Friday evening Eric and I had a wedding to go to in San Jose, so we didn’t get to bed until around midnight in our hotel in Novato. We both fell to sleep right away, only to be awoken at 3:30am when the TV in the room was apparently possessed by an evil spirit and magically turned on. WTF? Mostly asleep and confused I finally found the power button in the dark and went back to sleep. 6am came far too early.

Practice went well. Jeff & Craig with Viets Performance loaned me a set of tire warmers since mine were on backorder and I was able to immediately put in some decent laps right from the first session. I was pretty happy that my crash just a few days ago didn’t get into my head and affect my riding. Like most, I spent the day trying to come to grips with the intense wind which really affected where I could brake into turns. While my times weren’t anything to brag about, they were at least very consistent and I knew in the races I’d naturally drop a couple of seconds so I felt good. For the first time, no saturday races for me, so I was able to relax with a beer and enjoy watching the Clubman/Formula 40 races in the afternoon.

Sunday was another beautiful day in Sonoma- a little warmer then Saturday, but still very windy. I was race 9 (650 Twins) and 12 (650 Production) so I had a long break between morning practice and my races.

It seemed to take forever for them to call 650 Twins after Formula Pacific and I was worried that I might of missed the call. I finally heard the call and went out for my warm up lap and got gridded. I got a nice start and ended up having a great battle with Jason Baumbach #516 for most of the race. Jason took me into 9 and I got him right back in 11. A lap or two later Jason gets me back and I stay on his rear tire trying to find where I’m stronger to make another pass. Jason seems to be getting off the corners a little better then I am, but I’m stronger on the brakes. After 6 laps though, I’m suffering from a cramped right hand and arm pump and I’m struggling to keep up. I try a couple of times to make an inside pass in 4, but Jason shuts always the door.

By the last lap I realize I don’t have the pace to pass him back and foolishly take it a little easy going into Turn 7 on the last lap only to find Pat Clar #758 sneak pass me on the inside on the brakes. Where did he come from? I tried to get Pat back in turn 9, but he was strong on the brakes and I ended up finishing 21st- my best finish ever in the class, but I wasn’t happy about loosing a place at the end… something to remember I guess.

The break between races allowed me to physically recover and get ready for 650 Production. Not nearly as good of a start this time and I find myself in 7th position behind Alan Cunningham #368. Alan had about 1 second lead on me and I spend the first half of the race trying to close the gap. By lap 4 I’ve closed the gap and I know Alan is about 2 seconds faster then I am, so he’s just gotta be taking it a little easy because he doesn’t know I’m right on his rear wheel. If I pass him right away, he’ll have plenty of time to find a way back around me and will probably just check out. However, I don’t know if someone else has snuck behind me and is lining me up for a pass like last race, so when I see an opening on the inside of Turn 11 I go for it without hesitation.

Alan and I cross and end up drag racing down the front straight, but as I learned from Ernie last round, since I’ve got the inside line, Alan will have to brake first and I’ll be able to make the pass in Turn 1. Alan broke a little later then I was expecting, but I was still able to make a nice clean pass in 1. :)

Now that I’m ahead, I concentrate on getting a good drive out of 2 and the try to keep Alan behind me. Things are going pretty well until Turn 11 when I brake too late, bottom out the forks and end up going way wide and let Alan through. l quickly recover and try to close the gap, but as I exit Turn 2, the rear spins up and steps out. It happens again at the top of 3a and I realize that my rear tire has reached the end of it’s lifespan and I don’t have a prayer of keeping up with Alan who has dropped the hammer and is beginning to check out. I check my six to make sure nobody has snuck up on me again and concentrate on bring it back shiny side up for the last two laps. I finish in 7th place: Top Novice.

Overall, another great weekend. First time this year I didn’t spend hours wrenching on the bike and could just concentrate on my riding and having fun. I can’t wait for round 4 at Thunderhill!

Big thanks to:
- BRG Racing for so quickly fixing my bike after my crash last week. KC and the gang always come up big for me.
- Viets Performance for loaning me a set of tire warmers for the weekend.
- My buddy Eric for once again spending his weekend at the track with me and lending his support, advice and skills.

