Back In The Saddle At Sears… uh, Infineon!
AFM Roadrace Series – Round 2
Infineon Raceway: April 24th and 25th, 2010
To start with, there is no round one race report this year… because I didn’t make it down to Buttonwillow last month. I flew in from my five week motorcycle ride to Lima, Peru at 1:30am on the morning of Saturday March 20th with practice starting 6 hours later and the engine of my faithful 2003 Ducati 999S in a thousand pieces – it was not going to happen. The fact that I profoundly distrust the crappy track surface at BW merely reinforced the decision not to go.
So I had a full engine rebuild to do in the intervening four weeks between then and now. Before I left on my trip, I’d sent my crankshaft out to be lightened, polished and balanced by our secret crank guy – he used to massage the stock cranks for various not-to-be-named winning national road race teams and we’re sworn to secrecy. I’d also sent out my cylinder heads to our favorite head shop “Edco” in Petaluma for the usual fabulous job by Mike, Jenny and crew – clean-up of the ports, and radius and blending of the valve seats. With all new crankcase bearings, a brace of new valves and fresh pistons on hand, I was ready for a pleasant few evenings rebuilding the engine with Todd, super-tech at Munroe. Todd, it must be said, cut his teeth as an R&D engineer at Victory motorcycles, building and testing frame and other chassis hardware – I felt privileged to be working alongside a person of his talent and experience. We assembled the engine, installed it back in the chassis, and she was running again on Saturday evening April 17th.
I went to Infineon on Monday 19th for a shakedown track day hosted by our friends from Pacific Track Time. The day dawned cloudy and cool – not ideal conditions for Sears Point because when the tarmac’s cold, the traction drops considerably, and the rear tire tears up badly due to the temperature differential. But no matter, seeing as it had been over 5 months since I rode on a track, I sorely needed some seat time to knock the rust off my mental pathways and reactivate my muscle memories. I also had the new engine to break-in, so I limited my use of rpm and degree of throttle opening during the morning sessions.
The clouds cleared off about 11am and the sun started warming the place up. The engine seemed to be running well, so in the afternoon I started to rev the thing up to 10grand, about as high as I normally take it. I left my onboard lap timer off as I didn’t want to be disappointed with my lack of performance at this stage, but judging by other racer’s times, I was running around 1:52 – about 8 seconds off my personal best at Infineon. I counseled myself that it might take a while to return to that former level… if I ever do.
My tricky-nicky plan for the race weekend started on Friday 23rd with a laid-back schedule to ease myself into the mental challenges of the weekend. I got up at my normal time, dealt with some work chores for a coupla hours, loaded the truck, and drove to the track at lunchtime for a half-day track day – this time hosted by Keigwins. The afternoon was bright and warm, and I focused my efforts on correct body position at corner exits, keeping my shoulders low to the inside as I picked the bike up and rolled open the throttle. It does feel odd accelerating hard off corners with your head sideways a scant few feet from the ground – especially off the fast Carousel turn 6, probably the most important corner exit at Infineon.
The goal of practice is to identify and memorize key points and markers on the track, and to program your body to make the correct movements, all through repetition and iteration… so that when you race, you stop thinking about the minutiae of what you’re doing, and get into the “flow” of racing. Some people call it “the zone”, and I’ll try to put it into words… you’re concentrating so hard on your competitors and the track ahead of you, that your hind brain runs your body using your “muscle memory”, thereby freeing your frontal lobes to work on strategy – adjusting your lines and braking, turn-in and throttle-on points – in order to pass those people and win. You have to relax into it and trust your body – and when you get it right, it feels great and you typically run your best lap times. Conversely, if something’s wrong with you or the bike and you’re not feeling it, you’ve got to back off a hair so you don’t crash from trying too hard, referred to as “over-thinking” or “over-riding”.
The beauty of arriving on Friday and setting up the pit and practicing for the half day, is that it takes the pressure off Saturday morning by giving you time to plan your various strategies. The most critical item is to have good tires to practice on and fresh ones to race on, because they’re so expensive – over $500 for a set of choice Dunlops. You have to believe in your tires to have the confidence to push hard and improve, otherwise you’re just riding around trying not to crash on crappy tires – which is the wrong mental programming.
