Velocity Racing's 'Honey Badger' Blog

“That’s what racing is all about” pretty much sums up my feelings on the AFM Round 4 at Thunderhill Raceway, our last round before a 2 month summer break. The weekend looked to be warm to hot, with very little cool to be had. I decided to head up Thursday night to take some time at Precision’s new “home” with Pacific Track Time at the pre-race track day. Heading into this weekend I was in a much better place mentally than I had been for the previous round, and I had a plan in place. Friday was going to be the day to be sure I was happy with the bike set up, bed in my new Galfer Race brake pads, and blow the dust off in general. Due to the expected heat over the weekend I didn’t intend on doing much pushing on Friday, but planned to save it up for the weekend. Friday went well, and I did exactly as I had planned. The new brake pads were VERY noticeably different than what I was used to though, in a good way, but this was going to adjust how I was riding, that was for sure. The...

I guess it was bound to happen at some point – that first race weekend that you just walk away from going – “meh.” Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a horrible weekend – I mean, the bike and I both came home in mostly the same number of pieces we left in, my gear is in the same condition it arrived in, and I’m back in the office on Monday morning. So, not a horrible weekend. Still better than working I suppose. I headed up to Thunderhill on Friday afternoon. Despite cutting out of work as early as I could possibly justify, I still managed to find Friday traffic that turned my 2 ½ hour drive into 3 ½ hours. My bike and camping stuff was already there in the garage a couple of us had rented (since I was up there on Memorial Day Monday for a trackday), so packing was easy. It had already been a long week, and I had to move ie from one residence to another the following week while working 7.3 days a week, so I was just – tired. Saturday dawned warm with a promise of hot. Thank...

  Sonoma Raceway, located in the beautiful hills south of Sonoma is, in my opinion, the most technical track that the AFM races at. With very few places to relax, corners are strung together and a small mistake in one corner will cause you issues for several corners to come. This was, by far, my worst track, especially on the 675. After a relatively bad incident there the year before, I had some major mental demons with this track and this bike that I had been working through. Since it’s also a track I’ve had very little time at since that incident, I knew I needed to conquer these things once and for all. Turn 2 AFemme. Photo by 4theriders.com I chose a pit spot with the Precision Trackdays crew. It was great to have some friendly faces around me! My teammate, Paul #331, was also at this round, so the weekend got started! After a quick basic set up Friday night I finally got some sleep before the weekend was to start. Saturday dawned chilly and overcast, a...