Here’s Alan’s video from the 650 Production race. You can check me out on lap 4 of 650 Production starting at 7:55:

But my buddy Eric took a big risk and offered to lend me his bike (I crashed one of his bikes last year at a track day) so I could race the final round at Sears Point. We spent 3 full days prepping his completely stock SV650 to make it AFM legal and ready for me to race. We ended up running out of time the Sunday before the races, so Friday night my other friend Gerald and I finished prepping the bike at the track so I could pass tech inspection in the morning.

Saturday morning, the weather was perfect and after explaining that yes, the bike still had the original drive chain & sprockets (now 10 years old!) I got through tech without any problems. I went out for first morning practice- my first time riding the bike, and immediately discovered that there was something wrong with the motor. The motor didn’t have any power above 5K RPM’s or so (I don’t really know since the bike doesn’t have a tach or speedo) and stuttered at high revs. As I came off track at the end of the session, I got lucky and ran into K.C. who has helped me so many times before this year. K.C. told me to pull the spark plugs and bring them by so he could diagnose the issue.

Long story short, Gerald and I took K.C.’s advice (clean the main jets) and the motor ran great! I had lost one of my practice sessions and got back to trying to find my groove on track with the new bike. While the bike felt great, I was having a lot of problems with the stock gearing which is designed for good fuel mileage at highway speeds and not for racing. The result was I was having a lot of problems with the exits of turns 9 & 11- two very important corners for a good lap time. By the end of practice, my best lap was a 2:02… not great by any means, but decent for practice I guess. My big problem though was consistency- my lap times were all over the place.

I had signed up to race Clubman Lightweight on Saturday, but my race got postponed until Sunday morning. Morning practice was cut short and I was the second race. Due to my points earlier in the season, I was gridded on the front row in 3rd place. I was a bit concerned about the starts- the bike doesn’t have a tach, the gearing is really tall and the clutch has a very short engagement range all of which doesn’t bode well for getting a great launch off the line.

As the 1-board went sideways I brought up the revs and leaned forward over the front end… dragging the clutch and waiting for the green flag… GO!

Some how I got the holeshot and leaped to the front, a whole bike length in front of Frank who was on pole. I couldn’t believe it! I was so happy to have made the perfect start that I completely lost focus of the little things… ya know, like shifting into 3rd gear and turning in at the right time. Stupid novice mistake. As two other riders blew by me on the outside up the hill into turn 2, I realized I had made a big mistake and tried to refocus. I had a good battle for a few laps with Frank Shermon (#825) again, but he made a great pass on me on the outside of turn 4 and left me like a sack of potatoes on the side of the road… I just didn’t have the pace to keep up. I ended up doing a best of 2:00 and finished in 6th place- not great, but a good warm up I guess.

Next race was 650 Twins. Most of the people here are much better riders then I am and on better bikes so my goal was simple: use the track time as practice for 650 Production and don’t finish last. I ended up finishing 26 out of 33 starters (6 who DNF’d) and doing a career best 1:57 trying to chase down faster riders then myself, but I still wasn’t consistent. I had finally figured out T9 & 11 (carry more corner speed and use the higher gear), but now I was carrying more speed between turns 1, 2 & 3 and bouncing off the rev limiter. Unfortunately, the gearing didn’t allow me to upshift because then I’d lug the motor on the exits of turns 2 & 3.

My final race was 650 Production- the one that matters. The good news was that I was the only novice entered this round so I had basically clinched top novice in class by default. Not the most satisfying way to “win” that, so I concentrated on finishing the highest I could in the race. I got an OK start and while the leaders ran off at the front I found myself in a battle mid-pack still having problems running out of motor up the hill into turn 2 and then on the short straight before turn 3.

After a couple of laps I found myself battling a rider I hadn’t seen before on the 650P grid- someone with blue ACT leathers and apparently sponsored by “Catalyst Reaction” since that was what was written on them. It ended up being a good battle between the two of us for most of the race, with the other rider showing me a wheel in various corners and taking advantage of any error I made (like going too deep into turn 7). But I was able to pass him back on the brakes into 9 and later on the exit of 9 when he went wide. At that point there was only 2 laps to go and I put my head down, concentrated on my brake and turn in points and put down my best lap ever- a 1:56.4! As I came around turn 11 to start the final lap I looked behind me to see how close he was and I saw a bike farther back- looked like I gotten a decent lead so I made sure to hit all my marks and not let him close back in.

