AFM 103 – Greg McCullough

I think I used that phrase to describe my approach to racing over a year ago. It applies now more than ever.

Saturday dawned cloudy and cold, with a signifcant chance of showers. We only fit in 1 cold practice session before the rain came pouring down, shutting down all track activities for the day. After the days at Reno and conversations with faster guys, I had planned to spend Saturday working on getting through turn 6 faster and braking more smoothly. I’ve developed a habit of stabbing my brakes too hard, unsettling the chassis, making it impossible for me to get on them 100%, leaving me with a longer – and unpredictable – stopping distance.

Sunday’s races would just have to be treated like practice instead. Looking at a 5+ second deficit in my lap times vs the front runners in my classes, I know I need to tear down and rebuild my riding skills and track approach to get the headroom I need to go play near the front. Spending my 3 races pushing as hard as I could with my approach from last round wouldn’t yield any useful progress.

Race 1, 600 Production.

Starting from a 5th row grid position, I got a pretty good jump, heading into turn 1 in around 14th place. After the first lap, I had to force myself to calm down and focus on the 2 project areas for the day – gradual initial braking, and getting into turn 6 with more speed, yielding a double apex line and a better drive out. As these things usually go, I ended up learning some unrelated things too. Keeping in mind Shawn Reilly’s comments about focusing on the drive out of corners, I found a better line into turn 2, which yielded more speed into 3/3a, and a revamp of my approach there. Although I rarely linked them up right in the 8 laps I ran, I found a 1/2 second at least that I should be pull out in the future. While working on braking, I had to move my brake markers back a bit, since a couldn’t get my brain to be gradual on initial braking without giving myself some breathing room. It was painful to give away time like that in a race, but necessary to get my braking more stable and effective, ultimately bringing my brake markers in tighter than ever. That’ll take time, but I have to start now. Anyway, back to the race. A few faster guys came by me, but I stuck with my gameplan and finished the race breaking into the 46s on my last lap, finishing in 17th.

Race 2, 600 Superbike.

This race went much like 600 production, except I let myself get hung up behind a slower rider or two, keeping my laptimes down to mid-46s again. Not the greatest, but it let me explore some other lines, and get a visual measurement of how my approach to turn 6 was working out, by gauging my gains/losses on the guy in front of me. I finished in 18th, after some DQ’s due to passing under yellow flags.

Race 3, Formula I

As the only class I raced the first round, I had a 2nd row grid position. Also, the field just isn’t as deep as the 600 races, since it’s a slightly lower profile race, without contingency money. I had a bet with Oliver that I could holeshot the race, and gave it my best go when the green flag came out. Reaction time was good, but I got greedy on the clutch and wheelied a bit to much, killing my drive. I drifted right, and the dude on my right drifted left, so we bumped a bit as we hit 2nd gear, turning left up the hill. I jammed up the inside into 2, and managed to salvage a 6th or so. With the leaders directly ahead of me, I started pushing hard, and my lines ended up all over the place. I had to remind myself of everything I’d learned during the day so far. Pushing hard = slow. Focus on braking smoothly, enter the corner to set up the drive out of it, and hold her open longer going over the blind hill into turn 6.

I ended up in 5th by the 3rd lap or so, and went back to work on my approach to lines and braking markers. Turn 11 made this a bit difficult, as an engine blowup in the previous race had oiled down the approach and apex pretty well. Not trusting the grease sweep, I was pretty conservative on the brakes. I could see guys out of my peripheral vision behind me in turns 7 and 11, but I tried to ignore them and keep working.

Somewhere in lap 4 I started hearing a motor behind me, and decided it was time to go forget the practice strategy and go racing.  It was Andy Allen, and he was all over me. I pushed pretty hard through my stronger section (1-4), but Andy came up the inside into 7. I pulled my line tighter and got back in front on the 2nd apex, leading into the 8s. Andy had another go into turn 11, but again ran a little deep, allowing me to square it up and pull back ahead. I put my head down and ran as hard as I could through the next lap, taking defensive lines into 7, 9 and 11. For whatever brain-dead reason, I rolled off the throttle way too early coming across start/finish on the last lap, and Andy came flying by. Unofficial timing says I won, but I suspect he should have taken it. Either way, it was a good battle, and was a great way to end the weekend.

One of the best parts of the weekend was all the support from family and friends. My folks came out to watch for the first time ever, and did surprisingly well with the whole thing, actually saying they enjoyed it. I’d been rather worried about their reaction to seeing people crashing, ambulances, and all the other constant reminders of the dangers of our sport. They were unexpectedly positive, and are probably coming out to more races in the future.

Before this saga takes up too many pages, a little shout-out to my pit-mate Jason Lauritzen who put his SV on the podium for the first time, with dominant performances in 3 restarts of the 650 twins race. 2 holeshots, and led almost all laps of all 3 restarts. Nice job! I’m looking forward to his pending transition to a 600, so we can go dice it up together again.