AFM 103 – Greg McCullough

2 days of camping at the track and riding my butt off has left me a bit worn out this week, but it was well worth it all around.

Sleeping on pavement isn’t the greatest, but with a warm sleeping bag and thermarest, it works out just fine. Nothing like being awakened by people parking a trailer next to our tents at 6:45am.

On the first day, I hit 2:01 lap times in the first part of the day, and found a number of places I can go faster consistently. I asked Eddy Gonzalez, a Keigwins instructor, to chase me around for a session, and vice versa. I picked up a few different lines from him, and totally revamped my approach to the Bus Stop to pick up a few fractions of a second.

While finishing the session riding with Eddy, I started hearing some weird intake noises, and as I pulled off the track, I looked back to see my muffler had come apart at the joint with the exhaust piping, and was hanging loosely by the hanger. Another lap and I’d have probably left it on the track. Eddy was good enough to volunteer his rivet tool and some aluminum rivets to get things back together for the weekend, but I’ll need to re-do it with steel rivets before race weekend.

Kevin and I walked the track Saturday evening before the sun went down. 2 minutes on a bike translates to about an hour on foot, but it was well worth the time spent. We found new details about track camber, surface quality, markings we could use as reference points, and discussed our lack of courage to stay on the throttle in certain corners. This exercise is invaluable.

We grabbed dinner Saturday night at an El Salvadorian restaurant in Buttonwillow, or rather, I should say Kevin saved me from an evening of suffereing by swaping plates. The enchiladas I ordered were fantastic, and also the hottest dish I’ve ever tasted in my life. Apparently those little “you will burn and die, don’t order this” warnings on most menus aren’t universal. I had no idea until the first bite lit me up. We finished the day with a six pack back at the track, bs-ing about riding until we couldn’t keep our eyes open.

On day 2, I played with my suspension settings a bit and cleaned up some weird behavior on a few turns. Lap times were consistently 2:02 flat when pushing, and occassionally 2:01. On the other hand, I had a chance to be “that guy” this weekend, with some rider-to-rider contact. I caught up to an R1 in the later part of the track, saw him take a few turns really slow, and figured I could fly past him in the last turn before the front straight. All well and good, but when we got there, I decided I’d do it on the outside, foolishly confident that my brake marker was well beyond his, and I’d be clear well before turn-in. Well, I judged wrong. He went in way hot, picking nearly the same brake point, and we ended up side-by-side, braking from 100mph down to 50, setting up for this left hand turn. He didn’t see me, since he was looking left into the turn while drifting right, to use the whole track and widen the turn. That put me 6″ off the edge of the track, rear wheel in the air, hard on the brakes, watching this guy moving towards me. I leaned left, we bumped a bit, he went tighter into the turn, I scrubbed all my speed, and we made the turn fine. Whew.
After the session, I found the guy in the paddock and apologized profusely. We’ve chosen a risky sport, and I hate increasing risk with a dumb mental mistake. The guy ended up being totally understanding and we bs’ed on and off through the rest of the day.

2 weeks to my first AFM race. I need to fix my frame slider design, repack the exhaust can, safety wire everything, get a new rear tire mounted and another spare front, and fix my seat mounting points, which need a spot weld. Busy evenings ahead.