Kurt'sSV
Mon 5/3/04, 6:52PM
Willow Springs Motorcycle Club, Round 4, April 18, 2004
The Saturday practice was a cold and somewhat lonely day. Charlie, my pit mate, opted to race ARMA instead of WSMC this month, so I was going to have to pit by myself. No enclosed trailer to change and store my gear in. No fancy wheel chock to roll my bike into when I come in from practice. It was just going to be me, the old jeep and trailer, and the bike. I did go out and blow a ton of money on the best pop up canopy you can buy, but with Saturday being overcast and fairly breezy it would be rather difficult to put up on my own, so I never took the canopy out of its bag. A friend planned on coming out and taking pictures during the practice sessions and helping me with anything I needed, but he had to cancel late Friday night. I was not totally disappointed that I would have to go to the practice day by myself, but was actually looking forward to spending the day alone. Practice day is a workday, during practice I needed to stay focused and concentrate on what I was doing. Race day is a fun day to just relax and do what you practiced. If I practice like a chump, then I’ll race like a chump too. I needed to take practice pretty seriously if was going to improve on my race times.
I was not totally alone at the racetrack, though. I found Steve Slaughter and let him know if I had to be carted off to the hospital, that my girlfriend’s phone number was in the top drawer of my toolbox and to give her a call to come get the jeep. I went out for the first practice session and cruised around. When riding in and out of the pits I noticed that my clutch had a lot of play in it. I checked the clutch cable adjustments at both ends and it was tightened as much as it could be, but it still felt kind of loose. When I came back in from the second session, Charlie pulled up to my pit (he came up to the track to buy new race tires). I was glad to see him because I wanted him to troubleshoot my clutch. He figured out pretty quickly that my clutch was almost fried. It had over 30,000 miles on it before I started racing, so three practice starts and four race starts had pretty much done it in. The clutch would last through this weekend, but not beyond that. The only comfort I had in knowing that I was needing a new clutch was that I already knew how to change out the clutch plates because I took it apart twice (in one day) back in January.
In the last practice session before the lunch break it began to rain on us out on the track. I did a couple of laps, but once the pelting of rain started to hurt the exposed skin on my neck I signaled to pit in and figures that was enough practice in the wet. Once I stopped, I realized it was barely sprinkling at all. Boy was I glad of that. The new racer school students were lining up to go out so I meandered back to the hot pit wall to watch them go around the track for the first time. I noticed a girl I recognized from Palomar Mountain was out there on her Honda 600RR; I looked over my shoulder and saw a guy who was a good friend of my girlfriend. He was riding his bike over to get teched because he apparently got to the track right at eight and could not be late for class. I figured out real quick that he was there alone; otherwise someone else could have run his bike through tech while he was in class. As soon as I saw him put his kickstand down I knew he was not going to pass the technical inspection. He also got dinged for still having his license plate and rear blinkers on his bike, and not having numbers on the tail of his bike. After he got sent back to his pit I followed him to give him a hand working on his bike. We got his bike set up and passed tech right as the first school session was ending. I told him to just relax out there and have fun. He did and at the end of the day received his novice license.
In my last practice session, I was out there pushing pretty hard, but I could tell I was not setting any personal bests with my times. As I went into turn three, a bike came outside me on my right and was real late on the brakes. I figured out pretty quick that it was Stevan and I thought for sure he was not going to make the turn and end up in the dirt. He did make the turn and led me up the hill to turn four. So Stevan wanted to play, huh? Well I was game and tailed him down to turn five and up to six. Stevan jokes that he is faster at the back straight than I am because he weighs about 40 pounds more and the added weight gets his bike to start rolling faster down the hill out of turn six. He put a couple of bike lengths on me as we banged through the gears heading for turn eight. We are both equally as fast (er, or slow) at turn eight, so our distance between each other remained the same. Turn nine, though, is my turn. I have noticed that I am better at turn nine than a lot of novices and I think that is because of all the days I spent on Palomar Mountain. Turn nine is a fifth gear, decreasing radius turn. Palomar Mountain has so many decreasing radius turns that it’ll make your head spin. The only difference with turn nine from turns at Palomar, besides the speed, is that it is open and you can see your exit upon your entrance to the turn and that greatly helps you set your speed. I rolled up on Stevan fast, bounced the bike through the dip that is the turn’s apex and rolled past him immediately. When I went through turn one, Stevan rolled around me on the outside and retook the front position. We both diced back and forth for the rest of the practice session and when it was over agreed it was a blast chasing each other around the track. While that was fun, during the race on Sunday, I didn’t want to see him ahead of me.