On Saturday morning it felt like I was starting to piece it together again, and I dipped into the 1:48’s just before lunch. I fitted some new front brake pads, put on a fresh set of race tires to scrub in after lunch, and started looking forward to my Saturday afternoon Formula 40 race. This year they’ve split F40 into three classes because there are so many old farts in the AFM now – light, medium and heavyweight – and curiously my 999 qualifies for middleweight class because heavyweight is for 1000cc 4-bangers and 1200 twins. Fine with me: I’ll go beat-up on a bunch of 600’s and 750’s instead of getting duffed up by Ron Bunten and his170hp Suzuki 1000, Pat Blackburn on his Ducati 1098R, and Tom Montano on a 1198S Ducati.
We gridded up for the F40 race at around 4:45pm. I was on P15, back on the fourth row, as I had no points from the first round that I didn’t go to. No matter, I visualized my route through two rows of riders in front of me, planning on getting a good start from my freshened-up Ducati. The green flag dropped, I punched the bike forward, but as I went past the rider on the row in front of me, my friend Craig Grantham, he swerved slightly to his left and I hit his left handlebar with my hip. I raced through the first few corners in a daze of riders left and right, as I was shocked by hitting Craig – I was hoping to hell I hadn’t knocked him down, which is super-dangerous during a race start. But there were no red flags showing anywhere, and when we came around to start the second lap, the track was clear and I knew he’d survived.
I quickly replayed my mental film of the first lap and figured I had made my way through to about 7th place. I set about attacking the guys in front of me, and as I closed down on them, I realized I was having a great time – the bike was working well, Craig was alive, and I felt wonderful. I disposed of one guy pretty quickly, but wasn’t making much ground on the next rider, David Ben-Jamin. I then started to hear a bike behind me through some of the corners. I held the guy off for a coupla laps, but as I come up to the braking markers for turn 7, he drifted past me and took my place away. He was running just a little quicker than I was, but I stayed steady at my pace because I wanted to finish in one piece so I could race again on Sunday. He passed David in front of me, and as we came around to start the last lap I could see David starting to relax a little – a sure sign of opportunity – and I tried hard to close up behind him through the next few corners. Finally, as we headed down the hill to the turn 9 chicane, I dived up on his inside, waited half a heartbeat longer than he did to start braking, and slammed the anchors on as hard as I could. The back end of my bike came up in the air, I eased the brake pressure off a hair and set her down just in time to turn in at the apex of the corner in front of David – making a “block pass” and forcing him to back off and follow me through. I made no mistakes driving off the exit of 9A, accelerating through fast turn 10, braking into the hairpin turn 11, and I piled on the gas up to the checkered flag to take sixth place. I looked at the results later on and found my lap times were in the 49’s, along with the four guys in front of me, and only the race winner had gone quicker. Next time in F40 Middleweight I plan to get on the box!
The race schedule for Sunday was ideal for me – I was entered in 750 Superbike, race two, to use as a warm-up, and then my all-important Open Twins race was race four – I’d be done by lunchtime, yea! There’s one practice session early on Sunday morning, and I usually don’t try very hard because the track’s cold and it’s a really lame time to crash – trust me on that one – but the sky was clear and the sun was warming, so I had a pretty fun session with a good condition practice tire on the back. I came in, swapped rear wheels to put my “B” race wheel and tire on, gassed up, and started to visualize starting 750SB from the 26th spot on row seven of the grid – it’s a very popular class with over 50 riders on the grid.
We took our warm-up lap and gridded up for 750SB. The starts are really the most exciting time – my heart’s pounding away as I watch the board. The starter changes the board from 2 to 1 and I click first gear and rev the engine, the starter slowly rotates the 1 board sideways, my engine strains against the front brake, and.…GREEN FLAG …I dump the front brake, open the throttle fully and feed the clutch in as aggressively as possible.