Another strong lap and I was stoked to take the checker ahead of the other rider after such a long and hard battle. I looked behind me on the cool down lap to give him a thumbs up for such a great ride and fun race and he wasn’t there! The other rider I had seen in turn 11 the previous lap was running a different wave in the race. I had no idea what happened to him as I never saw anyone crash or yellow flags and afterwords I asked Gerald and Wendy if they saw what happened to him, but they say he just disappeared towards the end of the race.

After the race, I looked at the posted race results and looked at the DNF’s and found my mystery rider: Dave Moss- who does all my suspension work. In retrospect I guess I should of known that when I saw Catalyst Reaction on his leathers (duh), but I guess I was too busy trying to figure out how to pass him back then to think who he was! Anyways, I found Dave and found out the bad news- he had run out of gas. :( I was glad it wasn’t serious, but sad that he wasn’t able to battle me until the end- I had the most fun racing in my short career while it lasted! Hopefully next year Dave will have his bike properly setup and we can go again!

Anyways, I finished 6th place in the race and 7th overall out of 19 riders which was good enough for top novice in class and blowing away my goal of making the top 50%! More importantly, I’ve consistently gotten faster all year- dropping 12 seconds at Sears and 6 at Thunderhill. I can’t say I’m fast yet, but I’ve made big strides this year while battling some major adversity.

Now that the season is over, I’m already excited about next year. It’s hard to put into mere words what my first year racing in the AFM has meant to me, but it’s fair to say it’s not an experience I’ll ever forget. Racing has taught me a lot of good life lessons- setting goals, over coming big obstacles and most of all about what great friends I have.

There have been a lot of people who have helped me this year, but a few have stood out above the rest that I’d especially like to thank:

• Dave, Jim & Nickie @ Catalyst Reaction for their advice and help all year getting my suspension dialed in
• K.C. @ BRG Racing for helping me all year with one mechanical problem after another
• My buddy Eric for his advice, support and litterally wrenching on my bike for days on end at home and the track- seriously dude, I couldn’t of done it without you!
• And of course, my wife Wendy for supporting my crazy ambition to start racing. I love you!

Instead, Eric has offered me his SV for the final round at Infineon. So we’re going to swap my suspension/wheels (which is setup pretty decently at this point) with his completely stock suspension so the bike will sorta feel like mine. Probably move over the carbs & exhaust so I can take advantage of all the tuning BRG did. Some yellow tape to make number plates on the fairings and add #828 and I’ll go racing. Since his bike is completely stock (including gearing), but missing any gauges it should be an interesting experience.

My first session out on track was like visiting an old friend and I was able to quickly put down some decent lap times even with a cold track and new rear tire. Being the Friday before a race weekend, there was no B- group so there were quite a few slow people in B+ and they tended to bunch up which was a little frustrating, but also allowed me to work on my passes and forced me to try different lines. Considering my off-track excursion last round, having some experience doing different lines can only be considered a good thing. :)

Unfortunately, my trackday was cut short due to a noise (the same sound you get from shaking a can of spray paint) coming from the engine… not the kind of sound you want to hear. At first we thought it was the cam chain tensioner, but after re-adjusting it the sound would always come back and it just got worse. The day was basically over by this point, so decided to button things up and hope we could get some help from K.C. from BRG on Saturday so I could race on Sunday.

The next morning I tracked down K.C. and he figured out that the noise wasn’t from the cam chain tensioners, but rather from inside the motor cases. We got the bike on it’s side and removed the stator cover and immediately found the problem: the generator coil bolts had loosened and allowed the coil to hit the stator hub repeatedly. The generator coil was destroyed and there was a ton of metal shavings floating in my oil and stuck to various metal bits.

Long story short, we weren’t able to properly clean out the engine to get all the metal out of the engine and there was a big question mark of how clogged the mesh filter was. If it was clogged the motor wouldn’t get enough oil and it could seize while I was riding it which is quite dangerous. Unfortunately, the only way to know how bad it was to split the engine cases- not realistic at the track.

