AFM 103 – Greg McCullough » Race Report

Race Report – Round 5 at Infineon

This was the first time I’d shown up with zero tracktime since the last round, planning to use only the Saturday practice to get dialed in for Sunday.

Saturday was quite disappointing. I spent the day chasing a rear tire slide issue, working with Dave Moss to sort out the suspension, to keep the rear end from moving around so much when I got on the gas out of corners. I had minimal success, with my best laptimes in the 1:52’s. My best race time from last Infineon round was 1:49. Definitely not going to do the trick. Also, as the day went on, the transmission on the bike got worse and worse, with more false neutrals and jumped gears. Not fun. I let these issues get to my head a little too much, and never spent any time really working on lines and reference points.

Sunday. 650 Twins was the first race of the day. After a pretty crappy start, juggling a jumpy clutch, I circulated around the track with no better than 1:51 laptimes, and finished 18th. Midway through the race, the transmission jumped out of gear in the middle of turn 6 (The Carousel), leaving me coasting through the rest of it, marginally in control. When I clicked it back in gear, it went down 2 gears, spinning up the rear tire, nearly high siding, as 2 or 3 other riders blasted by. What fun.

I spent the downtime between races doing an oil change to maybe help the tranny behave better, and fitting a fresh tire on the rear. I took it out for the warmup lap of race 6 after lunch, and the new tire was awesome. The old one didn’t look worn, but I guess it was toast. Too bad I wasted Saturday’s practice trying to adjust around it.

Race 2: Formula IV. This went marginally better, until I hit the carousel again. The bike jumped out of gear as I hit the hill going in, leaving me coasting all the way around, until I could get the bike vertical and click it into gear. Yay. No drive up the straight into 7. That’s good for a second, at least. Second lap, same thing. 3rd lap, I coasted into the carousel, without brakes, to keep the rear wheel loading the transmission. No false neutral. Well, that works, kindof. I’m just losing at least a half second every lap by coasting into that turn. I finished the race in 15th, with a best lap of 1:50. Ugly.

Aside from my performance, the weekend was fantastic. I brought my new puppy, Bailey, out to the track, and she adapted to all the noises, smells and people really well. She should be a great track dog when she gets past puppy phase. Jason and Jenn were amazingly generous as always, letting me keep Bailey in their trailer with their two 4-legged kids.

The pit garage was great too. Thanks to Eric and AMSOil, we had a garage again, packed with Trogdor, Blaise, Jenn, Jason, Cassie, Oliver, Eric and me. After hours of bike re-assembly due to an incident on Friday, Blaise picked up 3 top novice trophies on Sunday, and Trogdor picked up 1 as well. Jason finished top 10 this weekend, and Jenn put down better times in every race all weekend. Cassie did well in her first round at Infineon, and Oliver finished 4th and 3rd this weekend. Pretty damn good for a garage full of first year novice racers.

A few pics of the fun.

The garage