Round 5 - HPR West Course, Saturday

High Plains Raceway (HPR), an hour east of Denver, is unique among the tracks that the MRA races at, in two ways.  For one, it was built and is owned by CAMA, the Colorado Amateur Motorsports Association, a group of four local automobile clubs plus the MRA.  Which leads to its second unique quality: it was designed from the beginning with two cut-offs that allow it to be run in four configurations - Full, North, West, and Short.  The MRA hasn't competed on the short course, but we will use all of the other configurations this year.  Round 5 was on the West course, one which I hadn't been on yet. 

Arriving Friday evening gave me time to set up my pit, have a new Pirelli rear slick installed by my tire sponsor, Sol Performance, and get the bike through tech inspection. All of my sponsors came through with replacement or upgraded components in the three weeks since my crash in Round 4, support for which I am extremely grateful. Spears Racing provided a BrakeTech front rotor with Ferodo pads, a lightweight racing chain and sprockets, and two electrical eliminators.  Woodcraft supplied me with a replacement clip-on handlebar and footpeg, the wayward shift bushing, and a spare shift rod.  Their rearsets, CNC machined from 6061-T6 billet aluminum, had barely bent in the crash, in fact holding up much better that the stock steel bracket to which they mount - a testament to their extreme durability. Rocky Mountain Kawasaki replaced that stock bracket and a worn chain guide.

I got the bike out for the first practice on Saturday, anxious to evaluate both the repairs and the new track configuration.  The cut-off for the West course takes left hand turn 8, the tightest turn on the track,  and opens up its exit with a blind right hand downhill sweeper to the base of the front straight.  It makes for a very nice alternative!  Unfortunately I found that in spite of all of my attempts to banish it, the front end chatter was still with me.  Boo!  It wasn't as bad as it had been at the end of Round 4, and I wasn't as surprised by it, but I was disappointed nonetheless.  I pulled into the pits and went to visit with Mike Lukachy, my Pirelli tire sponsor.  We discussed how the bike was set up, and what I was experiencing, and his first suggestion was to raise the front of the bike to get some weight off of it.  I had been slowly lowering the front, in a search for better feel in the corners, and was loathe to reverse that process.  He then suggested an increase in compression damping with the goal of slowing down the action at the front.  I took it back out for the next session and felt that it wasn't noticeably different.  I realized that I had entered the realm of significant suspension set up, tuning the bike to me and my riding personality, with trade offs instead of absolutes and all of that adult stuff.  Dagnabit!

Mike's next suggestion (after another unsuccessful attempt at getting me to raise the front of the bike), was to gently increase the front tire pressure.  I did this a couple of times and started to feel that the biggest change might just be that I was starting to get used to the chatter - here a little, there a little, over there a bit more, and way over there, none.  Out of time to play with it, 500 Production Cup, my first race of the day rolled around.  While practicing the course, and evaluating the suspension, I had managed to qualify for pole position for 500 Production Cup, a good second a lap faster than the next bike.  I was feeling pretty good about my prospects for the race, until Luke Sanzone, a new first time racer, on a brand new 400 Ninja got the hole shot from the back row and led into turn 1! I got around him going into turn 2 and put my head down.  Leading is nice in that you don't have anybody potentially holding you up, but you also don't have anybody against whom to gauge your pace, and you are always waiting for someone to come up and challenge you.  'Be smooth, but be fast' was going through my head, and the race seemed to drag on for an eternity.  The white flag came up without and challenge, and then the checkered - my first race win of the season!

I was entered in the next race, Formula 40 (for the forty year 'old' guys!!), but with the excitement of my win I forgot to exit the track after my cool down lap.  D'Oh! They let me grid up for the next race and let the rest of the grid fill in around me after their warm up lap - no harm, no foul but a little embarrassing all the same.  This race is actually two combined races, with a first wave of mostly 1000 cc bikes, and a second wave of mostly 600 cc bikes, among which I was gridded.  My bike and I are both hopelessly over our competitive heads here, but since I can hold a predictable line I am at ease with it in order to pack as much fun as I can into my weekend.  All was going well  until about the time that the leaders from the first wave started passing me.  I was riding well and the bike was running well - if maybe a little hot - when the engine cut-out gremlin struck.  What?! No!

Now that I was in the thick of the first pack, and since I was already guaranteed the single point which was all that I could expect, I pulled off of the track rather than continue and now act as a wildcard / track hazard to the racers that were in contention for race results.  Once the race finished, I  dejectedly headed back to the pits to let people know that the bike wasn't fixed.

After lunch I had two more races, Lightweight GP (LWGP) and Ultra Lightweight Endurance.  LWGP is a sprint race with a fairly large grid, and I got only an average start. It took a few laps to get away from my starting group, when I saw that I was starting to gain on Jason Madsen, the 500 Production Cup points leader.  I determined to give him a run for his money, and when we crossed the finish line we were within inches of each other.  He came out ahead, but I had great fun all the same.  Most importantly, I had been pushing the bike and it never quit, a good thing!

 Ultra Lightweight Endurance would be my last race of the day, and I was ready to play.  It would be a second wave start for me, behind the Lightweight Endurance racers.  I was able to clear out from all of the other Ultra Lightweights within a couple of laps, and then started overtaking the slower Lightweight bikes.  I was getting used to the front end chatter, and the bike was running well.  Just over halfway though, the now heat correlated gremlin struck for the second time for the day.  As always, I was able to restart the engine almost immediately, but with the expectation of more of the same, I retired at my first convenience.

Back in the pits at the end of the day Rod Mattison and Stephen Husbands, my teammates from the 4 Hr endurance, came over for some moral and physical support.  They are each very knowledgeable mechanic/engineers, certainly with much greater understanding of the workings of a modern race bike than I.  We poked and prodded, and ultimately found some issues to be addressed, but no smoking gun with respect to the engine cut-out.

This sent me to bed for the night with way too much to think about, and way too little possibility for figuring any of it out.