Honestly, the motor was probably OK, but after weighing both sides I decided there really wasn’t much to be gained from racing with a questionable motor. Since I’m not in the running for a title nor can I qualify for my expert license this year, I decided to sit this round out and flush the motor the best I can before next round. There really is a big difference between paid-to-play and paying-to-play.

The good news is that I’m still in contention for overall top novice in the 650 Production class. I didn’t realize that until I got home, but I’m leading by only 2 points so next round is going to be absolutely critical. Hopefully I can get everything squared away in time and get a good result!

I went in to this round with high hopes. I consider Thunderhill my “home” track, even though it’s 3+ hours away because I’ve done so many track days there. It’s a great track with lots of variety: elevation changes, on and off camber turns, hard braking zones and fast straights. The weather was perfect- in the mid to high 70’s, rather then the 100 degree temps normal for this time of year. I figured this was my best chance of getting some decent points in hopes of finishing out the year in the top half in points in 650 Production.

Everything was seemingly going great until first practice on Saturday morning- my exhaust was clearly cooking my bellypan in the hot pits before I even went out on track. No point burning a hole in the fiberglass, so I went back to the pits and drove off to Walmart in search of a silicon hot mitt and some aluminum foil to create a heat shield. After no luck finding a reasonable insulating material at Walmart, I ended up getting some proper heat shield from Andre Benguerel (#951) and making my next practice session.

I ended up doing a 2:14 that session, not fast compared to the rest of the field, but within 2 seconds of my best at Thunderhill which was on my 748 during NRS. I was however having problems with the front end bottoming out (again) causing me to almost loose the front end twice at the apex of turns and my rear tire was having wear issues. Dave Moss made a few adjustments to the forks and rear shock which really transformed the bike and solved my front end problems. But before my next session, the entire back straight got oil all down the racing line when a bike blew its engine and I ended up doing no better then 2:16’s the rest of practice.

My clubman race was Saturday afternoon and I was gridded 4th on the outside of the front row. I ended up getting a good, but not great start and ended up 2nd behind Conan Dooley (#849). While I was mostly able to keep up with Conan in practice, in the race Conan seemed to find another gear and quickly put 10 bike lengths on me. I realized I wasn’t going to be challenging Conan so I concentrated on building a lead on the remaining bikes. That lasted until turn 3 when Robert Ababurko (#803) went around me on the outside on his 125. I can’t say I was too surprised- I know Bob is really quick (he ended up winning the race) and so I worried about the other two riders behind me also on SV’s.

I pushed hard, but Frank Shermoen (#825) ended up tracking me down and we swapped places a couple of times. Frank got me on the outside of 3 (hmmm… a pattern?) and I got a great drive out of 8 and got him back on the brakes into 9. Frank got me back in 2 when I went wide and I got him back on the brakes again into turn 14. I made another pass on the front straight on rider from the first wave, but Frank wasn’t quite as lucky and got held up while I was able to extend my lead to a comfortable 3rd place finish. Afterwords I found I had done consistent 2:12’s and got down into the 2:11’s while chasing down Frank- my best lap ever at Thunderhill! This was my 2nd time dicing it up with Frank and I’ve really enjoyed the start of this mini-rivalry.

During the race, I did notice my rear was sliding a bit again though. Same issue I was having at Sears, but while I had previously attributed it to tire pressure issues I started to wonder if it really was my tires going off. Sunday morning practice didn’t go that hot (2:16’s) and a conversation with Vik Anderson (“Wow, you’ve got a Metzler rear tire; that’s gotta be like 3 years old!”) convinced me to stop by CT Racing for some new Pirelli’s. Chris took *great* care of me and hooked me up with some new Dragon SuperCorsa’s (which worked absolutely fabulous and just like he claimed they would). While I’m sure all the tire guys are great to work with, I’d find it hard to believe any are better then Chris.

Of course, no race weekend of mine would be complete without the technical issue and so I had to forget to install the washer on the rear axle and ended up stripping the retaining nut when remounting the rear wheel. After yelling a few obscenities which no doubt half the paddock heard I set off in desperate hopes that one of my fellow SV racers would have a spare. Of course the first person I asked was Zoran who gladly traded me a new bolt for the promise of beer. (Zoran if you’re reading this, I dropped 3 ice cold Newcastle’s off later that day- hopefully one of them ended up in your hands.)

