jadeblue1
Mon 7/9/07, 4:46PM
Thunderhill is an awesome track north of Sacremento, which puts it 7 hrs from LA, if you set cruise control for 75 mph. It’s comprised of 12 left hand and 3 right hand turns (15 total) This track will throw every kind of left hand turn there is at you, so if you’re a little shaky on the lefties, it will definitely get you over it quick, or you’ll end up out in the dirt. (see attached map below)
I’ve only raced here once, a year ago, so this was only my 3rd time to this track. My goals were to finish in the top 30 for both my races, and get some skill improvement. Friday practice was hot (110 degrees), humid, and impossibly hard on my tires. By noon, I was already flipping them to keep a “shelf” from forming on the left side. I only had medium hard compound tires, and medium softs work better at T-hill. So I would get to start Saturday am off with another tire change.
I was drinking a lot of water, but by 1 pm I had killer headache, and I got a couple of light nosebleeds during the later in the day track sessions. I’m putting this in here because it’s signs of heat exhaustion-when it’s this hot, make sure you are taking electrolyte, salt and potassium supplements of some kind-not just drinking gator aid, because those things help your body metabolize the water you’re taking in. If the balance gets way off, all the water you take in will be wasted because your body isn’t re-hydrating itself.
I rode the full day, the headache got worse, and I was getting nauseaous. When Zoran got there, we went & grabbed some dinner, put a slipper clutch in my bike, got ate alive by bugs, waited for some of the other yellow crew to show up, then I went back to my hotel…(thank you Christy & Svetlana!) I kept up on the water, potassium, and salt, and my headache & nausea finally went away around midnight, so I was able to get some sleep.
Saturday-Afm Saturday practices are not very long because they run the novice races at the end of the day, so at best you get 5 sessions. I missed my first session because of the tires I was trying to get switched out. My 2nd session, my clutch cable popped out its housing because the 6” metal sheathing on the cable kept getting caught on my gauges-funny, I never noticed it before, because it was only happening on lefts…For my 3rd session everything was back together & working, so I got one good run on the slipper clutch to try to figure it out. Good thing, because that was it- it was time for the afternoon races.
After the sun went down a little bit, Zoran & Jay put a new clutch cable on my bike-one of Zoran’s custom pieces from Motion Pro-(get one of these things-they are a lot easier to deal with!) Then it was off to the showers and wandering around the pits for the evenings entertainment. One of the things I like about the AFM is a lot of the people hang out, bbq, show movies, & have some kind of entertaining going on. That night, one of the pits had a fire dancer come in & perform-that was kind of cool to watch. Oh yeah-Zoran can smoke a cigarette and ride backwards figure 8’s on a bicycle at the same time…
Sunday-race day! My races were 7 & 13 (Formula IV & 650 Twins) so I actually got to watch some of the other races I don’t normally get to see. That was really cool. The day started to get long because there was a bunch of crashes, so I jumped out for a warm up lap a couple of races before mine. That helped get my head back in the game, and I was ready for F-IV. I was gridded 42 on a 65 bike grid. I got a pretty good start & stuffed myself into the pack, and stayed with it. I was running pretty good with a pack of about 6 bikes, and on the 3rd lap, we were going around a really slow 2-stroke in T1 from the first wave, and I saw a standing yellow at the entrance of T2 the guy in front of me managed to slide by the 2-smoker, but I was getting too close to corner worker stand to finish the pass with out getting DQ’d. So I slowed down,a nd listened to my brain screaming NOO! as I watched the pack I was racing with disappear into T3, were the waving yellow was. I still had 2 guys from the pack behind me, so I set up to go under the 2 stroke on the back straight & gap him & the other guys behind me. That worked, and I did a mad scramble to make up some time, but the other bikes had gotten far enough ahead-I wouldn’t be able to catch them. But I could at least not let the guys behind me around me. So I just tried to be smooth, keep working on getting the hang of the slipper clutch, and run good solid lines that wouldn’t let somebody by on the inside. I was really bummed out because of getting stuck behind the bike on the waving yellow, but I ended up doing pretty good-I finished 34th .
