 |
|||||||
|
|||||||
 2007 AFM Round 4: Thunderhill Raceway (Paul)Saturday, July 7th: Woke up stupid-early, loaded the gear, and headed off to the track with Gina. Luckily, Elaine had arrived Friday and managed to secure some pit space under the giant canopy for us. Hodaka had just sold his 125, and was in the middle of prepping his 750 to race, so didn't make this round. Practice was relatively uneventful; no close calls, but no real speed, either. I ran solid 2:04's all day, but couldn't manage to get any faster than that. It was getting hot, but unfortunately Sunday was going to be even warmer... After pratice, we headed back to the hotel, unloaded, cleaned up, and went down to the Maxwell Inn for dinner. I wasn't in much of a mood for driving more, but Sunday was Gina and my first wedding anniversary, and I figured I owed it to her not to have Subway or McDonald's for dinner. ;-) Dinner in Maxwell as excellent as always, and the homemade desserts were to die for. Sunday, July 8th: 600 SuperBike was race #3, and 600 Production was race #6 - I figured this was about the best possible schedule. The track would be warm by race #3, we'd get a break, and be in good shape for race #6. On top of it all, we could head home at a reasonable hour and meet up with our parents for anniversary cake. Unfortunately, things went south fairly quickly...
Once again, she got a rockin' start, and was leading into turn 1. She set up wide going in, which allowed Michael Aron to slide underneath at the apex. She hung on for half a lap, until Jeremiah got her in turn 7. Jim Eckerman then passed her in turn 8. By the end of the first lap, after a bit more dicing, things had pretty much settled down, and she held onto 6th. 600 SuperBike - Row 12, #51 The plan was to pick things up a bit this weekend, and be a bit more aggressive about placing higher up in the order. With that in mind, I was focused on getting a good start and passing as many people before turn one as possible. And, a good start is exactly what I got - until the two guys in front on me drifted toward each other, and closed the hole I was heading right toward. I had to come off the gas momentarily, and try to dive around to the left. This negated any advantage I had from the launch, which was very disappointing. Within a lap or so, however, a red flag was brought out. Back to the pits, and await the restart. I'd learned from the first start, so was going straight for the inside this time, rather than trying to thread the two riders in front. I could see Ginny about 3 rows up, and my goal was to be there quickly. On the green flag, the plan worked - I made up a slew of positions, and was two bikes behind Ginny by turn two. Things were looking good! Unfortunately, I got a front-row seat to seeing Ginny nearly run off the track in turn 8 - it definitely made me wince, as crashing there is never pretty. Fortunately, she hung on. Unfortunately, a few turns later, the race was red flagged. Again. This flag brought in a helicopter, though. Those two things got me feeling just a little bit more conservative. Rather than restart our race AGAIN, Barbara decided race 4 would run instead. It was unclear when we were going to resume - after race 4, at the end of the day, or something else? While sitting in the pits trying to figure out what was going to happen, there was a crash in turn 13, right in front of us. The rider was okay, and ran to the inside of the track. His bike slid down the back straight, and stopped a little before the bridge. As the second wave came through, however, one rider didn't see the bike in the middle of the track until too late, and nailed it at speed. It was really, really ugly, and this brought out another red flag - and brought in another helicopter. Both bikes were basically destroyed, and there was lots of cleanup that needed to happen. Barbara called for an early lunch, a restart of race #4, followed by race #3, then resuming with race #5. So much for that nice recovery period between races... That conservative feeling kicked in another notch. After lunch and the restarted race #4, we were up again, finally. I was hoping for another good start, but got held up on the way into turn 1. It wasn't as bad as the first start, but not nearly as good as the second. I picked off riders as I could, but never really got up to pace, and had a relatively uneventful race. I finished 29th, with a best lap of 2:04.3. I was just happy the race went the duration. 600 Production - Row 7, #29
Of course, this incident allowed a whole group of people to get by me. It was also the final nail in the coffin for my "racing mentality" mode - it was pure survival at this point. After a lap or two, I saw someone showing me a wheel on the backside of the track. Turns out it was Ginny. I knew she had the pace on me that weekend, so left her some extra room in the next few turns to get by, hoping to follow her and learn something. Unfortunately, I also let the rider behind her through. I couldn't get around him quickly enough to hang on to Ginny, who rode off into the distance. So, it was just comfortable laps after that, trying to bring it home in one piece. I finished 27th, which isn't very impressive given my grid position, but all things considered, I'll take it. Best lap time was 2:02.3, so dropping a couple of seconds from earlier in the day was a positive. I have to pick up the pace a bit, though - Ginny got down to 1:59's! Big congrats to her, as she's riding great! Weekend Wrapup: In a word: survival. Mission accomplished (barely). Next round is at Infineon again, and I have some work to do on the bike between now and then. More suspension tweaking, new brakes, etc. Looking forward to it! |
Elaine was in race #2, feeling a bit nervous. Things were looking good,
though, as she had found the source of the mechanicals that had been
plaguing her for the past several months - a small crack in the cylinder.
I hadn't been training nearly as much as I had earlier this year, and it
was showing. I was really tired, and the heat wasn't helping. All the same,
I was looking for a good start, and didn't have to worry about conserving
energy, since this was my last race. I got a pretty reasonable start again,
and was in the top 20 through turn 1. Between, turn 1 and turn 2, however,
a rider pulled a completely idiotic move. He was set up way outside to the
right, and I was about 1/4 width from the left. With my drive, I was set to
be past him in a second, and would easily get into turn 2 first. As I was
coming inside, he pulled radically from the far right to about my position,
sweeping clear across the track. I slammed on the brakes, and he must have
just missed my front tire by millimeters. I honestly can't believe we didn't
touch and both go down. What he was thinking, I have no idea. It's not like
he was taking a wide entry into turn 2, as I had time to brake hard, recover,
and then get turned in normally. I guess he just thought at some point that
he was maybe too far to the right, so should swing across the track and be a
little tighter. Like, RIGHT NOW.