AFM 103 – Greg McCullough

Unlike previous rounds, there was no Friday practice this time. Keigwins had a regular trackday, and it filled up before it occured to me to sign up. That left me with Saturday as the only day to make changes and practice. I’d made some changes since the last Infineon round, but I didn’t fully catalog everything and put together a game plan before going out. So… I ran around in first practice realizing my gearing was crap, geometry was off, and front end compression was weird. Although those settings seemed to work at T-hill and Pahrump, at-pace at Infineon, they sapped my confidence in the front end. I spent Saturday reversing changes session by session, finishing the day with roughly the same setup as round 3 at Infineon. As a result, my times where pretty horrible 1:48.0s by the end of the day – 2 seconds off my race pace from last time out. The rear end wouldn’t settle down… spinning up coming out of a bunch of turns.

Sunday. Time to get some music playing, sort the brain out, then GO. The one morning practice was a bit better, putting down a high 1:46. At least I was closer to the ballpark, and the rear end was sticking much better. New tires. Gametime.

Race 1 – Formula I

I kindof psyched myself out for this race, knowing that the front runners would be doing 1:41’s, and I was practicing at 1:46. Oh well, points put me on the front row. Gotta get up and go. Green flag. With a good jump from grid spot 4, I went into turn 2 in 2nd place behind O’Sullivan. Then the sharks swarmed me, and I found myself in 8th by the end of lap 1. Yeesh. Time to settle in, learn from following the other guys and get my pace up. After relaxing a bit, I started putting together some slightly cleaner laps, pulling closer to Stan Riner. I could tell that my approach to 9 was way too conservative, and tried a much later braking point. Oops. Too far. I couldn’t make the turn and had to scoot through the hay bales, losing the ground I’d made up on Stan. Looked like that’d be it for the race. Then Scott Schwanbeck came by me while I was doing some other goofball maneuver, and I found myself chasing him to the checkered. Due to O’Sullivan and Andy Allen crashing out, I finished in 7th, posting a best lap of 1:45.25. Not too surprising, given that I’d spent none of my practice at that pace. Losing 3 seconds between practice and races makes for some pretty inconsistent riding. I ended up in the wrong gear at least once a lap, and had some seriously irregular braking markers.

Race 2 – 600 Production

Since many of the fast guys decided to go race AMA or WSMC this weekend, the grid was pretty light for both of the 600 races, putting me in the 3rd row for this race. On the start, I got a bit of a weak start, getting pinched against the inside wall, losing a spot or two going into turn one. I spent the next lap or two making a couple passes to get out of traffic, ending with a pass on Andy who was circulating slower than pace, with a somewhat beat up bike from the F1 crash. After that, I found myself with clear track up to Matt Eccleston and Michael Pesicka. I pulled the gap in by lap 5, and looked for a hole to get through. Matt was trying everything possible to get by Michael, and it made for a tough moving target. I ended up watching a bunch of pass attempts and re-passes between the two of them, taking the opportunity to run some consistent laps and feel out places on the track where I could gain ground. I tried passing Matt into 7 once, but got hung up on the brakes by Michael in front of me, and Matt came back around both of us. I made a last ditch attempt to square off turn 11 on the last lap and beat one or both of them to the line, but ended up nearly highsiding myself out of the race as I got on the gas too hard too soon, and I finished 2 seconds behind Michael.

Due to DQs from illegal equipment on production bikes, I finished 6th overall, with a best laptime of 1:44.6. Better, and I actually felt comfortable and mildly consistent at that pace.

Race 3 – 600 Superbike

Again, the grid was pretty light, so I started in 9th- a second row start. With a decent jump, I went up the hill into 2 in 5th place behind Berto. Just like Formula I, I had a very weak first lap, and Sebastiao, Michael, Matt and Gabriel Santa Coloma ALL came by me. Sweet. Gotta love that. Just what I get for being a wus. It took me another lap to get up to pace and start pulling Mike, Matt and Gabe back in. I could see Sebastiao just ahead of them as I came out of 7 every lap, watching him tip into the left part of the 8s. Same thing, lap after lap, and I kicked myself every time, realizing I was running his pace but gave away 4 positions on that damned start. With my rear spinning up frequently, I couldn’t make any inroads on the guys in front of me, and finished in a close group with Matt, Michael and Gabriel – only 1 second apart. Best lap: 1:44.4

Not a bad weekend all in all. I hit my goal of top 10 in every race, although that objective was made much easier by some conspicuously absent fast guys. But hey, top 10 is top 10. The big takeaway is much the same as last round. Do what’s necessary to go faster in practice. Running 3-4 seconds faster in races than you’ve been practicing all weekend is very difficult – at least difficult to do with consistency and control.

Jason had an awesome first weekend on his R6, running 1:46s, finishing in the top 15 in all 3 classes, and a 9th place in 600 Production – all from the back of the grid. Good stuff.

A few videos from the weekend: http://www.ridemerchant.com/video/2008/8.17/