After scrubbing in the tires in some warm up laps, I got ready for 650 Twins. I don’t have many points, so ended up starting on the last row. I thought I got a decent start, but the door closed on me into turn 1 and ended up in last place. I knew my tires were nice and warm and so I had no problem going in deep into turn 2 and picking up a place or two. This time I ended up battling with Brian Paoletti (#791) for most of the race and he made a great pass on me on the inside of turn 14. I was finally able to get back around Brian (I think it was into turn 10, I forget really) on the penultimate lap and this time made sure this time to protect the inside line into 14. I made sure to get a good drive out of 15 and worked hard to keep up the corner speed through turn 1 where I thought I was a little stronger. Still pushing, I went a little too hot into turn 2 and had a problem keeping my line, but I had enough of a gap to keep Brian from making the pass. I got hard on the gas on the exit of 3 and went to grab the front brake for 4 only to grab nothing but air! A huge mental mistake on my part from pushing really hard, but I was able to quickly get things settled as Brian took the position away from me on the inside. I got hard on the gas up the hill into 5 and quickly closed on Brian’s rear, but I ended up having to grab a handful of front brake to avoid hitting him when he parked it at the top of the hill and almost tucked the front in the process. By the time I got the bike headed back down the hill, Brian had a 5 or 6 bike length lead and I knew unless he made a big mistake I wouldn’t be able to close the gap in the final lap. He didn’t and I ended up finishing 29 out of 32 starters. Not my best race, but congrats to Brian who ran a clean race and really kept the pressure on me to force the mental mistake. The good news was I put in a new best 2:10- another second off my personal best although my times weren’t as consistent.

My last race was 650 Production. Another small grid with only 7 riders starting. While ideally, this should be the perfect newbie class, it’s dominated by some fast experts and with the economy being what it is, there aren’t many novices. This round was no different and there was only two novices: Roger Gonzalez (#688) and I. I got a good start from the 2nd row and pushed hard the first lap (doing a 2:11) hoping to get a tow from the leaders, but they were going 5-10 seconds faster then me and I had no chance. This race wasn’t too eventful and I ran 6th for basically the whole race, although at the end of lap 4 I looked over my shoulder down the front straight to find Roger right behind me. That gave me a kick in the pants and I had to really focus to hold on to 6th at the checker.

Overall, another good weekend. Even though I’m battling it out at the back of the pack, I’m having a lot of fun and it’s encouraging to be dropping a couple of seconds a lap each weekend- it’s amazing how much time you can save when you just open the throttle earlier and harder. :)

After having such a difficult first racing experience the last round, I came in with some simple goals:

• Ride the bike more then wrenching on it
• Improve my lap times
• Don’t finish last!

Saturday morning practice was foggy and a little chilly, but the track wasn’t too bad. I went out on track, only to find the bike was way way down on power. It just wasn’t possible- BRG had just finished tuning the carbs on the dyno and the motor was fine! Turned out I had accidentally disconnected a wire to one of the ignition coils when installing my AMB lap timer and I was running on a single cylinder. Doh.

Remainder of practice was spent working on my lines through turns 1, 4, 7 and 9. I started having problems with bottoming out the front forks under braking in turns 7, 9 and 11 which forced me to start trail braking into T7 and T9, but I couldn’t figure out a good solution for the entrance into 11. I was becoming really tentative through turn 4 as the bump at the apex kept causing the front to want to wash out on me, but Eric was able to give me some really good advice on how to change my line to fix that.

Time for Clubman. I started in P4 on the outside of the first row, which was my first time ever on the front! I timed the start perfectly, but ended up wheeling really bad and lost a position before going into turn 1. I put my head down and tried to chase down the leaders, but their pace was a lot faster then mine and I ended up riding a lonely race, finishing 5th. Afterwords, I found I was doing consistent 2:04’s which was 2 seconds faster then my best time last round- headed in the right direction, but still 4 seconds off my best lap ever lap time on my 748.

Sunday morning I went out for practice and continued to have issues with the front end and so I decided we needed to change the fork oil to up the compression and adjust the rear shock to work out a tire wear issue. My first race was race #9- 650Twins so we had plenty of time.

