2008 WMRRA Round 2 Race Report

Hmm.. I’ve got a lot of work to do.

I learned and experienced a lot this weekend. Saturday it rained, Sunday I raced the most powerful machine I’ve ever sat on top of. The results I ended up posting didn’t quite meet my expectations, but I’m not down about it, nor am I chalking it up to a “bad” weekend. The results just tell me I need to grow a pair and work harder

Saturday - Rain, rain, go away

Saturday morning was dry and cool, with only a spotty shower in the forecast. The clouds above looked threatening, but the most they let loose for most of the morning was a short misting.

I used the first practice session to bed in my new Performance Friction brakes and try to get a feel for how they responded to brake pressure. Mike McConaghey mentioned that they ramp up their torque as they heat up, and he was exactly right: Holding the same lever pressure coming into a corner, the brakes would go from not-much to on-your-nose stopping power as they heated up. I’m not entirely sure I like it, but I’ll see if I can get more used to it next week in Portland.

The second practice was just after lunch. The “spotty shower” had started up just before lunch, and about halfway through, we realized it wasn’t going to stop. I didn’t have time to change to rains before lunch was over, because I’ve only got one rear wheel at the moment. I went out anyway, hoping for the track to be dry enough to ride decently on DOTs, but came in after just a few laps. It was definitely wet out, and I am neither brave nor skilled enough to ride DOTs in the wet!

Quickly, I changed out my wheels and sent the rims over to Troy of Hwy 66 Motorsports, the new Bridgestone vendor (coming all the way up from Medford!). We got the rains mounted up, put the rims back in, and turned the warmers down to a relatively-cool 40*C. Rain tires are designed to operate and grip at a much lower temperature than normal dry tires, so baking them at normal temperatures would cause the tires to literally begin melting!

My first race of the day was 600 Supersport. It was raining pretty steadily at this point, but I had chickened out due to weather in the first WMRRA round and I knew I had to learn to ride in the rain sometime. I entered the warmup lap with the simple goal of preventing anything but the wheels and possibly my kneepucks from touching the ground. This would be the first time I’d ever tried to go fast in the rain, and I figured that I, of all people, needed no help crashing.. so making the checkered flag was my only goal of this race. When we gridded up, my visor began to fog, and by the time we started I could barely see! I ended up actually coming off at T9, wiping the fog away and having pit gate open all my helmet vents, then re-entering the track a lap behind. I took the rest of the race pretty easy, but I made it to the end and got my first rain race out of the way.

My second and last race on Saturday was 750 Supersport. I mentioned my visor problems to Troy of Bridgestone and he immediately offered me his personal Shoei, which is vented much better than my Scorpion. I wore that during the race, and along with some Rain-X on the visor and a makeship duct-tape Fog Shield, I could see perfectly! I was much more comfortable during the second race, not only because I could see but also because I was beginning to trust the rain tires. Kevin and I had a good battle for a few laps - a couple times he showed me a wheel coming into a corner, but I’d say “no, sir” and dive in anyway. Eventually he got me on the brakes coming into T2, and then immediately put on a pretty good gap. That kind of kicked me in the butt and got me to step up the pace a bit, and I started working on reeling him in, but didn’t make it before the race was red-flagged. Several riders had gone down, but one bike had fallen in T8 and gone into the airfence, which is never a good place to be. Luckily though no one was hurt, and back in the pits Kevin and I congratulated each other on a great race.

Sunday - The Beast

Dry pavement! Sun! Hoowah!

Practice on the CBR wasn’t very comfortable, until I realized I was still running rain settings on my suspension. In the rain, braking and throttle inputs are much gentler, so the dampening forces in play don’t need to be as hard. With a softer suspension comes better tracking of the racing surface, so racers back off their dampeners quite a bit. In the dry, however, the control inputs will easily overpower the softer rain suspension, making the bike feel loose and hard to control. As soon as I figured that out and fixed it, I was much happier.

