Race Report: July 6-7, 2002
Find all of the weekends race results at the LRRS web site here.
Friday - 07/05/2002
Saturday - 07/06/2002
Race #6: GP Singles - 6/7 entries (7 points)
Sunday - 07/07/2002
Race #5: GTL - 17/26 entries (0 points)
Next race weekend, GP singles and GTL again!!
I got to the track around noon on Friday and spent an hour or so checking over the mechanical condition of the 125. Due to some new pavement for
NASCAR, turn 12 had temporarily been replaced with a funky double chi cane for the weekend. I spent most of the practice session watching the fast
expert's line through the new corner in preparation for the weekend.
The first Saturday of my race season with no rain. I am psyched!!! Practice goes well, and I am getting more and more comfortable riding the TZ. I spend the second practice session working on body position and trying to keep and extra gear going into turn one.
I have not yet been able to figure out the new turn 12 to my liking, but I am psyched for the race. I get a terrible start and spend most of the race by myself until the experts lap me. I spend the race working on my lines and trying to catch the rider in front of me.
Sunday is slightly over cast, but a beautiful day. After speaking with Joe Melchionda (thanks for the tips!!), I decide to try a slightly different line through turn 9 and to try and carry a lot more speed through the turn (down shifting only once). After 2 practice sessions I feel I am getting the hang of it and definitely feel quicker on the track. I am looking forward to my GT race.
I once again get swallowed up on the start and am dead last into turn 1. I will be taking advantage of the new starting practice to try and better perfect my starting technique. I spend most of the race on my own, occasionally passing riders as I catch up to them. This is the best I have felt on the TZ all season. I am getting comfortable on the bike and starting to be able to relax more - the small size of the motorcycle has taken some getting used to. I am hitting turn 9 and 10 much better than previously and my best lap times drop almost 2.5 seconds from Sat.. I am feeling good and know several more places on the track I can pick up more speed. I am looking forward to the next race weekend in July!!!!!
Another great weekend of racing, and another round fought with the fuel starvation gremlins. At this point it's gremlins 3, Nils 1, although I think I may have finally tracked down and fixed the problem with the help of one of my classmates', and Dana Temple of the EX mafia in the North Garages.
Thursday - 7/4/2002
Friday - 7/5/2002
Saturday - 7/6/2002
Sunday - 7/7/2002
Race #6a: Production Twins 6/14 entries (7 points)
Back in the garage Joe Endris comes by wondering what's up with my bike. I describe my travails with the problem, he suggests it's the vent in the fuel cap. Joe Sileo and I take it off and run over to hunt down Steve Leslie, who is rumored to know The Solution. Steve is somewhere packing up an injured competitor's kit, so Dana Temple fills me in on how to gut the cap of the rubber diaphragm that may be the culprit. I hustle back to the garage and gut the diaphragm and drill out the pinhole vent. We put it back together and fire it up and of course it runs great. Now it's time for Middleweight Sportsman, and race 9a, for the first time this season.
Race #9a: Middleweight Sportsman 10/17 entries (3 points)
Summary? The good news is I am once again hopeful that I've solved the fuel starvation issue, but with only 6 laps run, I'm still not 100% sure. I felt like I was faster through most of the track, but the lap times did not agree-I was a tad slower than last time out, although it is possible that the temporary chicane in T12 is to blame, as I didn't do very well there. I'm still slower in T3 than I was before crashing there, and I've got to get past that. My legs feel stronger and my fast transitions and body positioning is definitely much better and I even I touched a knee two or three times, a first for me. So there was progress in some areas. My competitors are getting faster though, so I'd better or I'm not going to see the podium this year after all. I feel plateaued the way I'm going about it now. More work, more practice, and solid preparation are needed.
Thanks to the team and our great sponsors and all of my friends and competitors at the LRRS. It was a great weekend overall, and I look forward to the next event on 7/27. Come see us race!