Since I had no points, I started second to last on the back row. Didn’t get a good start this time, and had a lot of work to do. While the leaders ran away at the front, I concentrated on closing the gap on the rider in front of me, thinking I was in last place. I was able to close the gap a little, but small mistakes and a rear tire which didn’t seem quite right would allow the rider in front to open up the gap again and then on the exit of the carousel on lap 3 I caught the sight of another bike out of the corner of my eye trying to make a pass (Hi Frank!). Wondering where the heck the other rider came from, I concentrated on getting on the gas and a strong drive down the drag strip into 7 and made sure to get a good drive on the exit into the esses. I was able to hold on until lap 5 when I went in too hot into 7, bottomed out the forks and ended up going wide, allowing the other rider to take the lead. I was 5 or 6 bike lengths behind now and had to work hard to catch up even as my rear tire seemed to be slipping more then normal.

Finally on the last lap of the race I was was close enough to make my move- I had noticed that the other rider was taking a really wide line into the chicane (T9) and I had been working hard all weekend on taking a tighter line and with the changes to the forks I was more confident on the brakes. I was 3 bike lengths behind on the exit of T8 and hard on the gas. I was able to out brake the other rider, hit the apex and exit the turn knowing I had made a clean pass. I got hard on the gas through T10 and concentrated on getting good drive out of the hairpin and onto the front straight to take the checker! It was great racing with you Frank!

Afterwords while in the pits, I looked on my lap timer and showed I was doing 2:08’s[*]. WTF? I couldn’t believe I had lost 4 seconds- even with my rear tire slipping (which looked absolutely fine no less!). Eric undid his last change to the shock hoping that would help the traction issues and I got ready for 650 Production where I’d grid last (inside of row 3) due to not having any points.

* Turned out I wasn’t doing 2:08’s in 650Twins afterall- I was looking at the wrong session in my lap timer and I had really been doing consistent 2:01’s and got as low as 1:59.8, but I didn’t figure that out until Monday.

In the next race I got a great start off the line, but quickly lost a position and ran in last place for the rest of the race since everyone was a bit faster then I was. Rather then worrying about position, I just concentrated on my riding and tried to put in consistent fast laps. I was still having problems bottoming out the forks under heavy braking and my rear tire was again slipping in a few turns, but both were noticeably better so it really wasn’t affecting my riding or confidence much.

The race went quickly and after taking the checker I looked down to see what my lap times were. I was doing consistent 2:00 and had done a 1:58.0! That’s 8 seconds faster then my best lap last round. Needless to say I was ecstatic and was grinning ear to ear.

While this weekend went a lot better then last, it doesn’t mean I didn’t have help. I would like to thank KC and the rest of the gang at BRG Racing for fixing my clutch and doing such a great job tuning my carbs. The bike is running just great (at least when it’s firing on all cylinders! :) and it’s done wonders for my confidence and the way my lap times are improving proves it.

And of course my buddy Eric who once again came out to not just support me, wrench on the bike when needed, but also be there to help me with my riding by offering sound advice and lots of encouragement. Eric can’t make it to the next round and I’m going to miss his over the top support.

And of course my lovely wife Wendy, who not just puts up with me and my crazy racing dreams, but supports me too. Thanks Love!

Instead, this post is about people. Old friends and new ones who bent over backwards and relentlessly worked for 3 days to get me out on track and be able to race.

I guess though I should start from the beginning. I got a used 1st gen SV650 track/race bike late last year and while at Thunderhill doing Star School I killed the motor- broke a piston to be exact. I ended up finding a used motor off of eBay and had it replaced just in time for the 2nd AFM round.

I signed up for Clubman, 650P and 650Twins figuring that between doing PTT on Friday and Saturday practice I’d have no problem re-learning the track. See I’ve only done 2 days at Sears before and my last day back in September ended early due to loosing the rear on the exit of the Carousel. But I had gotten down to 2min flat before the crash, so I figured the 2:05 cutoff for 650Twins wouldn’t be a problem- I just needed some track time to get back up to speed and adjust to the new motor.

