Velocity Racing's 'Honey Badger' Blog

The season finale of the 2016 AFM race season was taking place at Buttonwillow Raceway. I came into this weekend knowing I had made a lot of progress over the year, and that the front runners (in a year with some crazy fast novices) were just outside of my reach – maybe not 1 st or 2 nd , but a podium finish was within my grasp in something other than my Legacy class. I wanted to have that finish badly, since it would be my last shot at it before moving up to Expert where I’ll be unlikely to see much of anything for quite some time… I headed down Thursday afternoon so I could arrive and get settled in before traffic and so I’d be relaxed going into the weekend. I wanted to do part of the test day on Friday just to work on lines and technique, which is exactly what I did. There wasn’t a transmitter out, so I had no idea on my laptimes, but that was okay since I wanted to stay focused on proper technique. I chose not to put my own transmitter for that reason. The day went well with...

Typically this time of year we’re not really having to worry too much about the weather, but it’s getting close enough to winter that I tend to start keeping an eye on it, especially if there’s something important coming – you know, like a race weekend! So, early in the week, I started keeping an eye on the weather – since I had just been down at Buttonwillow (where it had been hella hot), I was wondering if I’d need to stock up on my Skratch Labs for the race weekend. Much to my dismay, instead of hot, the forecast for the weekend instead was showing a high chance of rain and very cool. WTH?!? I kept on following the forecast daily, sometimes hourly – it seemed to be trending to lighter chances of rain, but it wasn’t pulled off, either. Close enough that it was still going to be worth heading up – I already had the pet sitter arranged, and was committed to helping out at a track day on the following Monday, so I packed up with a little extra prep in case we did get wet. I arrived...

The time between Rounds 4 and 5 felt like an eternity. While I had spent a fair bit of time at the track in June and early July, most of July and August were pretty quiet. There had been a lot of progress made after the last round, but the better part of two months mostly off from the track also meant my chances at working on application was minimal once that break hit. Additionally, during this down time, my bike had ended up cropping up with a few problems that weren’t so easy to solve, the main one being that my CPS (crank position sensor) and stator had apparently died. Thankfully I was able to discover all of this in time to get the parts I needed and have the bike reassembled in time for the next round without completely freaking out. A few days before I had been able to test ride up and down the street, and all looked good in that department. I arrived on Friday night to get my garage and set everything up. I like having a chill Saturday morning, so that prep the night befo...

Lately I haven’t been doing too many blog updates in regards to trackdays – mostly because if I’m at the track, a fair bit of time is often spent instructing or I’m simply working on implementing feedback. This last day at the track, however, warrants a bit of a write up. After the last AFM round, Ken Hill ( khcoaching.com ) had watched my videos. I had been feeling pretty good about seeing sub-2 minute laptimes at Thunderhill, and was pretty stoked with the progress. Right up until Ken called and told me “we need to fix your braking. There’s 2 seconds to be had on your brakes.” Aw damn, I knew my braking needed work (that’s usually where I was getting passed), but I was a little doubtful about there being a full 2 seconds to find – but, I wasn’t going to argue with someone who does this with far better riders than myself, so we set up a plan to discuss some drills for my next day at the track. In addition, Catalyst Reaction Suspension had resprung my rear shock, so I was also...

I was coming into this weekend on the tail end of a whirlwind month. I had managed some valuable track time and instruction over the course of the month, and I was hoping to see some measurable results from all of it. While I had hoped for slightly cooler temperatures in order to see my best possible results, that was not to be the case, and we were looking at temps that would soar into the 100’s on Sunday. Well, lots more practice on sliding the bike, something I had only recently begun to get comfortable with doing on purpose (as opposed to just dealing with it if it happened). Earlier in the month at some of the track days I had gotten some very valuable feedback from Ken Hill, and some one-on-one coaching from our current #2 plate holder, Cory Call. A few trackdays followed all of that where I had chances to practice some of what I had been working on. I was looking forward to actually putting it all to use. There was a week off of bikes when I was in Tennessee f...

Ever since the completion of Round 2 I was looking forward to getting back out to the track. With only one possible track weekend in between, which I wasn’t able to make for a few reasons, it was feeling like a rather long dry spell even though it was only about a month. I was able to get packed up and loaded the little RiderzLaw truck up early enough on Friday that I arrived to the track around 3:00pm and was able to start setting up the pit in the area another friend had saved for our group. Bike seemed happy, I was feeling relatively good, and it was looking like a warm, but tolerable, weekend. I was excited. Friday night involved a lot of socializing as we all caught up and started the smack talk. Eventually I crawled into bed, but the wind continued to blow. It kept me from really falling asleep as I worried about the canopies we had set up, and eventually I crawled out of the tent and took down the canopy. In the dark. In the wind. I went back to bed only to have the flappin...