I drove up to the track in the early afternoon and unpacked and setup. It was an even 100 degrees in the shade when I arrived at NHIS and a crowd of diehards were practicing in the heat. I'm hoping to ride for an hour or so, but first I have to test the bike and see how the repairs completed last race weekend are working. I had replaced the fuel filter with a larger unit (which was a real PITA), but it was late Sunday night and I never did get to run it. I fired up the bike and it ran like crap, won't rev. I peek in and there's just too much floppy fuel line and tings are too cramped to work right. I take off the tank, battery, carbs, airbox, and ditch the fuel filter altogether, and replace the floppy fuel line with some stiff urethane hose that Scott gave me. I put it all back together, fired it up and went for a ride out behind the track, as it was too late to get into practice. It ran great for the short ride, and I was hopeful that I'd finally got it licked. As it turned out, I didn't. I unpacked and setup my stuff and headed for home and fireworks. Independence Day. Happy Birthday America!
I went to work for a few hours, went to the beach and had dinner with my girl friend Inger and her lovely daughter Sonja, and it was great. Whoops, this is a race report, never mind :-).
I decide to skip LWSP in favor of a day off, and do not go to the track. I'm planning on two races for Sunday, including Middleweight Sportsman =^0.
I get up, get an Eggamuffin, drive up, get dressed and make it out for my first practice. I'm glacially slow, feeling tentative and unsmooth. Early on I slide the bike in 3, 10, and then 11a. What is this? I pull off to the pits and check the tires for spooge or oil. They're clean. Am I pushing too hard on cold tires? I go out more slowly, do two easy smooth laps, dial it up some more and then it feels fine. Finally I get it up to speed near the end and feel better. That's what practice is for, right? Happy note: Steve Murphy is here and practicing hard-hard enough to crash in T1 and get up not much worse for wear and tear. We say hi, he seems fine. That's great. Second practice is better, but near the end I think I feel the bike starting to starve again, very slightly. WTF!!! I check everything, find nothing and decide to run it as is and see if I imagined it after all. I'm distracted and annoyed at the bike. I get it on the stands, give it a good going-over, and hang out in the garage with Dane and Paul and Jim. # 286 Scott Alkinburgh gives me a key tip on hotwiring my radiator fan to reduce the overheating I've been experiencing and Paul shows me how to do it. Joe and Inger and Elisa and Sonja come up in time for Race 6A and immediately see that I'm nerved up. Finally, it's time to race.
Gridded on the pole, I'm determined not to blow the start again. I launch OK, go into T3 in 4th place, with the usual suspects Murf, Endris and Baldwin in front. I start slowly, and get gapped immediately. On the second lap, going into T3, who should go flying by me on the inside but my new friend Steve Murphy. For a guy who was track-napping after the last time we went through here together he's flying and riding hard. I hang on to his wheel for a bit but soon he's gapping me too and I'm riding alone in 5th for the next three laps. Pretty soon I see Steve is getting caught behind some slower experts and I'm gaining ground. I put my head down and caught up some more, and lo and behold, who should show up but my old nemesis Mr. Fuel Starvation. Going down the straight on the gas hard is when it first shows up and at first it's bucking so bad I'm afraid my bike is seizing or something. Going into T1 at a relatively sedate 80 or so it shuts off again and upsets the chassis so much that I push the front end at the apex and scare the shit out of myself. I recover, miss the downshift, bog it around T2 and start to wonder about who's about to run me down from behind the next time I inadvertently drop anchor in some random spot on the track. I seriously consider pulling off but look behind instead-I've still got a big gap to 6th, so I do some mental calculations and figure I can just hold whoever it is off till the finish. Going over the hill in 4-5 I see the front pack of Experts rounding T2. Getting lapped would suck, but the bike's running worse and worse and there's nothing I can do that I'm not doing. I make it another lap and then get passed up the hill in 7. &%^#*! I manage to just make it across the finish line before I get lapped, but my bike is now running so badly I don't even bother finishing the cool-down lap. I am not happy.
I've got pole position again, and make my way out to pregrid amidst Ducati 750s and Aprilia 250s and built Honda Hawks. There are a few Ptwins bikes out here too, but I have a feeling I'm going to be getting passed. Little did I know. I'm determined to either smoke the start or blow over backwards trying. 3, 2, 1, twitch, ZING! I get a great launch. I'm neck and neck at the front with two bikes all the way into third gear and feeling fine about it when suddenly VROOM! VROOM! VROOM! VROOM! VROOM! VROOM! VROOM! VROOM! VROOM!, damn near half the bikes on the grid blew by me like I was parked. Uh oh. This is even worse than I thought. We go through 1, 1a, 2 and by the time we get to the T3 chute I'm near the tail of the pack. I am hopelessly overmatched in chassis and horsepower, and it is humbling indeed. I ride as hard as I can, certainly not getting held up, hoping to not get lapped. The lap times show I was doing about the same as my best in LWSP and Ptwins but it's futile. A red flag on Lap 6 puts up back to the end of lap 5 and the race is mercifully over with me in 10th place. To paraphrase Sean Connery in the movie The Untouchables, there's no use bringing a knife to a gunfight, so I think I'll reconsider my pre-entries in this class for the season.
