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Between Rounds 5 and 6
Downtime? What's that? Had a crazy week (and month for that matter) leading up to the race weekend, so I was racing against time to fix the crash damage. I bought used woodcraft rearsets for a decent price (GP shift!), and somewhat repaired and painted my second set of fairings. One thing that sucks is that the lower is rubbing the front wheel, so that will need to be fixed before any racing is done. Also bought my own transponder (Thanks JRide!) so I don't need to rent anymore.
Missy and I were actually able to leave at a decent hour this time and arrived around 10, 10:30ish. We set up camp and said hi to some friends before getting to bed.
Saturday 9/12
Got up early to fix my fairings, put numbers on the newly painted upper fairing, and replace my lost engine case slider. Turns out Miles from Street & Comp was at NJMP for the AMA races so I figured I was SOL for numbers. I ended up borrowing some red duct tape from Kurtz, but ended up using Kyle's red electrical tape instead, because it would leave less of a mess on the fairing. Thank you both for helping me out, and thanks to Kurtz and MTAG for quickly getting me the slider for my Woodcraft engine case covers. My dumbass forgot to threadlock them 3-4 years ago when I installed them. Must have been coming loose all this time, and my tumble(s) last round finally did it in I guess. Lastly was the lower rubbing against the front wheel. I had thought using my "backup" upper fairing would match better with the lower I was using (because they're a set), but no, its still hitting the front wheel. Some trickery with zip ties allowed me to attach it a bit further back, keeping it out of the way.
After getting everything together. I ran over to tech. Passed just fine, but they did mention that they had Mile's bike numbers on hand because of his absence. Sweet!
Practice was good. I shook off the various cobwebs that formed the last few weeks and felt pretty good. Using rearsets and GP Shift for the first time was interesting, and eye opening. I spooked myself pretty good in T3 when I though I was lowsiding, when in fact I just did a quick tip in with my knee hitting the deck immediately. That happens all the time for me in left turns, but not right turns. I guess rearsets really do make a difference for body position and geometry. Consistent low 30's was good enough for me. One thing I was noticing was that I was still coming into T3 way faster than I was comfortable with. Like my brakes weren't working or something, yet in T1 they stuck like hell. After practice I ran over to tech to buy some proper numbers and slapped those on. I was ready to race! I had a quick chat with Michael Weyant about braking in T3 and it basically boiled down to "brake harder you pussy". So I decided to work on this in my first race.
Race 6 - NOV Formula 1
Gridded 3B. I notice that 2B is not present, so I'm thinking, that's where I want to go, but, I want to go to the outside, so at the last minute I opt to go between 1B and 1C instead. I get a great launch, but the rider in 1B bogs so I immediately go to his right and shoot by him. Unfortunately I forgot to shift, doh! By the time I bang a shift into 2nd, everyone goes by and I end up going into T1 like... 12th or something. I stayed there for most of the race until I started to get tired (and bored, with no one else around), so I opted to start working on lines and where I need to be. I tried braking harder in T3 and hey, look at that, I could slow down 10x more than I was just by using the brakes more (duhhhh! Thanks Mike!). Now that I know I can slow down more there, I can gradually increase my speed going into that turn in hopes of passing people there. One of my goals for this race was to be fast enough to not get passed by any of the Formula 3 riders from the second wave. Only one snuck by me, so not totally successful, but that's enough for me.
19th of 21
Outlap: 1:38.829
Best lap: 1:30.185
Race 10 - NOV Formula 2
Gridded 4C. Another great start. This time I was 5th place going into T1 and I even stuck with the front runners for about 2 laps. One crazy thing was how many of us stuck together (probably 10-15 people) for those first two laps. Definitely some of my closest racing to date. So fun! After everyone else checked out I was riding by myself for half the race until a few of the guys behind me caught up and I latched onto them. I could also hear an SV650 up my ass and the rider even showed me a wheel in T10. So I picked up the pace thinking #772 Mike Randi had finally caught up to me. Turns out it was #860, and he almost got me again coming out of T12, but having the faster bike I beat him to the finish line. This race was definitely one of my most fun to date. And that last lap was faster than most of my others all year, although still not as fast as my first full Rookie Race lap of 1.26.816.