Since it was cold and windy, I called it a day and packed up my stuff to head back home. The jeep I borrowed wasn’t exactly waterproof. It is a real, off-road 4x4, no frills Wrangler. I got poured on most of the way home and would feel a bit of spray hit me whenever a car passed. I noticed a drop of water that was not getting wiped away with the windshield wipers. It took me another second to realize that the drop of water was on the inside of the windshield. Before I got back to Burbank the roof started leaking and I got hit on the head by several large drops of rainwater. The character of this old jeep is the perfect transport vehicle for Half-assed Racing.
In contrast, Sunday was beautiful. Not a cloud in the sky all day. It was a perfect day for racing. My novice race was the first novice race of the day and it was different getting ready to race so much earlier in the afternoon. I still got to watch the expert class races where people run SV650’s in, but unfortunately Steve Slaughter did not participate in any races on this day as he ended up crashing in the last practice session on Saturday. This month’s finishers in the expert races were awarded double points, so he was taking quite a hit in the standings by not racing. Steve, though, does not really care about his class or overall standings because he is so far away from the top. He’s just out there having fun.
While I geared up for my race I listened to the Formula one race over the radio. Attack Kawasaki was there this weekend so Josh Hayes could get some more testing time on the ZX-10 superstock and superbike machines. The top fast guy at WSMC, Jeremy Toye was running hard to keep Hayes, the “outsider”, from walking away with a win. Toye and Hayes battled back and forth for the lead but it was #57, Jeremy Toye, crossing the finish line first.
Immediately after the finish of the Formula One race, it was final call to pregrid for my novice race. I hurriedly put on my helmet, glasses and gloves, got the bike off the stand and rolled over to pregrid. My heart always beats the hardest while I am sitting in pregrid. I think it is because I am just sitting there doing nothing so I have time to be nervous. When I am out on the track I have to concentrate too much on what I am doing to leave any brainpower leftover for being nervous. On the grid I was lining up on the inside of the third row. I was much closer to the front than I had been in the first two races and I liked being up here much more. I was starting to feel a little nervous again. I looked at the row behind me and saw Stevan. I really wanted to beat him, not because I felt I had something to prove, I’m just competitive and wanted to be on the first SV to cross the finish line.
When the green flag dropped, as always, the guy on the 600 in front of me was slow off the line and I had to swerve around him. Being more toward the front it was not quite as crowded going through turn one and no one crashed in front of me this month. We were nice and spread out for turn two and I was able to go through there at almost 100%, until I ran up on the back of someone toward the apex.
As usual, a bike or two on the front and back straights would pass me, but as long as it was not someone on an SV who went by, I did not let it bother me. At the crossed flags I noticed a CBR 600RR that I thought I could catch in the three remaining laps. He was still kind of far a head of me, but when we came around turn eight I noticed that I had made up a lot of ground on him. As we exited turn one on the start of the fifth lap I set my sights on him. It is hard to convince yourself to push it at 110% without any external motivation, but this guy on the number 551 bike was going to be my motivation to push myself harder.
I exited turn two faster than I ever had before and was within a few bike lengths of him. I made up a bit more ground going over the Omega section, but he ran away from me a bit on the back straight. I made up all the lost ground and then some in the eight and nine section and was in his draft down the front straight for the start of the last lap. He pulled on me, but I made it up again in turn one. He pulled on me again between one and two, but I knew that I would catch him in this turn. I wanted to go under him in turn two, but he held a very low line around the turn, which forced me to go high. We were side by side coming out of turn two. He got about a tenth of a second on me between two and three so I fell in behind him to go over the Omega. I was right on his back wheel going down to five and was trying to find a way around him. Because we were about to go out onto the back straight I figured he could repass me there anyway and if I took a different line over six I would get a much inferior drive out of that turn and would defeat the whole purpose of trying to make the pass. I continued to tail gate the 551 bike and it seemed like forever before the rider got on the gas going down hill out of six.
