Race_AFM_4_5

AFM Race 4: Thunderhill July 5-6

We arrived in Willows eager to race at Thunderhill for the first time this year. We bedded in new brake pads and adjusted the quickshifter during the first practice session but were immediately greeted with problems. The bike started running poorly coming out of turn 13 onto the back straight. Luckily we were able to coast our way from more than a quarter mile back into the pits! On the dash were displayed coil and injector error codes but after stripping off the bodywork and examining the components, we could not find any visible issues. The bike fired right up and the error codes disappeared so we decided to give it another try during the next session. This time the bike died over the Cyclone (turn 5 at the top of a steep hill) but we were able to pull off onto an access road. Unfortunately this was the very first lap of the session and the temperatures were already in the triple digits. We waited 15 minutes for the session to end and then pushed the bike back into the pits – not an easy task in full leathers with a full tank of gas! After another examination, we decided to call it quits for the rest of practice. Electrical gremlins are always hard to chase.

We thought it would be the end of our weekend but Jeff Tigert was generous enough to let us borrow his Honda CBR 600RR (equipped with an AMA Formula Xtreme-spec engine). It looked like we would be racing an inline-four for the first time in Formula 40 at the end of the day! Jeff also ran the standard shift pattern (one-down, five up) instead of GP-shift (one-up, five down) and we had only one practice session to adapt. The first start on the 600 did not go so well and we were buried deep in the field. Fortunately (for us), the race would be red-flagged and we would get another go. The second start proved to be much better and we soldiered home in 15^th. The 600 was fun to ride demanding constant attention to the rpm’s.

After the race, we decided to look behind the battery box of the 1098 suspecting that an electrical connection had shaken loose during the previous weekend’s test day when we experienced a severe tankslapper on the last lap of our track day. Sure enough, a loose relay was to blame! We zip-tied the offending connection (as well as all others we could find) and we were ready for Sunday.

Open Superbike saw us finish in 15^th and we were happy to continue our improvement in that class. Open Twins would be our last race and it turned out to be a tight battle with the usual suspects – we came out on top with a 6^th placing. After the races, as we were cleaning up, we discovered that we had narrowly missed another disaster: in our haste to button up the battery box, we had missed a fastener for the radiator which was protruding forward about 1cm towards the front wheel. Upon heavy braking, the wheel had actually pulled the bottom of the radiator guard up and away – any more and the radiator itself would have been a casualty leading to certain doom!

Open Twins: 6/17

Formula 40: 15/31

Open Superbike: 15/27

Fastest lap: 1:59.435, 90.4mph

A full grid in Formula 40 on Jeff’s 600 (#91)

Another tight race in Open Twins

The Beast did not cooperate on Saturday but came through on Sunday

AFM Race 5: Infineon August 16-17

We started off the weekend with a Friday test day and Saturday practice. Both days went very well and we dropped time from 1:47 to 1:46. The rear tire started spinning and tearing even with the traction control set to 6 (out of 8) so we needed to pay attention to tire wear this weekend.

Formula 40 was again a packed race with 53 registered. We did not get a very good start but were able to move up from 9^th to 6^th by mid-race. However by the end we had conceded a spot for a 7^th place finish and a fast lap of 1:45.833.

Open Superbike was also a full race with 43 entries. This one would be quite dramatic. The starter held the flag for a long 5-6 seconds and we found it hard to hold back The Beast which was pulling to be unleashed…and just as the green flag fell, we stalled! Immediately both hands were up in the air waving so that the 24 riders behind us would not run us over. As soon as they had all passed, the officials tried to help us bump start the bike but after two tries, we gave up. Only afterwards did we remember that the clutch cancel switch had been disabled due to the issue with the soft rev limiter on the R so the bike would not start in gear. But we were lucky that we not only stalled but also never got restarted! Shortly after the green flag dropped, David Kunzelman (who was gridded on the front row) blew his engine spewing oil all over the race track and on everyone behind causing multiple crashes and a major pileup at turn one. Here is a video of the “crash fest” (you can see Sherwick on the right of the grid with his hands up). On the restart, we moved up to 9^th and held on to the finish with a best lap of 1:45.990.

After Open Superbike, we did not think Open Twins could be any more dramatic… but we were wrong. The oil light had come on at the end of the Open SB race and we traced it to a small leak coming out of the oil pressure sensor. After tightening it, we thought the leak had been fixed. Little did we know that these units fail all the time and it is a well-kept secret for Ducati racers to disconnect the sensor replacing it with a water pump plug. We were gridded 9^th out of 29 in the second row on the outside – an excellent position. We seized a great start and were able to overtake the second and even most of the first row. We were in 3^rd by the second turn behind Brian Parriott #46 and Tom Montano #56, both veteran AMA racers.

After Pat Blackburn #110 and Matt Green #315 (current points leader) got by us in turn 7 passing Montano (who was sore after the Open SB crash) in the process we were still hanging onto a solid 5^th behind Montano for the next two laps. But before we could consider a pass, the oil flag was flown in T9 causing us to look for oil on the track and ride more cautiously. When we came by start/finish we saw #689 displayed with the meatball flag indicating a problem with our bike! We slowed down immediately but as tipped it into T1 the rear stepped out, way out! We were lucky to get it under control and pull off the racing line to the side of the track but our race was over (see the oil on the left side of tire in this picture). Both the corner workers and spectators in the stands said that it was an amazing save. So we used up two of our nine lives in one weekend but not before turning the fastest lap of the weekend at 1:45.219!

Open Twins: DNF

Formula 40: 7/41

Open Superbike: 9/25

Fastest lap: 1:45.219, 76.0mph