Ok, this is likely to be a short report, as I am writing it over a week after the race weekend. Right after the races, I spent the next Tuesday and Wednesday up at the track instructing for two different track days, then on Thursday I flew out to California to check out the WSB races at Laguna Seca! I'm still in Cali, but just now having some downtime, and able to catch up a bit! So I'm using that time now to update!
Friday - 07/05/2002
Saturday - 07/06/2002
The second practice went about as well as the first. I was starting to get a groove and find my way through the new chicane. I was running on the same tires that I ran the 200 mile race on, so I was a little worried about them, but through both practices the tires held strong, not a single slip. So I figured I was good for the race.
Race #1: GTU - 8/17 entries (5 points)
I cut the afternoon short and packed up shortly after my race, and hit the road to head home for a BBQ. After the BBQ I debated if I wanted to head back up to the track that night or first thing in the am. I decided that I didn't really want to get up a o god thirty, so I loaded the XX up on the trailer and made my way back up to the track, arriving around 11pm. Unloaded, and went to bed.
Sunday - 07/07/2002
The second practice I concentrated on scrubbing in the tires and working on my lines, determined to get a better start and finish in my one race this day.
Race #2: MWGP - 13/19 entries (0 points)
Spent the rest of the day cornerworking. Packed up and moved all my stuff up to the lower garages for the track day the following Tuesday, then made my way home.
Spent Tuesday at the SRNE track day and then Wednesday running the Team Lady Luck track day. Then on Thursday I flew out to California for World Superbike! Life is good. :-)
So, for the first time this year I did not make it up for the Penguin Roadracing School as usual. I had just got back from a 11 day tour of the Appalachians on the XX, and between that, and my recent trip to the UK, I was beat and just did not get my ass in gear to get up to the tack for Friday. Oh Well. I managed to get all packed up and arrived at the track around 10:30pm. I said hi to Dane and Scott who were just returning from dinner, even though they made some derogatory statement about my late arrival, and set up.
Went out for the first practice of the weekend. The bike felt good and I was just taking the practice to get used to the new turn 12 chicane that had been set up temporarily to keep the motorcycles off the new NASCAGE pavement in the oval. They put in a double chicane, really slowing down the bikes, and totally unlike the old turn 12.
Race time. For the first time this year I actually clued in and pre-entered, so I was gridded on the outside of row 3! A great place to start the race from. But, as usual, even though I got an ok start, by turn 3 I was back to mid pack. I need to learn not to be quite so courteous. One of the bikes to get by me in turn 3 was #59, Pete D. Now, I know Pete, I've been racing with him for several years, and we are about on par with each other. But this was his first race weekend of the year, and on a new bike to boot, so he wasn't quite up to snuff yet. As a result, I found myself stuck behind him for several laps. he was holding me up just about everywhere, but there was no where that I could make a nice "clean" pass. You see, I didn;t want to stuff him anywhere. That was my downfall. When I finally did manage to get around him, the rest of the pack had checked out, so i found myself all alone with no one to race. Looking at the results later, I saw that I was rapidly catching 7th place, so I need to really work on getting better starts and work on my passing.
Another beautiful morning. Went out for my first practice, and but his time the tires had gone away. I had just asked too much out of them. After slipping and sliding around for a few laps, I pulled in and yanked the wheels off, and ran them over to Street and Comp for some new rubber.
Once again I found myself on the outside of row 3. I needed to get a good start, since this was only a sprint race, so it was a make it or break it scenario. I got a good start and made my way through turns 1 and 1A, but lost ground in 2 and 3, getting repassed by several bikes. I put my head down and rode for all I was worth, but I just couldn't get things to click. Even though I ran my fastest time of the year, I still finished mid-pack.
Did not race this weekend.