Being my first race, my buddy Eric decided to come along and be my pit crew, so we drove up early Friday morning and got everything ready. That’s when we first noticed the SV was way down on power- completely unridable even. The new (stock) motor just wasn’t taking kindly to the carbs which still had their stock jetting. Eric commented his old Ninja 250 had more power. *sigh*

Eric tore apart the carbs, cleaned the jets and things improved but still not good enough. A few more cleanings and we weren’t making any progress. Over lunch Eric realized that the carbs were flooding the new engine but I didn’t have a jet kit. Eric decided to adjust the needles and got things not just working but now the motor had serious pull all the way to redline. Needless to say I was thrilled and went out the first session after lunch to re-learn the track.

I felt completely lost that first session, but the bike was working great so I felt I had something to build on. Eric suggested I do the next session in just 3rd & 4th gears so I could concentrate on my lines and break/turn-in markers which really helped and things started coming together. But then things fell apart in my 3rd session- the motor which had been working so well was now surging, poping and worst of all loosing power randomly in the turns making it completely unrideable.

I came back to our pits and immediately Eric tore into the carbs and adjusted the needles (the only means we had to adjust the carbs) to richen thing up figuring we had gone too lean. 15 minutes later the carbs were back on the engine and we started things up. The bike ran for 5 seconds, died and wouldn’t start again.

Obviously something was wrong with the carbs… did we have a pinched fuel or vacuum line? Maybe the diaphragms were screwed up?? We closely examined everything, but all was in working order. We mentioned this problem to another SV racer (hi Machete) pitted near by who asked, “You sure you’re getting spark?” Well duh, obviously the problem was with the carbs- after all we hadn’t touched the electrical and had been playing with the carbs all day.

So we checked the plugs. We were wrong. No spark. I was devastated and was almost ready to throw in the towel. Eric refused to be dissuaded and pushed forward. Maybe it was the regulator? Machete introduced me to a bunch of the SV racers who showed up that evening hoping one of them would have a spare, but no such luck. Eric was able to get a hold of Zoran who informed us, “Iz not f**king regulator, bike will run without ze regulator.”

Maybe the ignitor? Machete pulled his and we tried that with no such luck. By this time, the battery was dead from running the starter and we hooked it up to the truck’s battery. Looking at the plugs clearly the bike was running too lean- did we kill the plugs? All we had was a cheap radio shack voltmeter (didn’t even have a continuity test feature) and the sun was quickly dropping behind the hills, so we packed up and went to the hotel room to wash up and grab dinner.

The next morning we went by Home Depot and got a proper multimeter so we could debug what was going on. Since I didn’t have a working bike, I skipped registration and tech, hoping that we’d figure what was going on in time for me to get a couple of practice sessions in before my clubman race.

Eric figured out that the coils and plugs were working just fine so Eric, Zoran and I tore into the very non-standard wiring harness looking for a resistor that Zoran guessed was the problem. Once we found it though, it tested as working properly and so we were back to square one. At that point we started testing just about every wire in the harness looking for the problem. When the timing sensor came back as not sending a signal we figured we had found the problem. We decided to drain the oil and remove the side cover to check the timing sensor. We knew if the sensor was broken my weekend was over since nobody would have a spare I could borrow/buy.

Imagine our surprise to find one of the bolts holding the timing sensor was missing and it had rotated out of position. We were able to get a bolt from Richard at RaceBikeRentals.com and almost magically the bike started right up. I had just enough time to register, go through tech, get my lap timer and suit up to make the final practice session of the day. Thanks to everyone in the AFM who worked so quickly to get me through registration and tech with literally just seconds to spare!

Practice went pretty well. I was able to drop a few more seconds even though the bike seemed a little down on power from earlier in the day. About this point KC of BRG swung by and noticed our long faces and asked what was up. Immediately he offered his help and gave us a lot of advice on reading spark plugs and some new jets to fix overly lean carb situation.

I decided it was best to do clubman as-is rather then play with the carbs and try to get back the power I lost from Friday. It turned out to be a good gamble. I had qualified 7th out of 10 in that single 15 minute practice session and got a decent start- moving up a position into turn one. By the end I had made another spot up, finishing 5th. My lap times were pretty consistent in the 2:06-08 range, good enough to qualify for 650P but not 650 Twins. Considering what my last two days were like and my limited time at Sears Point I thought that was pretty good.

Eric and I pulled the carbs again and with KC’s help got the carbs properly jetted and found the power I was missing in clubman and we went to dinner content and looking forward to the next day.

