Fast forward to the night before leaving for the season opener in 2011. I had yet to be back to buttonwillow since last year, my bike was torn apart, I have no brake system installed, I have to load the trailer. It was 4:30 am when I finally went to bed, only to wake up shortly thereafter to go to work, leave from work and get an incomplete bike to the track in order to race. I have been so busy with work and being a full time student, I have not even ridden my bike at full click since last September at a thunderhill trackday
- A complete and total lack of preparation -
Driving all night through a horrendous storm, the possibility of having weather even permitting a race was looking slim. Finally around 11:00pm my girlfriend and I arrive at the hotel, exhausted and ready for dinner and sleep. After 2 weeks of late nights and little sleep from school work, I had my doubts that getting up at 6am to go racing would provide me enough rest, and I was right.
We arrive at the track and begin to set up our pit area immediately, I have a lot to do on the bike and I am very doubtful I will be able to make practice in time. Realize that even when the bike was "finished", I have no idea if it is set-up right. I have no rotors ( front and rear), brake pads, and a new master cylinder. I still have to go bed in the pads so they can stop correctly, I have to get a feel for the new braking system, make sure the lever is situated correctly, and adjust the suspension for the new lighter rotors. Then I find out I have an electrical issue.
Then comes the rain...
The remaining practices were cancelled and my Saturday races were cancelled so that we can begin to run Sunday’s expert races, and try to fit in as many races as possible before the eminent storm. I really wanted to race in my clubman races on Saturday before jumping into the superbike and formula races. But the decision was the best solution for the club as a whole, and I commend the AFM leaders for making the decision, bravo!
600 Superbike
I head out for the warm up lap on this cold and crappy track (have I mentioned I hate buttonwillow) and my sleepy droopy eyes, along with my sluggish mental state suddenly changed. I flipped a switch and I went into race mode. When I got to my grid position I quickly analyzed two options - 1) try a new variation of my starts to hopefully get a better start (my starts on the Suzuki are not as good as on my Honda) or 2) concentrate on an ok start, knowing that I will lose some positions but not wheelie or stall ...
I chose option 2. Going into turn one I got swallowed up on the inside by some fast guys and I decide to try the outside route, unfortunately it didn't do too much. I end up back in around 28-30th position. I tuck in behind a few guys and begin to pick a few off here and there.
Going into turn one on the 2nd lap I hit a false neutral and quickly throw it into gear and get back on line. Right as I am doing this I see a front wheel peek in on the inside of me and I tense up a little hoping that this doesn't turn out bad. Thankfully, Conan Dooley #849 backed it off a hair and let us continue to race.
Unfortunately, what I perceived as me simply being "off" mentally from that mistake entering turn one, was actually me being a gear higher from the false neutral than I wanted to be for the remainder of the lap. This lead to a slightly slower lap and power out of turns, which Conan later took advantage of exiting riverside and into the lost hills corner. When he made this pass, he came in on the narrow line right as I was turning in, which made me have to sit it up and run a little wide. I needed to back off the throttle to avoid going in the mud and Conan took off; but only briefly.
The rest of the race I began to experience a lot of rear tire slide as I pushed to get back at Conan; I worked my way back up to right behind him by the second to last lap. Crossing the checkered line in to the final lap I was already aware of two spots I was going to make my move and beat Conan. But then we suddenly see the black and red flags come out. Coming out of turn one I see Micah Larson #979 pinned under his bike just off the track at the exit point. I have seen a few wrecks there, and they are never pretty. The race was stopped, the race was over ... and I was pretty happy with my results. I made some errors but I cut 2 seconds off my best buttonwillow time, despite the adverse conditions. The supermoto riding I did a few weeks back really helped me stay calm and under control when sliding the rear wheel.
Unfortunately, the red flag means that the results are based on the last fully completed lap, and that put me back down a couple positions to where I was the lap before, in 24th place out of 38 - 4th place of the novices.
750 superbike
This race, my goals were simple: finish, go faster, have fun.
I had a bad start and had a bad feeling leaving turn one. Sure enough, my gut was right. Just in front of me someone was going a little kamikaze into turn two and almost took out 4 people and was endoing hard into the apex, I was waiting for a big pile-up. No got hit, no one got hurt, but all of us around this incident were pulled back from the front pack quite a bit. I quickly found myself behind a familiar bike, the number 863 of Eric Hobbs. During last season he and I found quite a few times where we were back and forth. I know he is generally quicker than me at the tracks where his gsxr 750 pulls away from my 600 in the faster sections. So I figured I would try to stay with him one lap and see if there is a spot where I can get in front and hopefully try and break his will, so he doesn't power by me in riverside or the front straight.
During 2nd lap behind him I wound up in the long sweeper of riverside and went in deep and narrow into lost hills, ran a tight line into the hairpin to block any repass attempt by Eric, and tried to get the drive of my life out of the esses. Now I had my targets set of the group in front of me. Trying to give it all while still remaining calm and collected is a tough proposition.
In the closing laps I found myself pursuing Sam Richards #272 in the distance. I crept closer and closer in every turn but fell back in every long section. I knew it would take much better cornering and being earlier on the gas during an exit to be able to take him. I started to push a little hard and leaving the esses in the penultimate lap, a little reminder at the final turn showed up in my mind. It reminded me that I would rather go home with one less point by not passing Sam, then going home with zero from wrecking. I kept this in the back of my mind for the final lap and decided to only make a pass during the lap if the opportunity presented itself - otherwise I would give it one last dash in the final turn and try to carry more speed out of the exit. (Later, Greg Olson #911 had taken a spill in sunset turn and it solidified my earlier thought.)
A few times during the lap I was able to poke my front wheel on the inside of Sam, but didn't feel like risking a tight maneuver. Going into the hairpin I felt I was too close to get a good run out of the esses and would be held up, so I backed off. I took a line which allowed me to get on the gas earlier than Sam and have more actual speed going through the final turn. We both went barreling into the final turn, Sam exited slightly narrower than I, so I ran out the exit onto the curbing carrying everything I got. Chin down, elbows in, locked throttle, an all out run to the finish line. As we approach the finish line we both look over at each other, trying to evaluate who is going to win this. PHOTO FINISH ... I had no idea who finished ahead. It wasn't until later when the results came out did I see that I won my .014 of a second and dropped my best lap time by yet another second. I took 18th overall of 28, and 2nd place for the novices.
- Don't park in the mud at buttonwillow -
If it is ever raining ( or may rain ) at buttonwillow don't park in the dirt, soon to be mud. We made this error and come Sunday after it was announced that the remaining races were cancelled, we were stuck. The Civic and trailer were unable to back out of the spot we parked because the front tires (front wheel drive car) couldn't gain enough traction to make its way up the slight angle and out on the pavement. We decided to try and make a dash across the mud section to the other side hoping a downhill shot would work. We got moving and all was good, until we began to slip sideways and eventually became stuck in the mud. I have now officially taken a Honda civic muddin'. Thankfully, Rob Linders came around with his truck and threw me a tie down, which I hooked up to the car and he pulled us out (Thanks again Rob !). Being submerged in mud before trying to drive home makes for an interesting trek.
All in all it was a good weekend, and I am excited for a dry weekend at Infineon.
No comments:
Post a Comment