My trusty Duke takes me past the row in front of me, but I’m on the inside of the turn one kink against the wall and I get squeezed by a coupla guys on my right. I cut through a gap toward the inside of turn two, and pass a few folk entering the tight turn. It’s madness and I love it. I follow a gaggle of riders towards turn three, one guy passes me on the left with a better drive out of two, but I dive into turn three on the outside, and as we swing up to 3A, I’m now on their inside and I pass a couple more. I spend the next lap or two working hard to get past slower riders, and as the race settles in, I’m up amongst better racers and the running gets pretty even. A coupla laps before the end I start getting a little pooped and thinking about conserving energy for the Twins race. I briefly consider coming in but decide that’s weak, and so I stay steady and finish the race. I’ve had a great time, and back in the pits I figure I got maybe 10th if I’m lucky – it turns out to be 13th, but not bad for starting 26th in a tough class on my first weekend back.
But, with maybe 15 minutes before the Twins race, there’s no time to relax. I change rear wheels again to mount my “A” rim fitted with a bitchin’ soft compound racing slick that I bought new yesterday, and ran for two laps in practice to scrub-in ready for this race. My pit-buddy and fellow Ducati racer, Bill Brown, gives me some go-faster race gas to top up my tank, I sit down, drink some water, and calm my mind – a pre-requisite for entry to “the zone”. The race start gets announced and we head down for the warm-up lap. Just like F40, I’m gridded in 14th place on the fourth row, with the same plan in mind for the start. The green flag drops, and this time there are no issues as I pass through the row in front of me. I drive hard up the hill, go through turn two on the inside of a coupla guys, and as the racers ahead of me file through the dip of turn 3 and up toward 3A, I count only 6 or 7 riders in front of me – alright! Rolling through turn 4, I can see Gogo Gulbransen and Tiger Steve Metz just a couple places in front of me. All these guys ride well, and for a few corners I sit on the tail of a group of three, as the front few riders slowly get away. After a moment I realize the racer directly in front of me is Jason Butler on Pat Blackburn’s Ducati 999R, with Tiger Steve on his new Ducati 1198S in front of Jason, and Pat on his Ducati 1098R right in front of Steve. I’m riding right behind Jason – he’s faster in a couple of spots than I am, but slower through the slow corners. I pass him on the brakes on the inside into turn seven on lap three, but run a little wide and he neatly repasses underneath me before the second apex of the turn. I follow him around and through the crossed flags at start-finish indicating halfway, but I’m right up his rear end going into turn two. It looks like Steve is holding him up a little as we go through turn 3, so I’m hoping I’ll be able to pass Steve as well. As we head up toward turn seven, there are a couple of backmarkers in front of us. Jason and Steve go to their outside as we arrive at the braking markers, but I take a line up the inside and pass all four guys on the brakes. I use a blocking line between the double apexes of the corner, and drive out as hard as possible to lead them through the chicane and down to turn nine. That maneuver puts me right behind Pat Blackburn, and, as I follow him through the next few corners, I see that Pat’s not riding like his usual punchy self. I show him a wheel a couple of times expecting him to take off, but he doesn’t respond, and I take an opportunity to pass him on the inside under braking into turn nine. As I come round past start-finish and through turn 1, I have clear track in front of me, so I concentrate on hitting my marks, riding smooth and fast and not making mistakes.
I come up on more backmarkers from the Open Production class, which started in the same race as a separate wave 20 seconds before we did. I do my best to pass them whenever possible to try and “scrub” Pat, Steve and Jason off my back, even though I don’t really hear them behind me. On the last lap, I backed it down half a hair so as not to do anything stupid, my tires thankfully continue to grip just fine as I round the hairpin turn 11 for the last time, and I drive across the finish line to take 5th place.
Turns out that Gogo got fourth, “The King” Tom Montano was third, Chris Siglin second, and James Randloph won on his KTM 1200. To me, it felt like exalted company, and I was super-happy with the race. I later spoke with Pat and he described having trouble with his right wrist, I also heard that Tiger Steve had “no clutch”, and I know Jason was still getting used to the 999R – so it’ll be harder to beat any of them next time, but I’ll worry about that then, and enjoy my good result now. Oh yes, I dropped into the low 1:46’s during the race – just shows what you can do when you’re having fun …in the zone.
My personal thanks to: Linda from Jungls Catering; maestro Todd Chamberlin and the crew at Munroe Motors; Dave, Jim and Nikki from Catalyst Reaction Suspension; Terry, Wes and Mike at Sport Tire Services; race guru James Siddall; and my pit buddies Bill Brown and Scott Miles
