Three weekends down, four to go

My season has been off to a reasonably good start.  The first weekend at High Plains Raceway (HPR) the bike was mostly in the same trim as last year.  It worked okay, and I was performing okay, but unfortunately the competition was doing a little better than okay!  I entered nine races, and (since i am generally competing against bigger bikes) was competitive in only three of them, getting two third places and one fourth place finish.

The second weekend was at Pikes Peak International Raceway (PPIR), the weekend of June 1st and 2nd.  I got there on Friday in time to practice a small amount, which allowed me to try out the new Ohlins suspension that I had purchased from Spears Racing, (my newest sponsor), and had gotten installed on the bike along with some minor engine performance parts by Rocky Mountain Kawasaki, one of my sponsors.  The suspension was definitely more stable that the stock units, but I still felt that I wasn't getting into the corners with as much ease as I would have liked.  I was also able to get out on the new (for us) Yamaha R6 that Rod Mattison (#26) has purchased for this year's team 4-hr endurance race. The quick evaluation is that compared to the 400 Ninja the 600 cc R6 is incredibly fast.  This is the actual bike that beat us by one lap last year, so if nothing else we have eliminated some of the competition for this year!

Itching to adjust the suspension on Friday, I ultimately decided to leave it alone through Saturday and just continue my evaluation. As I said it was stable, but didn't provide the feel, or ability to pick or change my line that I had anticipated.  I did find that I was finally able to do some trail braking into the corners - applying the front brake while turning in - which I had noticed a complete lack of comfort with when riding the stock suspension, so this was a distinct improvement. Saturday evening I pulled the fork tubes up in the triple clamps, the tiniest amount - 1 mm - which has the effect of lowering the front of the bike that same amount and also making the forks a tiny amount steeper.  This immediately resulted in the steering effect that I had been looking for - ease of turning in, and the flexibility to change my line mid corner.  I was also able to more easily move around on the bike.  I registered for 10 races that weekend, but ultimately only ran in eight of them.  I did improve the two third places to seconds, and the fourth to a third, so my performance was moving in the right direction. 

The third race weekend was at Pueblo Motorsports Park (PMP), the weekend of June 22-23.  I missed Friday practice, getting down to the track early Saturday morning.  I registered for my now normal 10 races, four on Saturday and six on Sunday.  Saturday went well, and I was finally able to try out Pirelli's road race slick tires, a brand new option for my bike.  Up until now I had been racing on their D.O.T. racing tires - street legal tires with tread - but with rubber soft enough that they would be ridiculously short lived if actually used on the street.  New tires are always nice, but I initially didn't notice any significant improvement in my lap times after Sol Performance, another of my sponsors, mounted them for me. 

Now, the road race course at PMP shares its front straight with a drag strip. This gives us a very long front straight, but also has us leaned over while going through the drag staging area.  Those guys put down crazy chemicals that help make their tires as sticky as possible, but oddly these same chemicals become lubricants with the addition of the slightest amount of water.  We were on the second lap of my final race on Saturday, Ultra Lightweight Endurance, when the race was red-flagged due to rain.  We waited while the rain picked up, then quit, and then started up again.  After an hour or so the remaining races were finally cancelled and I got busy working on my front suspension - I had decided that I wanted more corner entry flexibility, and was going to pull the fork tubes up another mm.  I was half done when the sky broke open with the heaviest rain of the day, drenching me as I abandoned my chore until after some dinner.

Sunday morning we had a headwind down the big straight that was taking 10 mph off of my top speed.  I had anticipated this after watching some flags in the pits, and then promptly forgot about it once out on the track, thinking that either I or the bike had gotten slower over night!  I didn't notice as much of a change from the previous suspension adjustment, but was feeling good about moving around on the bike.  I found myself touching my leathers down in a couple of corners and committed myself to moving even more, and hanging off more on the inside of the corners,(and moving my knee pucks as close to the point of contact as possible).  This started feeling much more natural than it ever had on this bike, and I recollected that my Pirelli sponsor had said that the slicks would give better traction and feel at the edges of the tires.   Game on!  

500 Cup is the class with the best competition for me, and if there are enough bikes on the grid Kawasaki will pay contingency money on Sunday - $500 for first place, $250 for second, and $100 for third.  The first race weekend we didn't have a big enough grid, but I did earn $250 for my second place at PPIR.  Saturday I took too long to get around another bike, and by the time I did was too far back to get better than third place.  No money lost, just a little pride bruisin'.  On Sunday I was determined to fight for first.  I was gridded in the middle of the first row, due to having the second best qualifying time.  The best qualifying time went to a smaller bike that is in the 350 cup class, and he wouldn't be able to hang with the 500 Cup bikes in the long run to the first corner, leaving me with the two guys that had beaten me in Saturday's race.  I was pretty confident that if I could get in front of them that I could hold them off if not pull away from them.    I am running stock gearing (still!),  and was disappointed to find that do what I may, I was losing the drag race to the first corner to Jason Madsen.  I tucked in behind him and started studying his line.  I felt that I was faster every where but on the front straight, but his line was close enough to mine that I wasn't seeing any great opportunities to pass.  I started playing around with my line to see if I could fabricate a path around him.  On the back half of the track there is medium length downhill straight that leads into a blind uphill sweeper to the right that culminates with a flat double apex right.  Jason was staying to the inside on the double apex, so I decided to see how much more speed I could carry if I used the whole track.  The  track doubles back on itself to the left immediately after the double apex right-hander, and in order to keep traffic separated, there is a four foot dirt berm separating the two sections of track, with quite a bit of loose, sandy dirt leading up to the berm.  I have run wide on that turn at least a couple of times before, and the last thing anybody wants to do is to blow it while leaned waaay over.  (I got enough air on one of those previous runs years ago to bend BOTH of my expensive magnesium wheels!  I've probably led up to this with enough foreshadowing for you to figure out that I went off the track in this corner yet once again, all the while hoping that my rear brake would get me stopped before the berm.  It did, and I kept the bike up, and was able to re-enter the race dead last, with just over four laps to go.  I had mostly clear track in front of me, so after a few conservative turns to make sure that my bike and my head were still in it, I put my head down and got busy.  The first bike I came up on was in the 350 cup class, and I went by without a problem within a lap or so.  The next bike was in my class and it took another lap to get around him.  The last two laps saw me slowly catching the final three bikes, but there just wasn't enough time left to pull it off, leaving me with another third in the class, and in second place overall.  My consolation is that after reviewing the race results for both Saturday and Sunday, I realized that while I had come in third both days, I had gotten the fastest laps of both of the races.  

Sunday turned out to be a wonderful day of racing, with each successive race being more fun than the one before. As I got more comfortable with the Pirelli slicks I was able to push the bike harder and harder, and to move around on it much more. The bike and i are coming along very nicely, and the anticipation is building for the next race weekend.