650 Twins-I was gridded 58th on this one, so I wasn’t sure how far up I could get. I got an ok start, and managed to hang on to a pack again. This race was going a lot better, I was running a lot smoother, and when my pack started to break up, it broke up at the guy in front of me. I was going underneath him in a turn and he looked at me as I was passing him-so of course he bumped me (look where you want to go, not at what you’re going to hit) I backed off a little bit, because I knew I had a better shot at him on the back straight. So I went underneath him, coming out of T6 and was feeling pretty good and was running well, until I went into T14 & forgot to dump the clutch…coming off the seat & landing up on my tank momentarily slowed my drive on that corner and homeboy went by me on the front straight. So I tried to drive past him before T1 & didn’t quite pull it off. So I showed him wheel everyplace I could –I was not going to let him stay ahead of me. I planned to get him in T14 if I couldn’t get around him anyplace else. So I did a rather unorthodox “steal your apex” pass on him-he swung all the way to the outside & grab some brakes to set up, I shot up the inside, clipped the first apex, and went out onto to the candy stripes to complete the pass & turn the bike. ( I was just pretending it was T4 @ big willow :D) I got off the bike really far so I could push it up & keep as much tire on the ground & drive the crap out of T15. I saw the white flag coming down the straight and was not going to give up my lead. I saw him try to come up beside me for the inside line into T3, but I still was ahead of him, so I shut the door & made him go behind me. Only 9 more corners to do that on & I was home free. The other corners I didn’t know where he was, but I just kept turning in like somebody was trying to sneak up on my inside. I came off T15 for the last time, and pulled the throttle all the way back to my tail section-if I tried to pull it back any farther it would be in a different zip code… I took the checkers…and on the cool down, I looked around a little bit & he was still right there-good thing I rode “the plan”…I finished 28th.
It was a whole lot of fun…again, I did a new personal best. I like my new toy (clutch). Thanks to all my sponsors-Racer’s Edge Performance-Michelin Tires, Crago Racing, Graffiti Palace, Twin Works Factory…especially big thanks to Zoran for waving the magic wand over my bike, Frosty for giving me a killer line through T7 and telling me where I was being lazy, Jay for fixing my clutch cable, and Kevin for being such a cool brother and just making me laugh (next time, be sure to stick the landing :D)
I’ve only raced here once, a year ago, so this was only my 3rd time to this track. My goals were to finish in the top 30 for both my races, and get some skill improvement. Friday practice was hot (110 degrees), humid, and impossibly hard on my tires. By noon, I was already flipping them to keep a “shelf” from forming on the left side. I only had medium hard compound tires, and medium softs work better at T-hill. So I would get to start Saturday am off with another tire change.
I was drinking a lot of water, but by 1 pm I had killer headache, and I got a couple of light nosebleeds during the later in the day track sessions. I’m putting this in here because it’s signs of heat exhaustion-when it’s this hot, make sure you are taking electrolyte, salt and potassium supplements of some kind-not just drinking gator aid, because those things help your body metabolize the water you’re taking in. If the balance gets way off, all the water you take in will be wasted because your body isn’t re-hydrating itself.
I rode the full day, the headache got worse, and I was getting nauseaous. When Zoran got there, we went & grabbed some dinner, put a slipper clutch in my bike, got ate alive by bugs, waited for some of the other yellow crew to show up, then I went back to my hotel…(thank you Christy & Svetlana!) I kept up on the water, potassium, and salt, and my headache & nausea finally went away around midnight, so I was able to get some sleep.
Saturday-Afm Saturday practices are not very long because they run the novice races at the end of the day, so at best you get 5 sessions. I missed my first session because of the tires I was trying to get switched out. My 2nd session, my clutch cable popped out its housing because the 6” metal sheathing on the cable kept getting caught on my gauges-funny, I never noticed it before, because it was only happening on lefts…For my 3rd session everything was back together & working, so I got one good run on the slipper clutch to try to figure it out. Good thing, because that was it- it was time for the afternoon races.
