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thursday:
arrive at the track at 6am-ish. wait very impatiently till 6:50 when we're let it (were supposed to be let it at 6:30)
unload 11 racebikes into our 2 garages. gino, rick, ryan, daniel and david prep for the team hammer trackday. chris and i opted-out so we relax a little. i install the tallest gearing i have for the hawk (17/42) and hope it's enough
friday:
arrive at the track early, throw the warmers on and get ready for my first crack at daytona. at first call for my practice the butterflies in my stomach are more like pterodactyls. i don't think i've ever been this nervous before a practice... strap my helmet on. at second call i roll out onto the grid - chris warned me that you don't get many laps so i'm making sure i miss no track-time. i figure i've got to catchup since there was a ton of people in the team hammer day...
pull out onto pit-lane and sit for a few minutes before they let us go. i end up following a 125 for the first session. carve through the infield, around the 2 horseshoes, bang a few downshifts throw it left and head towards the banking for the first time. looking down the track it looks like there's a f-ing wall a short ways out, what the hell have i gotten myself into???greenwood told ryan to just pin it and point the bike at the wall so i do that. riding around the banking feels like your in a fishbowl. all you can see is the pavement in front of you no matter how much to crane your neck back. looking at the infield the ground looks perpendicular to you. it's nuts. the hawk is already topping out, hitting rev-limiter on the banking with my tallest gearing on it - this isn't a good sign. i follow the 125 for the rest of the session learning the track... luckily chris was right, there isn't a lot to learn here: really just turn 1 and the horseshoes (turn 1 is really deceptive)
first session best laptime: 2:32
head out for second session, follow some big ducati-looking bike out and around. start to push brake markers back and figure out turn-in points... there are _no_ f-ing reference points around this place, wtf? get quite a bit more comfortable with the overall speed of the place by the end of the session. topping out even worse this session, i've taken to rolling 1/8 off-throttle on the banking to avoid rev-limiter
second session best laptime: 2:20
no more practices today, put the hawk to bed.
saturday:
only 1 practice session so try to make the most of it. continue to work on my brake markers and turn-in points. i find myself charging the corners which is really frustrating.
best laptime: 2:18
sunday:
practice: make a conscious effort to slow things down and not charge the corners. start finding turn-ins better and things are starting to work. overall fast lap slows a bit which is a little disappointing, but i was just looking to string things together so it's not all bad
best laptime: 2:19
race:
...HOLY F i'm about to race daytona!!! ...damn butterflies are at it again. get geared up and roll out to hot pit the second i hear 3rd call. sit there for a while right behind gino waiting for the warmup lap. ride the warmup lap keeping an eye on gino a little to see if i can pick anything up. line up on pole for my race. as chris told me they launch AM and EX in the same wave for ULSB with 3 empty rows between the classes. weird.
there are only 4 of us in AM ULSB: me, some guy on a '78 triumph, rick on his ptwins ducati and some local on a bimota 800. i know the triumph and rick aren't an issue. the bimota was running slow in practice, but i feel like he was sandbagging. the bike should be at least as fast as me around this place. i figure i'll throw as many experts at him as i can and see where we are a few laps in.
green flag drops and i get a crappy launch. the cams come in in second gear and i pull away from the AM field. push out to the right of the track diving past experts. setup wide for turn 1, brake past a few more experts and bend it in. work through the infield and out onto the banking alone. there's a pack of experts about 150ft ahead. pull up behind them going into the chicane and draft past all but 1 going into 1. push past him in the little right-left kink before the international horseshoe. on the way by glance over - hey!! that's another HAWK! kickass! - put my head back down and run through the infield. head out onto the banking, through the chicane again and feel a backward pull as i near start-finish... wtf is that??? about 1/2 second later i see that hawk draft pass me. damn. nice move. suck him up into 1 and decide to watch him a bit through the infield. he's parking it in the turns, but holy shit that thing has motor! on the exit of the infield brake around the outside of him, end up almost on the outer rumble strips. throw it left. gas it early and still watch him easily pull away. i can't even stay in his draft... WOW. ok. i don't need to race him... and i would've just binned if i'd hit those rumble-strips while braking. hang back for the rest of the race and win easily.
exiting 1 after the checkers i look over and see gino entering the dogleg... i have to see how he did. take the rest of the infield relatively hot and catch him entering the first banking. look over at him. he gives me the #1 sign, i give him the #1 sign for my race. HOLY SHIT HAWKS JUST RULED ULSB IN DAYTONA!!!! we're going bananas on the rest of the cool-down lap. F-ING AWESOME.
best laptime: 2:13.6
the win was incredible, it went exactly as chris predicted and as i wanted it to: played with the experts all race and never saw an AM (their fastest laptime was almost 20seconds slower). having said that i think i'm happier with my fast laptime than i am with the win. here's why:
- it was 2.5 seconds off the fastest EX laptime, 7th fastest overall for any ULSB machine
- it happened on lap 4 well after i decided to take it easy
- i had 5 less mph than a properly-geared hawk would have and was without the benefit of the draft on that lap
- it happened without the 2 hours of tracktime from the team hammer school... just 4 little practice sessions
...AM ULSB Nat Champion is AWESOME, I can't understate that, but knowing that with the right gearing and similar amount of tracktime I could give the best EX ULSB racers an run for their $$ is priceless
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Originally Posted by Pookie
