AFM 103 – Greg McCullough

This weekend was an improvement over the Buttonwillow round, if only because the bike never went down.

The drama started early with my thursday trackday. In rushing to put my clutch-side crankcase cover back on tuesday night, I apparently mis-aligned the gasket a bit. Dumb mistake. Everything seemed fine in my short test ride around the block on Wednesday, but all was not well at the track. I was meatball flagged on the second lap of the first session for blowing black smoke out of the bike. I’d leaked about 1/3 liter of oil into my belly pan. I spent the next few hours taking it all apart again, cleaning and slapping on some gasket goop. I only ended up getting 3 riding sessions in, and didn’t get to dial in the suspension in any useful way. I also noticed some significant clutch slip on the last session. I had spare plates, so I swapped the clutch out on Friday afternoon.

Saturday’s riding went a bit better, but I spent most of the day fiddling with suspension settings without getting the bike to feel quite right. Worse, on the last practice session, the bike wouldn’t start. It would crank, but nothing else. Thanks to one of my pit-buddies, Jason, he found that I wasn’t getting spark, and we fiddled with some of the electrical connections I’d changed the previous week (in removing my keyed ignition). We found it quickly, but in trying to tighten the connection, we snapped a resistor that’s required in the circuit. My first race, lightweight clubman, was scheduled for about 4pm, following the middleweight race. I was riding around the paddock on Jason’s bicycle trying to track down Zoran, of TwinWorks. With 15 minutes until race start, it didn’t look good. I finally found the guy, and sure enough, he had the part. Zoran is the SV650 god.

Turns out, I didn’t need to worry. The lightweight race was red flagged early due to a crash which required an ambulance. For whatever reason, the ambulances weren’t getting sent out to the track quickly, so between this crash and one in middleweight, we didn’t have enough on hand to safely continue to race. Race defered until early Sunday. Hurry up and wait. Ugh.

Sunday morning was chilly, with fog keeping the sun from warming things up. Cold track = bad traction, so everyone was a little leary of going too fast out there. When the green flag dropped, I jumped out in front and got the holeshot, leading the pack into turn 1. Being in front sucks. It’s lonely, feels like a trackday, except you know there’s a pack of people behind you looking for a hole to pass. I held the lead for about 2 1/2 laps. My visor started fogging up badly due to my heavy breathing and the cold, and I didn’t realize my front vent wasn’t on until about the same time Oliver (#960) came past me in turn 3. After popping the vent open and getting my vision back in a few turns, I closed the gap a bit, but he finished with a 3 second lead at the finish. 2nd place again.

650 Twins – This race got out of hand really quickly. It was black flagged for a crash in turn 2 on the second lap, causing a 20 minute delay before restart. I got a decent start, but on the second lap, another rider highsided in turn 2 – this time, right in front of me and 2 other riders. My brother Dave happened to be videoing that turn, and caught this: http://www.hitthetrack.com/afm535/video/afm.round.2-650.twins.crash.wmv. I managed to sneak through the middle of it, stay upright and continue back on track shortly after, while the other 3 went down.  They got up immediately, and are generally ok, as far as I know.  I finished 31st… after starting 19th, but I can’t complain about being in one piece.

Formula IV was a bit of a zoo as well, with crashes and yellow flags in multiple turns (i.e. caution / no passing). Since I didn’t finish this race last round, I was gridded at the back. To help matters further, my clutch started getting really “jumpy”, for lack of a better word, while doing practice starts before this race. I babied it off the start, so I wandered through traffic a few bikes per lap, between the yellow flags, and finished 23rd.

Although I was less than thrilled with the laptimes I was putting down in the 2 main races, I’m pretty happy the bike and I aren’t damaged. The big takeaway for the weekend is the need to get better at passing. Having been run off track twice now, I’m somewhat leary of putting tight passes on other riders, but it’s really holding me back. I need to get comfortable with tighter passes, visualizing the pass earlier and committing to it, so I can really get clear of the other rider where I planned to.

Lots of fun this weekend, and lots to learn.