I'm running a salvaged 2010 BMW S1000RR that
randomwalker sent me last December. Big-ticket items are the 30mm Ohlins fork internals and the 8760 Penske shock, an Akraprovic exhaust using
1000RR's PCV map, and AP rearsets. I'm running the bike in "Slick" mode all weekend with the ABS/DTC turned ON.
This is a LONG POST because I love listening to myself talk, so here are some Cliff's notes: This is my first race-weekend. I low-side the bike once during Saturday practice and lose my first race, ultimately feeling really lousy. Fortunately, I talk to the other racers that night to receive a free ego boost, leading to an awesome (but low-scoring) Sunday. I'm anxiously awaiting the next AFM Round 7 on September 10.
** Saturday, 8/27/2011 **
Front Tire: Dunlop GPA211 Medium, 3 days old, 30.0 PSI Cold
Rear Tire: Dunlop GPA211 Medium, 1 day old, 20.5 PSI Cold
Temperature High: 96 degrees F
Left/Right Fork Preload: +2.5 / +3.0 turns in from full out
Fork Rebound: -11 clicks out from full in
Fork Compression: -12
Shock Low-speed Compression: -7
Shock High-speed Compression: -10
Shock Rebound: -19
Shock Preload: +4.5
I rolled into the paddock around 7:50AM, just in time to make the Riders' meeting, which means I was late for being in practice group 1. Saturdays at AFM start with five rotating practice groups immediately after the Riders' meeting until the afternoon; since this was my first-ever event, I was put in the slowest group populated mostly by Ninja 250's.
Instead of rushing to get on the track, I opted to skip my first practice session and set up camp next to Neuner#987. For me, this meant pulling off the kickstand, registering for the day, and rolling the motorcycle through Tech Inspection. I had no problem doing this before the second practice session about an hour later.
During practice session two, I go out on track for the first time. It take it easy for a few laps, then push it a little bit hitting my personal best time of 2:09.
Turn 9 (hint: use street-view for a first-person look at the track) is a fast, long up-hill fight before a sharp left turn; twice, while blowing by slower Ninjettes and grabbing the brakes, I "feel loose" and don't turn in, almost going straight off before slowing the bike to a crawl and getting it around the bend. At the time, I attributed this to my being aggressive with my braking point.
During session three, I'm out on track trying to prove something to myself. Normally, I feel the back-end "squirm" when I'm braking after the fast sections, but this time I feel terrible going into almost every turn. Again, I assume it's typical behavior since I'm pushing myself a little bit harder than usual (before this weekend, my best time was a 2:11 and my average was around 2:15). About half-way through the session,
I lose the front end cresting The Cyclone (turn 5). Unusually, when the bike spins, it flies over the curbing and comes back onto the track - stopping sideways in the drive-line at the bottom of the hill after a blind left-hand turn. Turn workers come out to help and I'm back on both wheels in about 30 seconds,happily not-run-over but minus my left foot peg.
I'll plug Attack Performance here: in their rearset design, the "base" connects to a "footpeg holder", which pinches the footpeg. In my situation, when the bike flew back over the curbing and the foot peg caught the edge of the road, the holder snapped in half. If I was running a more-typical rearset with a huge M8 bolt through the assembly, I believe I would've lost my entire rearset and shifter - instead, I just lost the footpeg. This is intelligent design that made the difference between my getting back on the bike or limping home as a failure.
However, because the vendors here carry Woodcraft and Vortex parts, no one had any spares to sell me. So, I learned that in addition to the initial cost my AP rearsets have, I need to buy my own replacement parts in advance instead of depending on someone else to have it for me. This is a good lesson to remember
for anyone racing on a budget: it's probably cheaper to buy whatever brand your trackside vendor carries, because then you don't have to pre-purchase extra parts.
Paolo with ForTheTrack.com digs around his inventory for ideas and presents me with a Woodcraft footpeg. "Drill the AP rearset and screw this other footpeg on," he suggests. An hour after that, I'm ready to go (albeit asymetrically). I miss the fourth and final practice session.
Clubman Heavyweight -
YouTube link
The novice racers are required to join "Clubman" races, which are divided into "Light" (mostly 250cc and 650cc twins), "Middleweight" (approximately 600-750cc), and "Heavyweight". Grid assignments are based on season standings, so I'm starting 14th on a grid of 15. I get a reasonably good start, but others immediately pass me going into turn 2. Now that I'm trying to keep up, she's swinging her back-end under braking going into almost every turn, her newly lowered-and-forward left footpeg is dragging around turn 2, and she's shaking the handlebars trying to throw me off coming out of turns 9 and 11. After just two laps, everyone ahead of me was out of sight and I was REALLY EXHAUSTED - I even think about pulling off and quitting, but every time I come onto the back straight out of turn 12, I hear a Twin (it was a KTM RC8) behind and to my right, trying to get past and blocking my giving-up exit strategy. It seems like forever before the white flag finally comes out. Two minutes later, (and after Fry#952 on his Yamaha R1 flies past me going into the last corner,) I get my first checkered flag, finishing 12th (of 14) with my personal best time of 2:07.9.
"I'm a racer."
They (in my case, Lohmeyer#177) tell us during the NRS licensing test that the license isn't what makes you a racer; they tell us that we aren't racers until we collect our first checkered flag. "I'm a racer, now," I think to myself, "and it is SO VERY NOT worth it." I roll back into the pits feeling deflated: from my point of view, I just spent 2 minutes on a starting grid followed by 12 (it felt like 120) very-stressful minutes riding around my home track by myself. I don't enjoy losing (who does?), and my 2:07.9 quantitatively makes me the slowest person on the track, with the other novices' lap times ranging from 1:53.9 to 2:07.88.
