AFM 103 – Greg McCullough

“The fact that you’ve done a certain lap time does not mean you can do it again. You have to earn it every time”. I heard this from someone, I’ve passed it along to others, and I re-learned the lesson yet again at this race round. I ended last season with a best finish of 4^th in 600 superbike, turning low 1:52’s. This year, I’m on a new ’08 R6 with better parts, support from Z2, and more physically fit than I was all last season. I should be able to just go out there and work on getting into the 1:51’s, right? If only it were so simple.

Coming into this weekend, I’d spent only 2 track days on this new bike, wrestling with the suspension, finally reverting to my teammate Jason Lauritzen’s setup from last season – since his bike has exactly the same shock and front end. That got the bike to a point where I could at least ride it, but given our different riding styles, I knew I’d have to make adjustments this weekend.

Along with adapting to the new bike, I started to realize very quickly how much I’d have to adjust to the new team as well. After spending all of last season doing everything myself, leaving tools on the wall for suspension tuning and swapping tires frantically between races, this concept of having folks available to help all the time was a bit strange. I like doing things myself, knowing that they’re getting done, and only needing to trust my work when I go ride the bike. Having other helping hands on my bike is going to take some getting used to. That said, the support was phenomenal, and we figured out better ways to work together throughout the weekend.

Friday’s practice was spent slowly realizing I just couldn’t make Jason’s setup work for me. The bike wouldn’t track predictably, in or out of the corner. I assumed it was me over-riding the bike, but I couldn’t get more comfortable no matter what I tried. Jason from Aftershocks had been waving a piece of paper at me most of the day, with some setup numbers Phil had sent along with him. I had glanced at the numbers in the morning, realized they were wildly different than what I was riding, and decided to adjust from where I was at, instead of starting over. Well, that didn’t work, and by 3pm Jason was applying Phil’s magic formula to the bike. Immediately, the bike started going where I wanted it to, and I finished the day with slow laptimes, but a bike that behaved pretty well.

As we started practicing Saturday, I realized I just didn’t have the track time to accomplish everything I needed to do to run near the front on Sunday. It was taking me a lot of laps to unwind the whacky things I’d been doing to try and ride the crappy suspension setup for 3 days. Instead of just pushing brake markers and trying to get on the throttle harder, I decided to step back and look at the building blocks, and make sure I was at least doing everything right that I knew about. To that end, I followed Jason and Ken Hill for most of the afternoon. While Ken was purely focused on teaching Jason for their day of 1-on-1 coaching, I was able to watch him and pick up a number of approaches to corners. More importantly, following the guy reminded me in every corner that there are ways to go faster without pushing harder. By the end of the day, I was more comfortable, a bit wiser, but not particularly faster. I wish I could have spent a day with Ken, picking his brain, and then spend another day working on braking, but no such luck. Time to race.

Sunday dawned wet and cold. I found myself debating the value of my chain and sprocket combination… since it put the tire so close to the swingarm, I couldn’t fit a tire warmer on the rear wheel. On sunny Friday and Saturday, running without warmers wasn’t an issue, but at 50 degrees, guessing at cold pressures was going to cause issues. However, the 48 sprocket was giving me good drive onto the front straight, and I wasn’t willing to switch gearing and shift points right before the races. In hindsight, I should have taken the wheel off to warm it and set temp, then re-mount it.

600 Superbike

Starting from 4^th, I got away well, and I slotted in behind Lenny into turn 1. We were red flagged in the first lap. On the restart, I followed Lenny into turn 1 again. I did my best to keep tight on his back wheel, but Eccleston came by me into turn 3, with Elena coming by shortly after. I held down 4^th for a little while, but Berto and Tinagero passed me, with Sebastiao bumping me out of the way into the sweeper. Thankfully I caught a glimpse of his bright yellow suit and stood the bike up a bit to make it a bump rather than a punt. I finished the race in 7^th.

750 Production

Jason and I added this race just for fun, since 2 races in a weekend was a bit light, and it was back-to-back with 600 Superbike, so pretty easy to run the same used tires and then switch to fresher tires for the 2^nd 600. Nice theory. I started 3 rows from the back of the grid, on the inside, pretty well stuck from getting a good launch. As we went jamming into turn 1, I got a first hand reminder of how scary the mid-pack can be. A few guys went bowling for riders, but everyone bumped their way through turn 1. I held back, planning to pick people off one by one. That didn’t go as planned, as the 5 guys ahead of me insisted on trying to pass each other in every turn, with one nearly cleaning me out when he briefly lost control headed into riverside. We were red flagged, and the restart went roughly the same way, minus a couple of riders. I wrote off getting anywhere near the front, and focused on riding clear and safe, making passes where possible. Seeing Jason go down in a cloud of dust made me even more conservative, and I brought it home in 14^th. I won’t be running this race again. I’ll run Formula Pacific as a 3^rd race, if the schedule works out well.

600 Production

After spending some time looking at Jason’s very broken bike between races, not crashing moved up my list of priorities significantly. The very cold and windy day had resulted in a number of crashes all around, and I was determined to not put the other Z2 bike on the ground.

I got a better launch than Lenny this time, but got on the brakes WAY too early into turn 1, and was passed up the inside, with Elena coming around the outside into 2. I knew she was gridded on the 3^rd row – wow, killer start. I found myself fighting the bike on the exits of all the fast turns, trying to keep it from drifting wide. The wind was strong, but steady, so there was definitely something else wrong. After having to shut down the throttle twice on the exit of the esses to avoid running off where Jason crashed, I backed it down a notch, and focused on running clean lines. After finishing 9^th, I pulled in and checked the front tire. It was at 30 lbs. hot. That’s more than 3 lbs. lower than I’d been running all weekend. I’ll be running tire warmers from now on.

My big takeaways from the weekend:

- Work on braking, braking, braking. I was giving away 5-10 bike lengths into a bunch of the corners, on initial brake markers alone.

- Don’t spend much time comparing suspension notes with Jason. We’re different riders. I need to find what works for me, stick with it, and develop it.

- Use the tire warmers. Reduce variables. Make sure the tire pressures are exactly where they need to be after every session.

- Get time working with Ken Hill

Thanks Z2, Pirelli, and all of my other sponsors for helping make this weekend happen. With 2 more development trackdays at Thunderhill and Infineon, we should be in much better form for round 2.