18th of 27
Outlap: 1:32.603
Best lap: 1:28.915
Saturday Night
Left immediately after my race to grab food. Got a pizza from Brookside (hell yeah!) chowed down, watched the award ceremony, and then went to socialize with everyone at the Center garages. For some reason I had a wicked headache and was immediately very tired so I went to sleep around 7:30PM. Got up around 10PM to pack most of my crap into my truck cab because it was supposed to rain overnight and went back to bed.
Sunday 8/16
Rain, rain, and more rain. Then some really annoying mist.
I've never ridden on a track in the rain before, nor on rain tires. This was going to be an interesting day.
Couldn't make up my mind about what tires to use until it was down to the wire. MTAG and Mike Kurtz came through just in time mounting my rains on my spare rims, which I should have done rounds ago. Thank you Mo for letting me borrow those! Mo and Kyle went to work swapping the spare wheels onto the bike, just in time for me to get into my gear and get out there.
Before heading out to the track, I decided to try a start from hot pit having never done one in the wet before. I revved up to my usual 13-14k and gradually let the clutch out until the tire caught. What I didn't expect is that it was immediately going to spool up. I ended up sending the rear end sideways and bouncing the rev limiter. I don't know how I saved it, but the bike finally caught up and went straight. Pants check #1. Felt rear tire slide pretty much everywhere, but it was manageable, and helpful to feel what I could and could not do. Coming out of T12 I spun the rear pretty bad and almost high sided, but again, caught it just in time and moved on. Pants check #2. #809 Pedro Gondres passed me on the straight so I decided to latch onto him and see what he was doing and where he was going. He's a lot faster and smoother than I am for sure and even just in T1 and T1a he got away from me. Coming through T2 I remembered what everyone was saying about the pavement patch being slippery and to stay wide there, so just like the last lap, that's what I did, but this time I forgot about the paint strip. I got on the gas too early and the second I hit that paint strip I was on the ground, my bike sliding down track. I rolled over to see if anyone was coming through T2. The coast was clear, so I got up, gave the corner workers a thumbs up, picked up my bike, quickly checked to see if it was rideable (good to go!), and rode back to the pits to assess the damage more closely.
Once I was back in the pits I realized that the bike-specific "perch" or "connector" or whatever you want to call it was broken. The lever was fine, scratched to hell, but fine. Luckily I bought my levers from our very own 434 Products' Mike Weyant. Nothing better than having an on site vendor with quality parts. He had my level swapped over in about 4-5 minutes and I was good to go. If you need new or replacement levers, he's the guy to go to seriously. Go see him at the RSP/Pirelli garage during race weekends, or go to his site here: http://www.434racer.com/Products.html. Other than the lever, my fairings were a bit tweaked, and my left side peg was ground down a bit, but not enough to warrant an immediate replacement. I also found that, again, I did not reduce the tire pressure after getting tires swapped. They were at 40/40 cold. Such a stupid mistake and I maybe (big maybe) wouldn't have crashed had I checked my pressures before heading out.
Race 3 - NOV Rookie 2
Gridded 6B, second wave. This time I decided to rev to 9-10k for the launch. That proved the perfect RPM because I again shot straight through the two rows in front of me and ended up 4th into T1. Having the proper pressures and being much smoother made a huge difference. I held on to 4th for a few laps before being passed by a few of the SV650 riders. Those guys are quick! After the race was over Missy was telling me how I had a huge train behind me because everyone was afraid to pass outside of the race line, which was dry, while the rest of the track was very wet. I guess that's one way to hold them off. Haha. I ended up in 7th, which is my first top 10 finish.
7th of 11
Outlap: 1:48.944
Best lap: 1:39.204
I didn't really have any goals for this weekend other than to get used to the new rearsets and GP Shift, which came pretty quickly. I'm fairly happy with my times, and mostly the consistency, but I'd have liked some faster times overall. That will come with more seat time and exercise.
Thanks to Michael W, Kyle, Mo, and Mike K for all the help and advice this weekend. Thanks to chainwheelmoto for the awesome photos as usual. Huge thanks to the corner marshalls and track crew. I know they had a busy weekend, and we all appreciate that. And lastly, thanks to Missy for helping me out in the pits, making sure I'm drinking enough water, and listening to me ramble on about track times and how awesome of a time I'm having.
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Originally Posted by Jason P.