After the sun went down a little bit, Zoran & Jay put a new clutch cable on my bike-one of Zoran’s custom pieces from Motion Pro-(get one of these things-they are a lot easier to deal with!) Then it was off to the showers and wandering around the pits for the evenings entertainment. One of the things I like about the AFM is a lot of the people hang out, bbq, show movies, & have some kind of entertaining going on. That night, one of the pits had a fire dancer come in & perform-that was kind of cool to watch. Oh yeah-Zoran can smoke a cigarette and ride backwards figure 8’s on a bicycle at the same time…
Sunday-race day! My races were 7 & 13 (Formula IV & 650 Twins) so I actually got to watch some of the other races I don’t normally get to see. That was really cool. The day started to get long because there was a bunch of crashes, so I jumped out for a warm up lap a couple of races before mine. That helped get my head back in the game, and I was ready for F-IV. I was gridded 42 on a 65 bike grid. I got a pretty good start & stuffed myself into the pack, and stayed with it. I was running pretty good with a pack of about 6 bikes, and on the 3rd lap, we were going around a really slow 2-stroke in T1 from the first wave, and I saw a standing yellow at the entrance of T2 the guy in front of me managed to slide by the 2-smoker, but I was getting too close to corner worker stand to finish the pass with out getting DQ’d. So I slowed down,a nd listened to my brain screaming NOO! as I watched the pack I was racing with disappear into T3, were the waving yellow was. I still had 2 guys from the pack behind me, so I set up to go under the 2 stroke on the back straight & gap him & the other guys behind me. That worked, and I did a mad scramble to make up some time, but the other bikes had gotten far enough ahead-I wouldn’t be able to catch them. But I could at least not let the guys behind me around me. So I just tried to be smooth, keep working on getting the hang of the slipper clutch, and run good solid lines that wouldn’t let somebody by on the inside. I was really bummed out because of getting stuck behind the bike on the waving yellow, but I ended up doing pretty good-I finished 34th .
650 Twins-I was gridded 58th on this one, so I wasn’t sure how far up I could get. I got an ok start, and managed to hang on to a pack again. This race was going a lot better, I was running a lot smoother, and when my pack started to break up, it broke up at the guy in front of me. I was going underneath him in a turn and he looked at me as I was passing him-so of course he bumped me (look where you want to go, not at what you’re going to hit) I backed off a little bit, because I knew I had a better shot at him on the back straight. So I went underneath him, coming out of T6 and was feeling pretty good and was running well, until I went into T14 & forgot to dump the clutch…coming off the seat & landing up on my tank momentarily slowed my drive on that corner and homeboy went by me on the front straight. So I tried to drive past him before T1 & didn’t quite pull it off. So I showed him wheel everyplace I could –I was not going to let him stay ahead of me. I planned to get him in T14 if I couldn’t get around him anyplace else. So I did a rather unorthodox “steal your apex” pass on him-he swung all the way to the outside & grab some brakes to set up, I shot up the inside, clipped the first apex, and went out onto to the candy stripes to complete the pass & turn the bike. ( I was just pretending it was T4 @ big willow :D) I got off the bike really far so I could push it up & keep as much tire on the ground & drive the crap out of T15. I saw the white flag coming down the straight and was not going to give up my lead. I saw him try to come up beside me for the inside line into T3, but I still was ahead of him, so I shut the door & made him go behind me. Only 9 more corners to do that on & I was home free. The other corners I didn’t know where he was, but I just kept turning in like somebody was trying to sneak up on my inside. I came off T15 for the last time, and pulled the throttle all the way back to my tail section-if I tried to pull it back any farther it would be in a different zip code… I took the checkers…and on the cool down, I looked around a little bit & he was still right there-good thing I rode “the plan”…I finished 28th.
It was a whole lot of fun…again, I did a new personal best. I like my new toy (clutch). Thanks to all my sponsors-Racer’s Edge Performance-Michelin Tires, Crago Racing, Graffiti Palace, Twin Works Factory…especially big thanks to Zoran for waving the magic wand over my bike, Frosty for giving me a killer line through T7 and telling me where I was being lazy, Jay for fixing my clutch cable, and Kevin for being such a cool brother and just making me laugh (next time, be sure to stick the landing :D)