Velocity Racing's 'Honey Badger' Blog

WERA – Talladega Gran Prix – April 13-14, 2024 It’s been a hot minute since I’ve been on a grid. Between life “shitake,” trying to get my business going, essential gear backorders, and the puppy, I hadn’t been able to get on an actual grid for a couple years. Sure, a few trackdays in there, and plenty of miles in the north Georgia mountains, but actually gridding up, going on green, and battling to the checkered was an experience that was growing a bit dim. Racing makes the rest of life boring. Seriously. That first flag this weekend for A Superstock, as we all launched into turn 1, “oh, ya, THIS IS RACING!!!!” was the thought that ran through my head. I had no delusions of being a “front runner” unless the grid in a race was small. Other than the previous weekend with Precision, I hadn’t been to Tally in over 2 years, and have never had brag worthy laptimes. My goals were to drop a little more time off my times there, and I had a “reasonable stretch” goal in mind. With Tally being so ...

Crashes, Bike Bits, and Confidence Backstory In early 2019 I thought I had finally turned a corner on my current bike, a 2017 ZX10R. The first AFM round of that year I went out and started dropping time like crazy, finally down to my previous personal best times at that track. The next round I showed up with high hopes, only to end up with an epic highside that launched me to the moon and over 50' before coming for a landing. For a very long time, I couldn't figure out what caused that to happen, and while I could come up with things that might have contributed, it didn't quite add up.  After that, however, a series of cross-country moves started taking place in my life, as did learning new tracks, new riders, new race organizations, new track providers - plus everything "normal" people deal with on major moves like that.   I made some progress over the remainder of 2019, slow, but saw improvements. 2020 saw ANOTHER cross country move to ANOTHER region of the US, ...

  Approaching the Independence Day holiday, I was coming in tentatively hopeful that maybe what I had started to find at Little Tally in May would translate over to a race weekend at Barber. Long and the short of it - it didn't. Not in the ways that really matter anyways (aka, putting down faster laps). Seat time this spring and summer has been extremely limited, partially due to the crash repairs from Roebling and the money they tied up. Add in the job situation not really sorting itself out, making finances an on-going issue with getting on the bike and actually riding. The little time I did get at Barber was rather unproductive - working on a lot of basics and trying to remember that I can actually lean my bike - stuff that I thought I had worked out back in 2016 as a novice, but haven't seemed to carry over very well the past couple years. Friday morning I was meeting my pit buddy and friend, Jessica, with plans to head there in a mini wagon train. Traffic was bad for her,...

 ....and sometimes you do both within half a lap. But that's not how the weekend started. Making races this year was looking very hit and miss, but with RIDERZLAW continuing their title sponsorship, a few rounds were not outside the realm of possibility; as finances were working out, I set up to head to Roebling Road, one of only 2 tracks I made it to last year for a race. I was excited to see if a) mentally I was back to a better place and b) to finally race a familiar track. Friday practice went smoothly, and by the end of the day I was feeling very comfortable at my previous pace, and could tell I had a lot left in me. Issue was, I still wasn't nailing the entire track - parts of it, but there were a couple places that still needed to come together for me, turns 1 and 5 in particular. Saturday I had a fairly early race with Formula 1 - with not even so much as a trackday since last September, it took me the better part of 2+ laps to "remember" I was racing, not jus...

  Let's be honest, 2020 took my plans, threw them on the ground, stomped them through dog doo-doo, and then swirled that mixture in my hair. Okay, not in reality (no poo in my hair), but it sure felt that way. I know I was not alone in my misery, but my struggle is my own and this year was just one major struggle after another. Not that it was all bad - despite a rather pathetic showing from me, my sponsors stuck by me through the year (and many into this coming year along with some new ones!). I moved to an area where I'm pretty darn happy. I've made some new and awesome friends and acquaintances. I got much better set up for the track in general (primary purchase being a trailer that I can haul and camp in rather than dealing with hotels or tents).  So as a final THANK-YOU to my sponsors who stuck by me last year - love you all!   RiderzLaw Roseville Yamaha-Kawasaki Dunlop Race Tires BARF Racing MC Tech Hustle Hard Racing Motul USA Motion Pro Fast Frank Racing CHR I ...

After my less than enjoyable weekend at Barber, and spending some time going through some self reflection, I decided I needed to change my approach a bit for the time being - many of the reasons behind this had nothing to do with riding or racing, but other "life shitake" was affecting me to the point of it heavily impacting my riding. So I approached the next race weekend (at a new to me track) with a very different attitude. I went in with zero expectations - other than "try not to crash" and "improve" there were NO expectations. I had a Friday trackday to try to learn the track at least a little bit and make sure my pace was "don't get lapped" fast enough (not saying much with a 6 lap race), and then racing on Sunday with a day off in between. Friday went okay. Roebling is very different than any track I've ridden - outside of the front straight, you are in a corner the rest of the track with no straights between the corners - at a...