600 Superbike was first up. I was gridded in the second row of the second wave, and at the start I shot forward to catch the holeshot of the wave. By the entrance to T2, I’d almost caught the back of the first wave. On the straight a lap later I figured out why I had such an easy time shooting forward on the start, though: I was still running LVMS gearing! I was about five teeth shorter than I should’ve been for Pacific, causing me to bounce off the rev limiter from the exit of the chute all the way to the entrance of T2. Still, I did the best I could and ended up only losing one position due to the top-speed limitation. I may have actually profited in the end from the gearing, as my bike was a monster coming out of corners and I did a fair amount of passing that way. A couple laps later I had a close call with Darrel Nice - coming out of T4 I drifted wide to set up for the back straight and slammed into Darrel, trying to set up an outside pass! I was afraid I was going to put him into the dirt for a minute, but he kept it upright and on the pavement. Then finally, around lap 7 or 8, I got black flagged! Damn! I immediately looked around to see what could be wrong with me, and got off the line just in case I was leaking something. I came into the hot pits and one of the workers runs up and tells me I’m missing my bellypan. Apparently I’d been dragging it for several laps, and then it finally fell off between 2 and 3.. and I’d had no clue. I got back to the pits and checked it out, and sure enough the entire piece had ripped right off, taking a chunk of my main fairing with it. Luckily, 600SB was the last race I’d be doing on the CBR.

Up next was 750 Superbike… on The Beast A bit about this bike: It’s eight years old, and will pace a modern literbike down the straight. It’s got enough power to lift the front on command in third gear and enough brakes to lift the rear with two fingers. On top of all that, its suspension was not set up for me - it was set up for a rider with 30 or 40lb on me. Needless to say, this machine definitely frightens me, and unfortunately during this race it showed. As many people observed, I am much more comfortable on the CBR than the GSXR. Still, I managed to have fun as Kevin flew by me early in the race and I worked on catching up. I finally got him back on the last or second-to-last lap by simply motoring on past Scary or not, there is something to be said for having the bigger gun.

Back in the pits, I got the suspension tweaked a bit, and then Formula Ultra was on me before I knew it. The day was running late so the race was only 8 laps, which I was actually thankful for - when you’re uncomfortable you tire much more quickly on the bike. At the track entrance, I was sitting next to Eli Edwards, Mark DeGross, Pat Bertram, Mike Sullivan, and Mike McConaghey, among others… It was a pretty intimidating moment! However they’re all extremely nice guys. I wished Mark good luck, and he wished me the same. We went out for the warmup lap, and coming up to grid, I realized I’d forgotten to check my grid position. I figured I’d be gridded at the back anyway, so I just waited until everyone else was in position and then scooted up to the back row.

Board’s up.. board’s sideways.. light’s out, go! We all took off and settled in. I had grown a tiny bit more confident on the bike during the 750SB race and so was willing to actually get in there and fight for position, which is good, because I needed to! Several times I saw #14, Warren Brones, poke his wheel into my field of view, but each time I did my best to shut the door on him. Then, in Turn 9, he beat me into the bus stop and took off down the straight. He led me for a couple laps and then I managed to get on his rear wheel coming into the chute. I moved up next to him coming down the main straight, and then squeezed past through T1, with Warren, me, then the wall! A lap later the race was red-flagged - and there was no 14 behind me I was worried for a moment that I’d put him down as a result of the T1 pass, but thankfully I saw him up and walking in 4.

All in all, I didn’t do quite as well as I’d hoped, but I raced in a couple very new situations for me and got some valuable experience, in rain and on a very mean bike. Between now and June I’ve got several trackdays lined up, so hopefully I’ll have all my suspension and brake issues, rain fears, power fears and whatever else sorted out by then. For now.. gotta go fix the CBR’s fairing for Portland next weekend! As always, I’d like to thank my sponsors from the bottom of my heart for all that they help me with - Adrenaline Freaks Track Days, MorePower Racing, Highway 66 Bridgestone, Studio819 Photography, Race Tech Suspension, Vortex, Motorex, Pipercross, Junior Monkey Design and last but never least PNWRIDERS DOT COM All of you guys rock, and without you I could not do what I do. These guys support me, so everyone please show your appreciation and support them.