AFM 103 – Greg McCullough

Thunderhill – Take 2. After last round’s front end issues, I gave Phil Douglas both sets of my forks to doctor up and give us some options for round 5. Stiffer springs in the Ohlins forks, and his full re-valve work on the stock ’08 forks.

Friday practice. The stiffer springs were an immediate improvement in the Ohlins forks. The bike tracked out of exits much better, holding a tighter line and taking care of my main complaint. Braking was far more stable as well. However, I wasn’t quite happy with the way it felt mid-corner and in transitions. We tried raising the front, but didn’t see any major gains. Jason suggested we swap bikes for a few laps in the afternoon. I immediately felt far more confident on his bike with the re-valved forks. We agreed that the Ohlins stuff just felt nervous while not hard on the brakes or gas.

The Ohlins stuff has worked better in the past, but with Phil not at the track this round, I had a quick decision to make for the last session of the day. We ditched the Ohlins stuff, swapped on my 08 re-valved forks and matched Jason’s settings exactly. I immediately went out and turned faster, more confident laps.

Saturday practice. With a whole new front end, I spent much of the day just getting comfortable and re-adjusting reference points, while attempting to work on my drive out of 15 and entrance into 1, weak points from last round. I finished the day with a 1:55.3, beating my best race laptime from the last round by a few tenths – without race gas – exactly where I wanted to be for Sunday.

My weekend went from pretty confident to concerned Sunday morning, when I pinched a nerve in my neck while pedaling my bicycle. Unable to turn my neck more than half way either direction, I got a massage from Denise of and started icing the thing like crazy. From past experience, I knew I wouldn’t be back to 100% for a couple of days, but the worst would go away within 4-8 hours. It was slightly settled down by first practice, and I went out for some easy 1:57 laps with Jason, making slow deliberate upper body movements to avoid exacerbating the neck situation.

600 Production

With a couple of hours before my first race, my neck had a chance to calm down a bit more, and I wasn’t feeling too hampered by it by race time. The downside to all that downtime was the challenge of staying focused. With a whole morning of watching other racing, I didn’t work hard enough to prepare myself mentally.

Starting from 5th position, I got an OK jump, in 5th through turn 1, but simply didn’t have my mind up to race pace and ready to go. For the first lap, I let what seemed like an army of guys by me. Down to 10th by turn 6, I didn’t get up to a decent pace until the 2nd lap, once they’d pulled a few seconds on me. With that gap, I wasn’t able to see where I was weak or strong and adjust any of what I was doing. Unable to close down the gap, I rolled through the race in that position doing consistent 1:54’s, finishing in 6th, due to crashes, mechanicals and DQs. Not the performance I expected from myself.

Between races, I ran through that first lap in my head over and over. The goal for the 2nd race would be putting in a solid first lap, no matter what. Green flag. Go.

600 Superbike

Gridded in 7th, I got a good jump, 3rd through turn 1 behind Lenny and Liko. I got on the gas early and when Liko went for the brakes I rolled around him into turn 2, pulling up behind Lenny in the middle of turn 2. Damn, we’re here. Let’s go get him! The tires were hooking up great, and I found myself running up on him in 3. Without any setup, I foolishly looked up the inside and gave away my drive up the hill into 5, giving away an early gap. As we rolled through 6, 7, and 8, I pushed hard, and was rewarded when Lenny looked back over his shoulder going towards 10. Yeah, I’m still there. Let’s go!

Through the next couple of laps, I held the gap, pulling Lenny in through 1-4 and on the brakes into 14, but gave it all the way when it came time to get on the gas in 6,7,8, and 9. I started losing touch with Lenny on the 3rd lap in the back half of the track and became increasingly aware of my tires starting to slide. The early pace had worked them pretty hard, and I wasn’t getting the same feel out of them. Pulling Lenny back in was getting less likely and I focused on putting in clean quick laps. On lap 4, the hoard started to show up. When Liko came by me, I started to see just how badly I was giving away time in the back half. I could eat folks up in 1,2,3,4 but just handed it all back in spades later. 1:54’s weren’t enough to hold them all off and I gave away 4 positions before the end of the race. I finished 6th with a best lap of 1:53.3, cutting 2.3 seconds off my best time from Round 4.

While I’d seen my first podium of the year in front of me for a few laps in the early stages of this race, and 6th is a long way from a podium, I was very happy with this result. Even with some pretty screwed up approaches to key corners in the back of the track, I managed to hold onto Lenny for a while, running good first laps. A more intelligent approach to those corners and some more time fiddling with these new forks and I’m confident we could have been running for the win.

Thanks Phil for all the work getting the forks done, and thanks to the whole Z2 crew for continuing to be so supportive and helping me go focus on racing. The next two rounds are looking very good, with some testing and coaching time lined up. Putting a few more key things together with my riding, and going hard flag to flag, we’re going to be in pretty good shape. Can’t wait.