose Avenue, then up and down o’Shaughnessy, and back to the shop on 101. The 848 doesn’t have the midrange thrust of my 999, but it pulls pretty damn hard when you rev her out, and she had no running glitches, clutch or gearbox abnormalities.

Back at the shop I spent the afternoon on the phone to my favorite suppliers and friends, lining up all manner of trickery… a variety of suspension components from Jim at Catalyst Reaction, some spare wheels from AFM & Isle o’ Man racer Craig McLean, emergency spare bodywork available from Jim Lubinator at Vehicle Systems, the best brake pads in the world from Performance Friction, a new bodywork set from Catalyst Race Composites, and the list goes on. Most of these guys are used to racers and their last minute needs, so my to-do list was getting handled without too much anxiety.

Zoe came by the shop at the end of the afternoon and dropped off Pat’s stock 848 wheels and the stock intake runners – the list was getting shorter!

A bit later I hit the gym for a good workout, 35 minutes non-stop cardio with weights to mimic the race distance and another 45 minutes of Nick regimen freestyle weights and crunches as usual. I’m gonna be fit …but I could be fitter.

Stock 17″ rims, ready to mount up

I usually like to kick my feet up on Sundays – think it’s reasonable to set aside one day a week without working. Of course by about 3pm I had to go into the shop to get the bike ready for Monday – I’d planned to meet Pat and Zoe at Thunderhill and put a few sessions in on the 848 to get reacquainted. I was watching the weather.com website and Monday sounded pretty ominous – wind, rain and sub-60’s temperatures, and really I wasn’t in need of practice that badly.

These days it’s all about quality practice, not quantity – and with the AMA grids based on timed qualifying sessions, all I’ll need to do this coming Friday is do one single good lap, and I’m in the show.

The final element of this weekend’s efforts showed up late in the afternoon… “a friend” had sent over an Ohlins TTX shock that fits a stock 848 Ducati for me to use. At the end of the working day, Todd and I put in a quick hour to fit up the stock rear suspension link and the TTX Ohlins. This is not an easy job, but Todd figured out the least difficult method, which will help us as we’ll surely pull the shock out a couple of times during the course of the race weekend to change springs and internal valving.

Todd then had to leave for the weekend, so I went to the gym for an hour and a half of the Ben Spies training regimen: train harder than you need, so race day is easy by comparison. After busting myself up, I came back to the shop, and put in another hour or two working on small details about the bike. One of the things I’ve learned over the years is to sweat the details when you’ve got the time – so that when you don’t have the time, the little stuff doesn’t hold you up.

The goodies started to show up at the shop. First in was a super-cool, one-piece racing suit made out of kangaroo leather that Scott from Arlen Ness sent over for me. Munroe Motors has just signed up to be a retailer for Arlen Ness riding gear, and this is their best suit. Kangaroo is lighter, stronger and more flexible than cowhide – so it’s less restrictive as you move about on the motorcycle, a useful advantage.

Next up was a full exhaust system that Tim, Rick and the boys sent over from Leo Vince USA. LV is an “homologated” vendor for the AMA racing series, and their full system with titanium mufflers works a treat and looks gorgeous.

Finally, I bombed over to Guy Webster’s house in late afternoon traffic to pick-up a few stock parts off the Al Salaverria racing Ducati 1098R that Guy was very kindly lending me. Guy himself races AHRMA on a variety of exquisite single cylinder motorcycles and is quite the enthusiast – I spent an absorbing 20 minutes looking round his assortment of rare and wonderful one-lungers before heading home.

Meanwhile back at the shop, the magic was starting to unfold as Todd mounted up the Leo Vince exhaust system, and the 848 began to look like it might actually work.

The new Leo Vince full exhaust system all fitted up and looking tidy

Nick is gonna get gussied up in his new Arlen Ness Kangaroo racing suit

Spent some time on the phone trying to line up all the odd bits and pieces I would need for the 848. Pat had fitted some nice parts to the bike such as 16.5” wheels, a full Termignoni exhaust system, and a Kyle Racing rear suspension link, none of which are AMA Supersport legal… So I hustled my friends on the phone to try to obtain the correct stock pieces that we needed, and some homologated – as in “approved” by AMA – trick parts to boost performance.

Got to work at Munroe, opened up the Pro Supersport entry list for Infineon on the AMA website, and there I was in all my glory with my friends and sponsors listed, nice as you like. Some of the sponsors I noted hadn’t actually done anything for me yet …but I figured if I was going to ask for help, it would be good karma to assume a positive result and thank them in advance.

I had requested the race number 58 on my entry because it was the year I was born, and also ‘cos I figured Marco Simoncelli for good company, but they gave me number 30 – which was my alternative choice to honor Pat ‘cos his AFM number is 31.

I called up our friend and racer Zoe Rem, who is currently racing Pat’s 848 in the AFM races, and I went over to her house about 5pm to pick up the bike. I got it back to the shop, and took some photos of the bike to commemorate the start of the mechanical adventure. The bike had gotten crashed in practice at the last AFM round at Infineon, and there was some clean-up work to do judging by the scrapes and bruises evident. Once again, I was blessed to receive the commitment from our super-tech Todd Chamberlin to get the thing sorted and get me to the races. We peeled the bodywork off, made a list of jobs to do, and went home for the night.

Maestro Todd about to pillage the loaner Ducati 848… Nick’s 999S is behind

Jumped on the computer after my morning cuppa tea. There was an email from the AMA entry lady Sharon saying she had received my entry OK, but I also needed to become a member of AMA Pro Racing – which I’d missed doing yesterday because the form was misleadingly listed on the website as “Crew Membership”. So I had to run around to get the form’s release of legal liability section notarized, and then went over to Fedex to put it into overnight delivery, as Sharon had agreed to accept my entry if I got membership app to her immediately.

I sat at the computer for half the day, downloading forms off the AMA website and reading the rule book. I wanted to know what class I could enter, what license I needed, and what was legal.

There are two 600cc classes for which the 848 is legal: Daytona Sportbike, which is the AMA’s premier class along with American Superbike, and Pro SuperSport.

Daytona Sportbike has all the big names in it, the bikes are tuned to the moon, and it gets all the t.v. time. Pro Supersport is for 16-21 years olds called “young guns”, but I read that you can also enter as a “top gun” if you have a regional expert license, and the bikes are basically stock. This was perfect for me: slower bikes and a bunch of snotty 100lb kids that’ll kick my ass – but at least it’s not Danny Eslick and Martin Cardenas lapping me at the speed of sound.

I filled in all the Supersport entry forms, hesitating only for a moment when it asked for “date of birth” and “age”, put down my credit card info, and faxed it off to the AMA fortress in Florida last thing Sunday night, because Monday May 3^rd was the entry cut-off date.