AFM 103 – Greg McCullough

First off, I have to thank Gerry at GP Frame and Wheel for getting my bike measured and straightened after the crash, and Sam for painting another set of Factory Bodyworks, just in time for the weekend.  Thank you Jason for driving the bodywork down, Manny for sending along a new exhaust bracket, Chris for making me a new set of stickers, Helimot for getting my suit fixed in time, and Jason Hauns for doing the suit pickup and delivery. Thursday evening at the track turned into a chilly late night in front of the trailers, putting everything together, with lots of helping hands.  Thank you all for making my weekend possible.

Go fast in practice.  Aside from good results on Sunday, this was my main goal for the weekend.  It’s become pretty obvious that the gap between my track day/practice pace and race pace is the biggest thing holding me back from getting faster sooner.

Friday’s Z2 track day started very cold and windy for a May day at Infineon.  Having just finished a complete tear down, reassembly and straightening, I spent the first session or two shaking down the bike.  By noon, the basics were sorted, but the brakes weren’t behaving well.  I found a minor leak at the top banjo bolt, swapped that with one of Jason’s spares, and went back to practice.  As the afternoon progressed, my lap times weren’t coming down, and the brakes were only getting a little better after multiple attempts to bleed them.  The day ended a session early due to ambulance transports, and I ended my day with a best lap of 1:47.  With 1:42’s last race weekend, we weren’t even in the ballpark.  Going fast in practice… fail.

Saturday dawned to a slightly warmer and less windy day.  Despite flushing a bottle of fluid through the brakes, I was still experiencing brake fade after first practice.  Chris Van Andel, my crew chief, pulled the calipers off and started working some magic.  I rolled out for 2nd practice and immediately found my brakes were back.  Thanks Chris!  I spent the session re-acquainting myself with reasonable brake markers and making sure the fade was gone.  3rd session.  I started pushing to drop the lap times but didn’t get lower than a 1:46.  End of session, we found the rear tire was just coming apart on the right side.  2 races and 2 Saturdays of practice had basically killed it.  Not wanting to spend on a fresh tire, we opted to flip this old tire, and just practice dealing with a sliding rear tire.  4th practice dropped the times into the low 45s.  Better, but getting there too slowly.  This is where we should have started the day.  Go fast in practice – officially not a passing grade this weekend.

Sunday morning.  First practice was again very slow, with a best lap time of 1:46, despite a new set of Pirellis front and back.  We’d have to pick things up a lot in the race.

Race 1: 600 Production

As I rolled up to my 3rd place grid spot, I took a good look at turn 1.  I needed a strong start and a good tow from Lenny to get myself up to speed as quickly as possible today.  Revs up, 1 board sideways, clutch feathering out, green flag!  I let the clutch out with great timing and zero finesse, putting the bike into a 2mph 12 o’clock wheelie.  As the bike came down, I watched 2 rows of riders roll by.  By the time I got the clutch engaged and re-launched, I was somewhere around 20th position, watching Lenny heading toward the bridge.  Pinning it through 4 gears up the right side of the hill, I passed about 6 riders before turn 2, another 2 heading out of turn 2, 2 more in the middle of 3/3a, 2 more down into 4, and split another 2 before the middle of 5.  Coming out of the Carousel, I was in 5th, but Jason and Berto had half the back straight on me.  The best I could do was put my head down and click off good laps, hoping their battle would come back to me.

As a few laps went by, it started looking like it would be a long lonely race in 5th place.  That all changed in turn 7 on lap 5, when Sebastiao showed up.  I’d forgotten that he was back there, charging up from the 8th row.  He wasn’t messing around, and passed me into 9.  Alright then.  Let’s see if we can hold on and go with him.  Heading into turn 11, Sebastiao grabbed a little too much brake and low sided in front of me.  Oh well.  No tow.  The rest of the laps clicked by uneventfully, and I rolled home in 5th with roughly the same gap to Berto and Jason as we had in lap 1, with most laps in the 1:44’s.  Not fast enough…

Race 2: 750 Superbike

Jason and I were starting from 2nd and 3rd respectively, with Timmer filling out the first row.  After my abysmal start in the first race, I babied the clutch and got off to a conservative 4th into turn 2, with Timmer chasing Lenny.  Jason didn’t waste much time and set up a clean block pass into 9.  I used that to close up on Timmer and pass him into 11.  Time to go.  Jason was setting a good pace, and after race 1, I knew I could benefit from the time behind him to get my brain up to pace.  With Lenny already gapping us out, making a break from Timmer was the main goal.  The next few laps clicked by, staying close to Jason while watching over my shoulder as Timmer started to drop back a half a second a lap.

Then the lappers showed up.  Jason got under a guy going into 7, but I got hung up on the exit, giving Jason a half a second gap.  He got around the next lapper into the 8s, and I caught him on the way out.  Another half a second.  Waiting to pass Jason until the last couple of laps might have backfired in a big way.  As we came into turn 7 on lap 7, the strategy all unraveled as Jason found some dirty pavement and too much front brake, low siding out of 2nd place.  I was happy to see Jason up with the bike by the time I made it around again.  With a couple of seconds back to Timmer, I negotiated my way around a few more lappers and brought it home in 2nd, lapping into the 1:42’s, matching my best times at Infineon.

