The 2018 season was rapidly approaching, and for many of us
in the northern California region, there had been very little (if any) seat
time on our bikes over the winter months. Rainy, cool weather meant track time
was limited, and what days there were, had less than ideal conditions. Race
season was kicking off anyways, so time to head down and get our game faces on!
RiderzLaw was back on board as title sponsor for me, and I was looking forward
to showing off the new livery.
My plan for this weekend was simple – lay a solid foundation
to build from for the rest of the year. My leg, which had been a major issue
throughout 2017, was far less of an issue now, and I wanted to kick the year
off figuring out how to get my Roseville Kawasaki ZX10R around the track. To
that end, Tyler O’Hara (who I decided to use as my primary coach this season)
was going to be at our Friday practice, so I arranged to work with him for the
day. I had never really gotten any lessons on getting this bike around this
track, and figured I’d be better off taking this round as a learning experience
and fixing things earlier rather than later.
I arrived Thursday evening, got unloaded and set up, then
headed into town for a little sleep. Bright and early Friday morning I arrived
to make sure me and my bike were ready to go. Tyler arrived, and we laid out
the plan for the day. Each session we worked on some new things, sorting out
some of my problem areas, tweaking and changing my lines and inputs on the big
bike, and adjusting how I was “seeing” the track. I walked away with a pile of
information, and my brain was a bit on overload, but I also figured once
everything had time to process and I had a little more seat time to implement
it would pay off.
Friday night my fellow Velocity Racing teammates plus a few
other friends headed into town for dinner, and eventually off to bed. Saturday
dawned sunny and bright, promising a good start to the day, although rain was
threatening that afternoon. My pit crew arrived, and we got the day lined up,
and eventually started heading out for practice sessions. The entire plan for
Saturday practice was for me to work on stringing everything we had worked on
the day before together. I knew that flow would be key to being able to
eventually pick up the pace, so I just wanted to work on making things feel
smooth and connected.
My practices went well enough, and the afternoon races got
started. My AFemme race was the last race of the day, and the weather decided
not to cooperate, and we got pushed to Race 0 on Sunday. I realized I’d have a
chance to really see if my fitness over the winter had paid off, as I was now looking
at 4 races in one day, 3 of them being before lunch. Saturday evening we
socialized for awhile, then back into town for dinner as we were all rather
hungry, and then turned in a bit earlier as we were all pretty darn tired, too.
Sunday dawned looking better than Saturday had left us, and
things kicked off on time. As an added bonus (and pressure LOL), the AFemme
class was chosen as the lunchtime podium celebration, which sounded pretty cool
(the lunchtime podium is always a Sunday race, so since we normally run on
Saturday, we never get up there). Practice sessions went out, and I made sure I
was ready to get going for the race start.
Finally, the anthem played and the races kicked off. We
rolled up for our warm up lap, gridded up, and when it was time for our wave,
we launched! Valentine and Shiree both got great starts, mine was okay, but
Valentine took the lead from the start. I obviously have some horsepower on her
600 though, and we diced it up for the first half of the race. Eventually she
got back around me and seemed to find 5th gear, while I started to
fatigue. Valentine took a clear win, and I was determined to make sure she had
to work for it a little harder come the next round.
Back to my pits where my DareDevil Motorsports pit crew got
the bike ready for Race 2, which was Open Superbike. We headed out, and the
grid seemed to have a lot of heroes out there. We got a red flag in the first 2
laps, and back in we went. Race restart was called, and we gridded up again.
There were still bikes dropping like flies, but (thankfully?) I was slow enough
to pretty much stay out of that. Coming through Riverside, however, there was a
crash that had occurred on the left kink, and glanced over to see what looked
like my teammate. We were red flagged shortly after, and as I rolled past on my
way to the pits, I took a closer look, and sure enough it was him. Bummer. Race
was in the books, however, as we were past the halfway point.
Next up was Race 5, Open GP. Thankfully I seemed to be
holding up pretty well physically, at least at the pace I was running, so that
was a good feeling after putting in the work over the winter to get my fitness
back as best I could. Apparently, my fatigue during AFemme was just the
warming-up-slump. This race things started to get more fun again as one of my
pit mates, Adli, and I were running a pretty similar pace. We got to duke it
out for the race, right until he messed up the bus stop and ran off track,
leaving me to take the spot.
Our lunchtime podium was a blast – it was fun to stand up
there, get to represent our sponsors and open the champagne (my leathers still
smell a little like fermented grapes). This was the highlight of the weekend
for me, as it’s not something I’ll be doing again anytime soon, so it was fun
to have the chance to experience it! Still brings a smile to my face when I
think about it.
I had some downtime in the afternoon, so watched the rather
exciting Formula Pacific race, and did a little pre-packing that I could. My
last race was Race 13, the second to the last race of the day. I figured there’d
be a good chance Adli and I would be battling it out again, and this race did
not disappoint. We were back and forth a couple times, but I managed to get
past him heading onto the front straight and held my position.
That wrapped up the opening weekend for the AFM. Overall, I
consider the weekend a complete success. I managed to keep my focus on my
fundamentals and flow, and by the end of the weekend that all paid off in a
willingness to try things I had been scared of doing before. My times were
nothing brag worthy, but I learned a ton, had fun, and actually enjoyed racing and riding my bike again.
I wasn’t overly pressuring myself, and keeping focus on what I needed to focus
on meant I enjoyed the entire experience.
My “bad” leg held up quite well. Other than the fact that I
can’t feel about 2/3 of the bottom of my foot, it really wasn’t anything I
noticed. Hard to tell if my foot was in the proper place on the peg, and I kept
bumping the shifter accidently (not enough to shift, but enough to trigger the
sensor and cut the engine) but some seat time and muscle memory development will
eliminate that problem.
This weekend was a great way to kick off the year, and I’m
looking forward to continuing to apply the things I learned. Best wishes to all
the injured riders, and here’s hoping everyone makes a full recovery!
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