Week #7: #143 Checks In

[Fitz]

Week #7
Having crashed out during Race 10 two weeks ago, I was determined to play it conservative this weekend in order to earn a few points. The bike was sporting new EBC HH brake pads (thanks Souhegan Valley Motorsports) and a second caliper on the front end; something which I had removed at the start of this season due to the lack of need for that much braking capacity. The 40 minute ride to the track was uneventful. Pulling into a parking spot just outside garage 22 the brake pedal went to the floor. Uh oh. Pump pump pump. No pressure. I throw her into park, hop out… and there’s a rapidly spreading puddle of fluid under the rig. Single chamber master cyclinder; extra capacity. Lovely. Guess she’s staying here. I spread down some speedy dry to quench the flow and unload into the garage.

I bedded in the pads, went over the bike and headed out for first practice to get my head in the game. Brakes feel solid although the additional lever travel is a bit unsettling. I ran a few low 1:26’s and came in to bleed the brakes. With no air evident, I went back out for the second and third practices. Times came down into the 1:24’s which is about a second off of my PB. I was braking early for T3, a little early for T6 and WAY EARLY for T1 due to the second caliper. Had to move my braking markers back a bit in those areas. I also tried not downshifting from 4th to 3rd coming into the bowl instead using 4th to carry me into T9 where I downshifted to 3rd as recommended by a few people on here. Bill Tansey was kind enough to critique my body position in 11-11a-12 as I ketp feeling that the front end was going to wash out on me. Turnes out I needed to be up off the seat a bit more in there as the combination of the bump in 11-11a and my FA on the seat was unsettling the suspension. Spent the evening coordinating a tow for the next night.

Saturday Practice was uneventful. Brakes felt good aside from the extra lever travel. Manually adjusting the lever position didn’t seem to give me the warm and fuzzy. Ran a few 1:25’s. I adjusted my brake marker in T3 and was suddenly bottoming out the front forks pretty hard right at the first cone. Spoke with Mike Martire and Todd Babcock and added a turn of preload and a bit of compression dampening. Seemed to help a bit but I was still maxing out the zip tie travel. No slamming of the suspension though. I’ve dropped almost 25 pounds since the season started so I must be using the binders a bit more confidently.
Race #10
Clusterfuck on pregrid. Not sure what happened but I started and shut off twice. Warm up lap felt really slow. Got to grid and… nothing. Appeared to be some confusion about how many waves there were…. And then they sent us around the track again through the T3/T10 split? Not sure what that was about. I gridded in 6c – front row. Bogged the start and 818 (Roger Barlow) went screaming by me on the inside. I actually looked down at my throttle and muttered something out loud to the effect of “is this thing even on?” Over braked for T1 and managed to enter in fourth. Flop for T1a and catch myself looking at my wife and two kids on the platform. Focus Damn it. Managed to work my way up to second place which is when things got interesting. 2nd lap I think one of the RSP guys (Brian Kelly maybe?) may have been attempting a late pass or maybe he got pushed wide; hell, maybe I tightened my line when I shouldn’t have, I’m not sure, but out of the corner of my left eye I saw this streak of black and orange come screaming up the inside. We didn’t touch but it must have been close as Nicole grabbed our 8 year old daughter’s arm and yelled “oh shit” in the stands.  Guess she had some pucker action too.  Somewhere around the 4th lap while flopping left for T9, the rear tire of my bike decided it wanted to be in the front and it slid to the outside. While trying to convince the bike that it really didn’t want to go into this corner backwards, a slew of headshaking developed. Somehow I managed to get her under control, but not until Roger Barlow (831), Kevin Fogg (449) and one other person went by me. I reentered traffic tentatively feeling for a flat rear tire or something. I rolled back into it and was cautious going into T12. Sure enough, the rear tire stepped out on me again. WTF? I consciously brake early for T1, ease her in and the bike feels solid. I spent the next lap feeling things out. I didn’t find out until after the fact that a bit of cleanup occurred in T9 after our race. I must have picked up just a bit of some fluid onto my rear tire. With my pucker finally abating, I pursue the leaders with gusto and promptly overdrive her wide into T1…. And she sticks. Wow. Guess I can go through here much faster. Passed a few people and finished in third.
The class is definitely tight.

Name Number Cumulative Points
Kevin Fogg 449 109
Keith Draghi 769 105
Mark Fitzgerald 143 105
Brian Kelly 519 100
Roger Barlow 831 72

I need to look at my scores a bit closer. I think I’ll be able to tag 10 races by the end of the season and at some urging of friends, may try to bump to Amateur. What are your thoughts? I’m comfortable running 1:25’s and am a bit over my head running 1:23’s.

Thanks,
Fitz

[Fitz]

Scratch that last little tidbit. A total of 4 races completed for '09 with an average index of 0.514 (0.455, 0.600, 0.600 and 0.400). I'm probably good for 2-3 races the last weekend. Appears 10 races with an average index of 0.500 is the minimum requirement. Do lap times play into the decision making process? Would I be better off simply hanging out for another 3-4 weekends in Novice and see what happens?

Thanks!
Fitz

[lrrs699]

Lap times do play a part in it, you do however need the minimum 10 races period. I personally stayed novice for the first two weekends of this season to get my times down to be competative with the AM class.