Race #6 - Thunderhill, September 8-9
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The Return to T-hill |
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We returned to Thunderhill Raceway
for AFM Round 6. Back in July, we had been running our fastest laps during
practice but crashed out while fighting for fourth position in the Open Twins
race. Our weekend was cut short and even more, we were left without a clear
reason for the crash. Needless to say, we had some unfinished business to do!
After we unloaded the truck on
Friday night, we took a walk out to turn 15 to closely examine the scene of
the incident. We focused on an area just past the apex on a line that would
be taken if one were to go wide. Sure enough, we found some black tar strips
that ran parallel to the direction of travel. Our front must have washed out
after we were sucked into the turn faster than we were used to while a bit
off-line. A hot entry lead to both a large lean angle and late throttle
roll-on pushing the front beyond the available traction. The tar strip was
the final straw. Now we knew how to work this turn! AFM would be joined this weekend by
SupermotoUSA who would be racing
on a course just outside of turn 10. The sound of big four-stroke super
motard machines would be an exciting addition to the usual drone of inline-four
road race bikes and we were hoping to catch a few races in addition to our
own. |
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We had some unfinished business at T-hill |
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September 8- Practice Day |
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Saturday practice would be
abbreviated as one of our races, Formula 40, was now scheduled for the end of
the day. We ran only 17 laps across three sessions with the temps steadily
increasing from 85 to 92 to 98 °F but still not as hot as last
year. After the third session, we scrambled to change both tires, fill
race gas and change our fuel mapping to accommodate. Our goal was to run competitive
lap times against our Twins rivals which we did, although our best times fell
short of round 4. Our best practice lap in July had been 2:01.914 whereas
today would only see 2:02.66 unofficial, 2:02.806 official (again, beacon vs.
transmitter receiver placement lead to slightly different times). |
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Practice day best lap = 2:02.806 |
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Saturday practice was just a tick off |
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Race #1- Formula 40 |
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A Saturday race would surely get us
pumped up for Sunday! We had no pressure and just wanted to test out our
starting technique. No wheelies and we were solidly in 7th
position by turn one! With a good start and a smart inside pass into T3, we
had already moved up three spots from our third row 10th position
and by midway into the race we had moved up to 6th. Jami’s signals
of “there’s someone close behind you!” kept Ed Milhausen behind us as we
dropped our lap times lower and lower. Nevertheless, the veteran finally got
by us in lap four, relegating us to 7th where we eventually
finished out of 34 riders. It was an enjoyable race as we avoided the melee
and carnage behind leaving us to concentrate on descending our lap times down
to a solid two minutes flat (~90mph average) on the last lap! |
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Formula 40: 7th,
best lap = 2:00.609 |
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In 7th position behind veteran Milhausen |
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September 9- Race Day |
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Sunday morning practice saw a drop
in times to a best lap of 2:01.075 which eclipsed our AFM 4 Sunday practice
time of 2:01.213. We were again faster than all of our Open Twins rivals so
the stage was set for a great race this afternoon. |
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Sunday practice best lap = 2:01.075 |
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Sunday practice was better |
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Race #2- 750 Superbike |
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750 Superbike is always an
interesting race. We have always struggled against the Suzuki’s but this time
managed to get out in front of the large grid. We moved up from our third row
position of 13th into just outside of the top ten for the first
few laps before we were angrily punted off the track by an over-zealous
novice. We were already tipped into the corner and witnesses say that the
novice entered turn 14 behind us on the
inside painted curbing ramming our tail section and exhaust. We stood it
up, calmed down the vicious head shake and re-entered the track from the
weeds outside of T15 about ten spots down and right in front of Steve Metz
(our Ducati friend masquerading as a tiger). Just imagine what Jami thought
as we went by with a “thumbs down” sign, followed by our flapping bodywork!
To add insult to injury, we were passed by |
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750 Superbike: 24th,
best lap = 2:01.112 |
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Cracked exhaust heat shield which we removed for Open
Twins |
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Race #3- Open Twins |
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Our most important race would have
to wait until the end of the day. We hooked up with Brian Bartlow, a friend
of ours from Rich Oliver’s Mystery
School, who happens to be leading the Open Supermoto points.
Although we did not get to see him race, we fueled up from his never-ending
supply of adrenaline to focus on our upcoming Open Twins race. We were gridded in 7th
position in the middle of row two. We were also the second wave behind Open
Production which allowed a lot of distance with which to capitalize on a good
start. We noticed that there was an empty spot in front of us on the first
row just off to our right which had been vacated by Thomas Montano (who had
crashed out on his Ducati 1098 in Formula Pacific), but we had little time to
reposition our launch to use it. As the green flag dropped, we saw the second
row (with Lance Williams, Ace Robey and Steve Metz) disappear behind us and
the first row get larger. Into T1, we were solidly in 4th place
behind Green, McLean and We went back into the pits,
refueled and put on tire warmers as we waited for AFM to clean up the mess
left by an Open Production crash. The restart would now be reduced to a 5-lap
race! We had some trouble getting the
Italian twin to fire up and perhaps some others experienced similar Ducati
misfortunes as the grid was now reduced from 21 starters to about a dozen!
This time, we pointed our nose off to the right behind the empty Montano spot
but unfortunately, it was not the wisest choice. As the flag dropped, we got
another excellent start but not so for Gonzales who wheelied not once but
twice. His wheelies were also angled off to the left directly in our path
forcing us to shut down momentarily. Nevertheless, we were out with the top
four and comfortably running behind Williams in 5th. We decided to
follow the local AMA-regular and learn a bit from his lines. Little did we
know that Gonzales was charging up through the field to regain the positions
he had lost. One lap later, he had moved himself into fifth and us into
sixth. The next two laps were tight as we held off Robey, |
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Open Twins: 6th
, best lap = 2:00.565 |
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Nose-to-tail racing in Open Twins |
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We are
now sitting solidly in 10th place in two championships– Open Twins
and Formula 40! We learned from our mistakes from our previous T-hill
adventure and came out on top which was very satisfying. The bike is working
well and so is our small team. |
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Our preparations for the next round
at Infineon have already begun as we have repaired the minor damage to our
TeamJaSracing 999 and put in another training session at the Hollister flat
track on our TT-Rs. This will be AFM’s annual endurance round within a
three-day race weekend and again we have two back-to-back races, this time
Open Twins followed by Formula 40! |
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Enjoy
the ride! –- Team
JaS
Special thanks to: |
