Velocity Racing's 'Honey Badger' Blog

Every good story needs a good ending, and this was a great story. It was great in the sense of personal accomplishments throughout a long year, a story of perseverance, improvements, highs and lows. Many of the victories were personal, but this sport is very personal – trophies are great, but the changes that make the most effect are usually not seen on the stage. That was my year and my weekend. I rolled in to Buttonwillow with plans to attend the Friday test day since I have only ridden the track one other time, when I came down for Round 1. It was not a track I have much time on, and I have never been down for just a track day. I had enjoyed the track the previous time though, and looked forward to riding it again. I arrived very late Thursday (technically 3:30am on Friday), unloaded what I had to and set up to get a little sleep. Needless to say I only got a couple hours in before the morning was getting started. I got the garage key and started moving in and setting up for ...

Fall has officially begun as the smell of fallen leaves wafts through the air, and that means I head off to Thunderhill for the AFM Round 6 races. This was to be our final round at THill, with one remaining at Buttonwillow later in the month. Courtesy of @RiderzLaw I was able to pick up a few things for the bike that would help with the whole "going faster" thing, to include an exhaust, a quick shifter, a few tools to help make tear down and reassembly that much easier - all stuff I've been lusting after for awhile. Add in some new brakes lines, new wheel bearings and we'd see what she could do. Unfortunately, I got sent the wrong linkage for the quick shifter, so that wasn't going to be installed in time, but I was still looking forward to making use of the new Remus titanium system, with a tune scheduled for the Friday before the races - a little last minute, but seemed like it would all work. Which was the case right up until Thursday when the scheduled tune ...

Sonoma Raceway was the setting for the 5 th AFM race round of 2015. One of the most technical tracks on our circuit, it is the one track we race on that used to host AMA racing as well as club level races. Historically this particular track has been my worst track that we ride, and even more so on my current bike. I hadn’t been here since our last round at Sonoma earlier in the year when I had finally broken my previous personal best by just a bit. I came into this weekend fairly hopeful, however, partially due to a few things happening over the summer break that I knew would help me improve in various ways. I had received some coaching at one of the PTT track days from one of our faster racers, and there were several take away pieces of information that I knew I could apply to any track I was on. Over the few weeks in between that track day and our races I sat down with a notebook, some videos, and a track map and tried to really apply some of the things we had gone over...

Laguna Seca. Anyone who’s ever watched motorcycle racing knows about Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. It’s an amazing track with history as being the only US Moto GP race for a rather long time, and it’s right here in our backyard. Pacific Track Time had a track day planned here for the middle of the week, so with some last minute prep the night before we woke up hella early to pick up a fellow BARFer and head down. Traffic, even at that time of day, was significantly worse than anticipated, and we ended up rolling in later than expected. It was the first track day ever for the rider who was catching a ride with us, and it was also going to be the first track day for one of my newest sponsors, Sy Nazif with RiderzLaw . It’s always exciting to see new riders get out on track, and I was pretty stoked to get to be there for their first experiences on a race track. The weather was perfect with a slight breeze and sunny skies, and this was stacking up to be my first time at Laguna...