On the back straight he pulled away from me a little bit, but not very much. I knew I could pass him entering eight and was ready to do so. Just as we were about to enter turn eight we caught a lapper and this screwed everything up for me. 551 went underneath the lapper for turn eight, but then the lapper fell in behind the him which was where I wanted to go! I had to check up a little bit to avoid a rear end collision and when there was room, I swung around the lapper and took off after the 600RR again. Like turn two, I wanted to go underneath him in nine, but he held a low line and if I went even lower than him, my drive out of nine would have sucked, eliminating any chance I could have to out run him to the finish line. So instead I tried going the long way around his outside. We exited the turn together like a pair of riders doing some formation fly by. I know he could hear my bike over his because the twin is so much louder and this prompted him to gun it down the straight harder than he had in the previous laps.
Watching him roll away from me toward the finish line was extremely disheartening and disappointing. He beat me simply by pulling back the throttle. I yelled a few cuss words in my helmet and wanted to pound the gas tank with my left hand in my frustration, but I still needed to finish so I kept my cool.
On the cool down lap I was almost in tears because I worked so hard to run that 600RR down. I had never ridden that hard before, and it takes a lot out of you mentally. While I really was not going that fast, to me I was going as hard as I physically and mentally could. Being beaten like that on the final straight was a crushing blow. On the up side, I set a new PR by a few seconds and I feel that I could still do things differently to make my lap times even faster next month. Plus now I only have two more novice races before I can get my Probational Expert license and can move up to the classes where I can race other SVs. There I will get smoked in the corners instead of the straights.
As always thanks to my sponsors: Jadeblue Creative, Tustin Martial Arts, Cybertrackergps.com, SoCalSVRiders.org and Galfer and my family for supporting me at the race this month.
The Saturday practice was a cold and somewhat lonely day. Charlie, my pit mate, opted to race ARMA instead of WSMC this month, so I was going to have to pit by myself. No enclosed trailer to change and store my gear in. No fancy wheel chock to roll my bike into when I come in from practice. It was just going to be me, the old jeep and trailer, and the bike. I did go out and blow a ton of money on the best pop up canopy you can buy, but with Saturday being overcast and fairly breezy it would be rather difficult to put up on my own, so I never took the canopy out of its bag. A friend planned on coming out and taking pictures during the practice sessions and helping me with anything I needed, but he had to cancel late Friday night. I was not totally disappointed that I would have to go to the practice day by myself, but was actually looking forward to spending the day alone. Practice day is a workday, during practice I needed to stay focused and concentrate on what I was doing. Race day is a fun day to just relax and do what you practiced. If I practice like a chump, then I’ll race like a chump too. I needed to take practice pretty seriously if was going to improve on my race times.
I was not totally alone at the racetrack, though. I found Steve Slaughter and let him know if I had to be carted off to the hospital, that my girlfriend’s phone number was in the top drawer of my toolbox and to give her a call to come get the jeep. I went out for the first practice session and cruised around. When riding in and out of the pits I noticed that my clutch had a lot of play in it. I checked the clutch cable adjustments at both ends and it was tightened as much as it could be, but it still felt kind of loose. When I came back in from the second session, Charlie pulled up to my pit (he came up to the track to buy new race tires). I was glad to see him because I wanted him to troubleshoot my clutch. He figured out pretty quickly that my clutch was almost fried. It had over 30,000 miles on it before I started racing, so three practice starts and four race starts had pretty much done it in. The clutch would last through this weekend, but not beyond that. The only comfort I had in knowing that I was needing a new clutch was that I already knew how to change out the clutch plates because I took it apart twice (in one day) back in January.
