Race Report - WERA Grand National Finals: Road Atlanta (Pt. 2)

Friday it was finally dry, allowing me to put in some much-needed hot laps on the R6, on the WERA track configuration. I swapped tires and got ready early so that I could make the most of the few sessions I'd get - Friday was also the first day of the Sportsman championship - and went out to do some business. WERA ran a track configuration that differed from the Schwantz School in one section, adding a short chicane at the beginning of the esses. The difference was challenging enough that I couldn't quite find a rhythm for it and so was slow into, through and out of it all day on Wednesday. If I was going to keep up with the competition, I would have to figure it out.

Taking advantage of the fact that everyone was still cold and stiff from the morning, I spent several laps going very slow through the section, doing nothing but studying how it turned, felt, cambered and dipped. One of the most common problems with trying to learn a new track and go fast on it at the same time is tunnel vision - people (myself included) will find a line that "works" and then concentrate on being faster on that one, instead of looking around for other, potentially faster lines. By going slow and studying the track as I traveled through it, I was able to see several places where I could straighten my line and carry much more speed into and out of the chicane. After practicing on that for a while, another problem became apparent: Body position. Usually my riding style has me hanging far off the bike, allowing me to corner faster and keep more grip than if I didn't hang off. However in this chicane, that was hurting me, as I had to switch directions several times and it took me too much time to move my entire body. After spending a few laps following and studying the faster riders, I learned to simply stand up on the pegs and flip the bike from side to side underneath me. By staying in the center and intentionally "crossing up", I would reduce my maximum available lean angle, but in this case it didn't matter as this section would never approach that and the extra flickability was much more critical. By the time practice was over, I was comfortable enough through the chicane to be confident that even though I might not win the race there, I wouldn't lose it there either. Afterward, I peeled out of my leathers and kicked back to watch Corey whip some butt in his Sportsman races.





That night, Kevin threw an epic barbeque. In addition to being our Crew Chief, he was also in charge of making sure we were well fed, and he was excelling in his duties. Every morning we had a hot breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausage, and orange juice, and every night we ate like kings. On this particular evening, he started grilling up some burgers and was finished with the first batch before we'd returned from watching the races in the back sections of the track. Rather than let them get cold, he put 'em on buns and started feeding our neighbors in the pits. By the time we got back there was a veritable cookout in our lot, complete with music! All sorts of people were there, from halfway across the pits and even further - we had racers, builders, crew chiefs, even corner workers coming over to eat. Even Josh Hayes, whose wife Melissa was racing with us that weekend, stopped in for a burger and a chat. Needless to say, it was a pretty cool demonstration of what a few burgers and some generosity can create

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7 AM, Saturday morning. It was hard to wake up, and I was nervous. It was only four months prior that I'd debuted onto a national circuit, and the butterflies had become no weaker. In that span of time I'd grown as a racer and scored a new ride, learned raced on five different tracks, and had several podiums and a handful of wins to my name.. but I still felt like the little kid dressed up in Dad's clothes. This wasn't just another race, this was the Grand National Finals.. this was big. Bigger than me. I didn't eat much that morning.

Thankfully, I wasn't here alone. I had brought with me nine friends, and over the last week I'd made countless others among the pits. Kevin helped me finish a few things off that still needed to be done to my bike, then Will went with me to grab grid positions from registration, and by the time we were all ready, the butterflies were all but gone. We went out for practice to warm ourselves up for the day, then sat back and waited.

600 Superstock: The grid was enormous. The flag waved and I got a terrible start, relegating myself immediately to the back. The pack was thick and passing was difficult all the way to the back half of the course, where the long back straight finally strung the bikes out and made it possible to move without hitting someone. I put my absurdly powerful Fuzimoto-built motor to work and drafted past two riders on the back straight, and was on the tail of the next by the time we hit the brakes, squeezing them for dear life as we slowed from the top of sixth gear all the way down to second. I tailed him for a few laps, showing a wheel anywhere I could, but he was as stubborn in keeping his position as I was in taking it. Finally I managed to squeeze past on the brakes when he made a mistake in turn 12, and I immediately put my head down to get as much distance between us as I could. He was as much a pit bull as I was and would not let go however, and we battled for the rest of the race back and forth. We ended up advancing several positions in the race simply due to attrition ahead of us, and I crossed the finish line just a few bike lengths ahead, in 21st position.





750 Superstock: I was determined not to blow the start again. When the flag waved, I shot forward like a rocket and ... still got passed by most of the field. Clearly, these boys knew what they were doing. I put my head down and started out more aggressively than during the 600 race, and was rewarded with several passes in the first lap. I kept up the pace and pushed forward in the pack, but two problems quickly materialized: First, I had not sufficiently tightened my Vortex clip-on, and the force with which I was whipping the bike from side to side was slowly but steadily wrenching the bar closer and closer to the tank, limiting my ability to work the controls. The second and much more serious problem, however, was that my R6 was losing power, fast. I began to get passed on the straights by bikes I could normally blow by without even drafting. I tried to fight back in the corners and on the brakes and make myself as wide as possible, but it was a losing battle, and ended up crossing the line second to last, in 16th. On the cool-down lap, my heart sunk as I let the bike ease up and I heard that it sounded like an SV once it wasn't screaming at 16,000 rpm.

Back in the pits, I parked the bike and went to watch for a while, trying to put thoughts of what could be wrong out of my head. When I finally came back to the bike, I went hunting for parts and expertise, and I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Gino of Zyvax Racing and Chip of KWS Motorsports for lending me parts, supplies and hours of expertise. With their help, we determined which cylinder wasn't firing, and began running diagnostics and tests to find the problem. Soon enough, we found that it had zero compression - a problem that I would not be able to fix until I got home, knocking me out of the races on Sunday. Dejectedly, I cleaned up and put the bike away, trying to hide my disappointment from myself and those around me, and then went to bed.



Continue to pt. 3 at http://pnwriders.com/blogs/tophyr/40...anta-pt-3.html