Race 3: 600 Superbike

A 5th place starting position put me up against the wall, and my start got me up to turn 2 in 6th.  A pass early brought me to 5th, but Berto charged by me out of turn 11 with a tight pass between my shoulder and the wall.  Jason and Sebastiao were gapping us out, and I wasn’t happy about it.  As we came around the Carousel on the 2nd lap, Berto’s bike suddenly shut off in front of me.  I avoided running him down and found myself in 4th place, with a really bad drive up the back straight.  Head down, close down the gap.  Driving out of Carousel for the third time, I started grabbing gears, but the 2nd upshift never happened.  The bike stopped making power around 14k RPMs, and I knew something was wrong.  Exiting 7, I could hear a growing ticking noise, and power kept dropping off.  Before I entered the 8s, I knew the motor was done.  Coming out of the 8s, I threw up my hand to let Timmer know I was in trouble, and I pulled of track.  Pulling into the pits, Chris and Tom heard the motor and confirmed it was probably a spun bearing.

As soon as Jason pulled in from the race, we started talking about options.  Formula 1 was 5 races away, at the end of the day.  As the points leader in the class, I really wanted to finish well and keep the championship battle alive.  Jenn’s bike had my backup motor (last year’s), and neither of them were planning to race Formula 1.  After some brief thoughts about motor swaps and borrowing Jenn’s bike, Jason offered me his bike for Formula 1.  How cool is that?  It’s all the same basic hardware as mine, and after comparing notes, our suspension setup was already pretty close.

With Tom and Chris’ help, the plan came together.  Jason would race in race #11, 750 Production, then ride directly down to the hot pits, where Tom would change the suspension setup to my numbers.  I’d roll out for the warm up lap of race #12 to see what the bike felt like.  We’d have that race to make any adjustments before race #13, Formula 1.  As I watched Jason racing, I couldn’t help but keep my fingers crossed that he’d make it back uneventfully.  He put in a solid performance, holding off a threat from Sebastiao to take 2nd.  As the checkers flew, I rode the scooter down to the wall, met Tom and Jason, and took off for the warm up.

Jason’s bike was weird.  The bars were farther in, changing all of the leverage.  The front end seemed sluggish.  The chain length was shorter by a link, changing the wheel base, causing the bike to wheelie more easily.  The shifter was super high.  How did he ride this thing quickly?  As I pulled into the pits, we started making changes.  Lever down, bars out, damper back out 10 clicks.

Waiting for race 12 to wrap up, I had a little chat with Jason.  I was going out for good clean consistent laps.  No risks, I said.  The goal was to bring it home in one piece, with some good points.  Jason gave me a skeptical look and said “Let’s see how you feel halfway through the first lap.  If you’re feeling froggy, go for it.  Don’t hold back because it’s my bike”.  Heading out for the Formula 1 warm-up, the bike felt much better with the bar and damper adjustments.  It was far from comfortable, but now I felt like I’d have a fighting chance.

Starting from pole position, I got a pretty good launch, and found myself in the lead into turn 2.  The next couple of corners felt like my first track day in A group.  I could only think about how slow I was tiptoeing around, with a pack of wolves behind me.  When Berto came by me in the Carousel, I was only surprised that it had taken so long.  Alright then, stay close and see if you can find a rhythm.  As we braked into 7, Berto left the door open.  Wide open.  Ok, it was 2 feet, but that was plenty.  I snuck back into the lead, and gained a bunch of confidence in the front end.  Rolling through the 8s, I found that the slow steering let me get away with a little more body motion without upsetting the bike.  Hmm.  I can work with this.

Berto came by me again out of 10, and I couldn’t immediately get him back.  As we came out of the Carousel on Lap 2, Lenny showed up and passed both of us up to turn 7.  I expected him to walk us out, but with his 2 DNF’s in this class, the championship battle is between Berto, Gabe and me.  Although I was being pretty conservative on corner entry due to the heavy feeling of the front end on Jason’s bike, I wasn’t losing out much to Berto.  Coming around turn 11 on the 2nd lap, I looked at Jason giving me gap signs on the wall and remembered our conversation 15 minutes before… “Don’t hold back”.  Well then, let’s go.

Passing Berto on the brakes into 7, I knew I’d need to make zero mistakes if I wanted to hold onto this.  Listening to Berto’s bike behind me, I didn’t need to look back to know how close he was.  He’d close down into turn 1, but we were pretty even through 2, 3, 4.  I heard him a couple of times up the inside into 6, but the pass never came there.  My brakes into 7 kept me safe through the 8s and down into 9, but he was all over me on the way out of 9a every lap.  A few laps in, I grabbed an extra gear into 10 and missed my brake marker into 11 while counting downshifts.  I added about 10 feet to the track as I missed the apex.  Berto didn’t, but I was a wheel ahead, and returned the favor from 600 Production and nosed past him at the wall.  The next lap or two seemed like an eternity.

I couldn’t help looking back in turn 11 at Gabe and Timmer hot on Berto’s heals.  As we came around for the last lap, I let out my best war cry from turn 11 to the white flag.  Let’s go!  Bring it home.  11 long corners later, I found myself still yelling as I took the checkers, just a few tenths of a second ahead of Berto.  I’ve never had a 2nd place finish that felt that much like a win.  I can’t thank Jason enough for letting me borrow his bike for the race, and even more, for encouraging me to race it hard.

Chris, Tom, Jason, Jenn, David, Sam, Kyle… I couldn’t be more proud to be part of this team.  Somehow you made a crash and a blown motor seem like minor speed bumps, and made the weekend a success despite it all.  With 5 podiums and personal best lap times all around, it was a complete pleasure to watch everyone in action, supporting and bringing out the best in each other.

To the sponsors who make all of this possible – Thanks Z2, Yamaha, David at Fast Bike Industries, CT Racing Pirelli, Leo Vince, Yamalube, Motion Pro, Race Image Graphics, Helimot, Suomy, Factory Body Works, Igartua, 4theriders, Sidi, Tech Spec, Ink Monkey, GP Frame & Wheel, CRG, Mach 1.