We woke up early Sunday morning and I went through registration/tech without any issues. Being in practice group 1, I was the first group out while the track was still cold, but my Pirelli’s did a good job of sticking and I was able to work on my entrance into the chicane- an area that Eric and I had identified that needed the most work. But towards the end of the session I started noticing that the bike started rev’ing a lot better then it had earlier- too well actually. The next time down the drag strip things had gotten bad enough that it was obvious- my clutch was going *fast*. I had just enough to limp the bike off track and Eric and I ended up pushing the bike back to the pits.

At this point I was resigned to the fact it just wasn’t my weekend and was ready to call it a day. Eric refused to give up and we put the bike on it’s side and pulled the clutch cover to look at the plates. They looked fine and we went off in search of advice. We found Zoran and KC talking to each other and both agreed the clutch adjustment was off so Eric and I went to fix things. We made the necessary adjustment and I went to the hot pits to check things out. Things seemed pretty good for a couple of rolling starts, but the clutch started slipping so I went back to the pits. A couple of more adjustments & tests and we were no closer to a solution then when we started and time was running out for my race.

We tracked down KC again and he agreed to come over and take a look. We made another adjustment and we all went to the hot pits to test. I made 8 or 10 rolling starts and the clutch held up… so with less then an half an hour to go until my race we called it done and said a little prayer that it would hold during the race. By this point we had figured the problem was really the springs, but there just wasn’t enough time to swap them out before my race.

1st call. I ride to the hot pits to practice a couple of starts. Just a few, I don’t want to risk the clutch, but I need to relearn the friction zone of the clutch after all the adjustments. I go out for my warm up lap to get some heat in the tires and I think I notice the clutch starting to slip down the drag strip- my imagination maybe? I can only hope.

1 board. Sideways…. Green! I didn’t get as good of a jump this time, but I stay on the gas and I’m able to make a pass again up the hill into turn two. I’m back on the gas on the exit and there’s that nagging feeling about the clutch again. Up the hill again into 3a, down into 4 and the guy in front locks up the rear and foolishly watch his rear tire rather then concentrate on the turn and fail to take advantage. Through 5 now, on the gas not getting the drive I think I should. Down into the Carousel and onto the drag strip I let the bike drift out as I’m hard on the gas only the bike is rev’ing and I’m not accelerating. Up into 5th gear, about to grab 6th and I realize the clutch is gone and there’s no way I’m finishing. Rather then become a rolling obstacle for the 2nd and 3rd waves I put up my hand and ride out turn 7, put the bike behind the wall and watch the rest of the race from there.

You might think I’d be disappointed with how things worked out… you’d be right. It was a long, hard weekend and I didn’t reach all the goals I set out for myself earlier in the week. And while I didn’t score any points on track I learned something important- that club racing isn’t an individual sport; it’s a team sport and your team is may end up being everyone else in the paddock.

Thanks to:
- KC of BRG Racing for his help with the carbs and clutch
- Zoran of Twin Works for his advice and help debugging the electrical issue
- Machete for his words of advice and introducing me to my fellow SV racers
- Richard of RaceBikeRentals.com for the bolt to get my timing sensor working again
- AFM Tech for getting me through quickly so I could make my practice session
- Conan for his words of encouragement
- The corner worker who’s name I never got who pushed my bike to the other side of the track so I didn’t have to
- Everyone else I met (Ben, Sam, Zoe, and plenty of other names I’ve forgotten) who were so cool and made me feel welcome in the AFM family
And especially to:
My buddy Eric not just for spending an exhausting 3 full days wrenching, debugging and fixing my bike, but for teaching me what kind of resolve and determination it takes if you want to win.

-Aaron AFM #828

Actually I’m a little surprised just how quickly I’ve not only gotten back up to speed from last year, but also have improved- dropping 3 seconds/lap from my best last year. No doubt I have Jason Pridmore of STAR School to thank for that.

Anyways, when I was at Thunderhill doing a track day two weeks ago, I was video taped by Vision Wells. They were kind enough to take one of my laps and post it up on Youtube:

Not my fastest lap that day, as I was taking it easy since it was the first session after lunch, but I’m really enjoying watching it over and over again, looking at my lines for things I can improve on. One of the obvious issues is I’m turning in too early; something I’m going to have to work on in the future.