Velocity Racing's 'Honey Badger' Blog

This early September weekend is historically a chance for us to cool off after the summer rounds up at Thunderhill. Typically, Sonoma has nice, cool weather that makes for a very pleasant weekend. The weather gods had other plans in mind this year, however, and the weekend started to look like a scorcher with temps well over 100 degrees. Since it was a holiday weekend, things were pretty quiet at work on Friday and I managed to sneak out to get loaded and off to the track for the weekend a bit earlier than I originally had hoped. Even in where I live, where it is typically one of the coolest areas in the bay, it was hot. I was soaked with sweat just loading the truck! I made my way through holiday traffic and got to the track a little after 4 and got started setting up for the weekend. I knew my suspension needed some help, so I headed over to Catalyst Reaction and paid Jim for some help for the weekend. He is familiar with me and my riding, so I figured it was a goo...

This year has been a struggle on the track for me, I can’t lie about that. First off there was all that medical crap, which was more than just a small hurdle, and to some extent, continues to be another aspect that has changed. Then we have the new bike. Before getting the bike I was thoroughly convinced that there would be a transition period, but by around the 2 nd or 3 rd AFM round I’d be hitting my stride (with a fair bit of seat time over the winter included as part of that with a few trips to the SoCal region). Instead, breaking my leg meant none of the off-season training happened. I got back on the bike by round 2, but I was suffering from a complete lack of seat time (in general and on this bike), my decision to step up to expert, and a fresh surgery.  Okay, I gave that and the next round up to “hey, medical, still getting used to bike.” Round 4, however, and I finally got the bike sprung properly, but it wasn’t making much difference. Between my own physical ...

Going into this weekend my life had been fairly rushed, but, for the most part, things were clicking in to place and I felt ready to head out for what was looking like a rather warm weekend up at Thunderhill. This was going to be my first time riding the bike without some medical thing causing concerns – no fresh surgeries, no PICC line, no crazy med schedule. My leg wasn’t giving me any major issues, so that excuse was finally no longer valid. On Friday, Pacific Track Time had a trackday, which a number of racers were making use of. All morning I handled the C group as I usually do, with plans to head out to some faster groups in the afternoon. I went out for the B group after lunch, and traffic was fairly light in that group, so decided to just stick with that. I was feeling out the respring on the bike’s suspension, and was very happy with the improvements, but now my brain needed to catch up. Since I had gotten the bike I hadn’t been very confident on the brakes, and...