In the last practice session before the lunch break it began to rain on us out on the track. I did a couple of laps, but once the pelting of rain started to hurt the exposed skin on my neck I signaled to pit in and figures that was enough practice in the wet. Once I stopped, I realized it was barely sprinkling at all. Boy was I glad of that. The new racer school students were lining up to go out so I meandered back to the hot pit wall to watch them go around the track for the first time. I noticed a girl I recognized from Palomar Mountain was out there on her Honda 600RR; I looked over my shoulder and saw a guy who was a good friend of my girlfriend. He was riding his bike over to get teched because he apparently got to the track right at eight and could not be late for class. I figured out real quick that he was there alone; otherwise someone else could have run his bike through tech while he was in class. As soon as I saw him put his kickstand down I knew he was not going to pass the technical inspection. He also got dinged for still having his license plate and rear blinkers on his bike, and not having numbers on the tail of his bike. After he got sent back to his pit I followed him to give him a hand working on his bike. We got his bike set up and passed tech right as the first school session was ending. I told him to just relax out there and have fun. He did and at the end of the day received his novice license.
In my last practice session, I was out there pushing pretty hard, but I could tell I was not setting any personal bests with my times. As I went into turn three, a bike came outside me on my right and was real late on the brakes. I figured out pretty quick that it was Stevan and I thought for sure he was not going to make the turn and end up in the dirt. He did make the turn and led me up the hill to turn four. So Stevan wanted to play, huh? Well I was game and tailed him down to turn five and up to six. Stevan jokes that he is faster at the back straight than I am because he weighs about 40 pounds more and the added weight gets his bike to start rolling faster down the hill out of turn six. He put a couple of bike lengths on me as we banged through the gears heading for turn eight. We are both equally as fast (er, or slow) at turn eight, so our distance between each other remained the same. Turn nine, though, is my turn. I have noticed that I am better at turn nine than a lot of novices and I think that is because of all the days I spent on Palomar Mountain. Turn nine is a fifth gear, decreasing radius turn. Palomar Mountain has so many decreasing radius turns that it’ll make your head spin. The only difference with turn nine from turns at Palomar, besides the speed, is that it is open and you can see your exit upon your entrance to the turn and that greatly helps you set your speed. I rolled up on Stevan fast, bounced the bike through the dip that is the turn’s apex and rolled past him immediately. When I went through turn one, Stevan rolled around me on the outside and retook the front position. We both diced back and forth for the rest of the practice session and when it was over agreed it was a blast chasing each other around the track. While that was fun, during the race on Sunday, I didn’t want to see him ahead of me.
Since it was cold and windy, I called it a day and packed up my stuff to head back home. The jeep I borrowed wasn’t exactly waterproof. It is a real, off-road 4x4, no frills Wrangler. I got poured on most of the way home and would feel a bit of spray hit me whenever a car passed. I noticed a drop of water that was not getting wiped away with the windshield wipers. It took me another second to realize that the drop of water was on the inside of the windshield. Before I got back to Burbank the roof started leaking and I got hit on the head by several large drops of rainwater. The character of this old jeep is the perfect transport vehicle for Half-assed Racing.
In contrast, Sunday was beautiful. Not a cloud in the sky all day. It was a perfect day for racing. My novice race was the first novice race of the day and it was different getting ready to race so much earlier in the afternoon. I still got to watch the expert class races where people run SV650’s in, but unfortunately Steve Slaughter did not participate in any races on this day as he ended up crashing in the last practice session on Saturday. This month’s finishers in the expert races were awarded double points, so he was taking quite a hit in the standings by not racing. Steve, though, does not really care about his class or overall standings because he is so far away from the top. He’s just out there having fun.
While I geared up for my race I listened to the Formula one race over the radio. Attack Kawasaki was there this weekend so Josh Hayes could get some more testing time on the ZX-10 superstock and superbike machines. The top fast guy at WSMC, Jeremy Toye was running hard to keep Hayes, the “outsider”, from walking away with a win. Toye and Hayes battled back and forth for the lead but it was #57, Jeremy Toye, crossing the finish line first.
Immediately after the finish of the Formula One race, it was final call to pregrid for my novice race. I hurriedly put on my helmet, glasses and gloves, got the bike off the stand and rolled over to pregrid. My heart always beats the hardest while I am sitting in pregrid. I think it is because I am just sitting there doing nothing so I have time to be nervous. When I am out on the track I have to concentrate too much on what I am doing to leave any brainpower leftover for being nervous. On the grid I was lining up on the inside of the third row. I was much closer to the front than I had been in the first two races and I liked being up here much more. I was starting to feel a little nervous again. I looked at the row behind me and saw Stevan. I really wanted to beat him, not because I felt I had something to prove, I’m just competitive and wanted to be on the first SV to cross the finish line.
When the green flag dropped, as always, the guy on the 600 in front of me was slow off the line and I had to swerve around him. Being more toward the front it was not quite as crowded going through turn one and no one crashed in front of me this month. We were nice and spread out for turn two and I was able to go through there at almost 100%, until I ran up on the back of someone toward the apex.
As usual, a bike or two on the front and back straights would pass me, but as long as it was not someone on an SV who went by, I did not let it bother me. At the crossed flags I noticed a CBR 600RR that I thought I could catch in the three remaining laps. He was still kind of far a head of me, but when we came around turn eight I noticed that I had made up a lot of ground on him. As we exited turn one on the start of the fifth lap I set my sights on him. It is hard to convince yourself to push it at 110% without any external motivation, but this guy on the number 551 bike was going to be my motivation to push myself harder.
I exited turn two faster than I ever had before and was within a few bike lengths of him. I made up a bit more ground going over the Omega section, but he ran away from me a bit on the back straight. I made up all the lost ground and then some in the eight and nine section and was in his draft down the front straight for the start of the last lap. He pulled on me, but I made it up again in turn one. He pulled on me again between one and two, but I knew that I would catch him in this turn. I wanted to go under him in turn two, but he held a very low line around the turn, which forced me to go high. We were side by side coming out of turn two. He got about a tenth of a second on me between two and three so I fell in behind him to go over the Omega. I was right on his back wheel going down to five and was trying to find a way around him. Because we were about to go out onto the back straight I figured he could repass me there anyway and if I took a different line over six I would get a much inferior drive out of that turn and would defeat the whole purpose of trying to make the pass. I continued to tail gate the 551 bike and it seemed like forever before the rider got on the gas going down hill out of six.
On the back straight he pulled away from me a little bit, but not very much. I knew I could pass him entering eight and was ready to do so. Just as we were about to enter turn eight we caught a lapper and this screwed everything up for me. 551 went underneath the lapper for turn eight, but then the lapper fell in behind the him which was where I wanted to go! I had to check up a little bit to avoid a rear end collision and when there was room, I swung around the lapper and took off after the 600RR again. Like turn two, I wanted to go underneath him in nine, but he held a low line and if I went even lower than him, my drive out of nine would have sucked, eliminating any chance I could have to out run him to the finish line. So instead I tried going the long way around his outside. We exited the turn together like a pair of riders doing some formation fly by. I know he could hear my bike over his because the twin is so much louder and this prompted him to gun it down the straight harder than he had in the previous laps.
Watching him roll away from me toward the finish line was extremely disheartening and disappointing. He beat me simply by pulling back the throttle. I yelled a few cuss words in my helmet and wanted to pound the gas tank with my left hand in my frustration, but I still needed to finish so I kept my cool.
On the cool down lap I was almost in tears because I worked so hard to run that 600RR down. I had never ridden that hard before, and it takes a lot out of you mentally. While I really was not going that fast, to me I was going as hard as I physically and mentally could. Being beaten like that on the final straight was a crushing blow. On the up side, I set a new PR by a few seconds and I feel that I could still do things differently to make my lap times even faster next month. Plus now I only have two more novice races before I can get my Probational Expert license and can move up to the classes where I can race other SVs. There I will get smoked in the corners instead of the straights.
As always thanks to my sponsors: Jadeblue Creative, Tustin Martial Arts, Cybertrackergps.com, SoCalSVRiders.org and Galfer and my family for supporting me at the race this month.