I get pretty lucky, now, because Neuner tags me and pulls me out to dinner in town with Mason#181, Probert#103, and Jennifer (number pending...probably forever). I don't think there was any particular encouragement going on, but winding down with some new chatty-friends helped me feel much better about life. Between this and our romantic sunset-walk down the track afterwards, I managed to record a few morsels of advice:
- If the brakes scare you, don't use them. (Yeah, that's easier said than done.)
- They repainted the curbing white/blue, covering up the old orange dots on the apexes. Well, it turns out they put small blue dots on the track - in both the apexes AND exit points.
- Look forward more and pay less attention to behind.
- Use the whole track. Faster people will get past even if you're taking tight lines.
** Sunday, 8/28/2011 **
Front Tire: Dunlop GPA211 Medium, 4 days old, 30.0 PSI Cold
Rear Tire: Dunlop GPA211 Medium, 2 days old, 22.0 PSI Cold (+1.5 PSI from yesterday)
Temperature High: 97 degrees F
Left/Right Fork Preload: +2.5 / +3.0
Fork Rebound: -11
Fork Compression: -9 (+3 clicks from yesterday)
Shock Low-speed Compression: -7
Shock High-speed Compression: -10
Shock Rebound: -19
Shock Preload: +4.5
First thing in the morning, I stop to see Dave Moss about my rear-end sliding issues. He adds 3 clicks to my compression damper on my front fork. This makes a huge difference during my first (and last) practice session, where I find that her rear-end isn't trying to spin around at all in many corners. As a result, my braking markers are all 100-yards too-early - I'm literally coasting into turn 10 and running over the inside curb of turn 14. This is good news, but makes me regret not having another practice session.
Open Production -
YouTube link
This is the first race of the day, and I crawl through the Twins to find my 15th (of 15) spot on the grid. This race has a staggered start, with three rows of "Open Twins" starting the race some-odd 30 seconds after the 4-cylinder bikes. Before I know it, it's time to go - and I have a terrible start as the dozen-or-so people ahead of me just... get farther ahead of me. I manage to catch up as everyone gets delayed by traffic cresting turn 5, and do a reasonable job hanging on to Hittner#42 and Fry#952 for most of the race. The extra 50 horses my girl has and the two straight sections at Thunderhill help me make up for my lacking corner-speed, but a weird thing happens:
At the end of the third lap, the fast-guys from the Open Twins race start zooming past us. Hittner obviously lets off the throttle a little bit and literally waves traffic past, who wind up needing to weave past me and him. I don't take "free passes" so I wait until Hittner turns it back on; Galios#734 also waits behind me until we turn the heat back on. Fry, however, is now a speck on the horizon. Is this proper etiquette for a mixed-group race? On one hand, I'm impacting the results of the Twins-race Points Leaders by being a traffic cone. On the other hand, some of them (i.e. Metz#99) need to do some maneuvering to get past me, still on the inside line but not accelerating out, and Hittner, already cruising on the outside of the exit.
Well, I hold my 11th position until the very last turn (this turns into a recurring theme) when Galios decides to casually - and I do mean casually, since he's giving me plenty of room and his bike doesn't shake or shutter at all - pass me on the inside and finish the race ahead of me, making mine a 12th of 13 finish. My best time is 2:05.1, while the rest of the field puts in 1:53.8 - 2:05.0. A single person is doing 2:10.7, so I'm not the absolutely slowest person out there, this time.
Open Grand Prix -
YouTube link
Lastly for me, I have the Open GP race about an hour later. I take a slow start from 22nd (of 23) and almost blow the first turn, losing rear traction when I roll over the exit curbing. Everyone gets held up in traffic, again, at Turn 5, so I'm able to catch up with the rest of the pack. The first time down the front straight, I heartily pass Hazzer#45 and Koehler#963 - going in a straight line isn't the problem for me! In the corner of my eye, by the way, I see the Traction Control light blinking A LOT when I'm exiting almost every corner, and definitely onto the front straight. I assume the blinking orange light is good - each time it blinks, I'm giving up 0.1 seconds of laptime in exchange for staying alive beyond the next 30 seconds. I dice it up a little bit with Koehler on the last lap, but give the lead to him assuming that I can out-power his Buell 1125R down the front straight before the finish line. He teaches me, however, that a good drive entering the corner can make up for relatively-anemic horsepower. I finish 19th of 19; my best laptime of 2:05.0 is the second-slowest, with Koehler's 2:05.1 slightly behind.
The advantage with running my races in the morning is that I get to spend the rest of the day "crew-ing" for my buddies and watching the Formula Pacific race. Ultimately, I take my time cleaning my stuff and chatting with my neighbors and enjoy myself. Seriously, I think I have more fun hanging around the other racers than I have being a racer myself - but the one thing I do know from personal experience is that when I finish last I've got a lot of opportunity for improvement.
Lessons for the day:
- If you're going to be last, you don't need a good start.
- Pass people when you can, because you may not get another opportunity. Dave Moss says to be "clinically ruthless"... well, I don't know if I need to be a jerk while in the back of the Novice pack, but I definitely don't need to ask for permission before late-braking into the corner.
- The default setting for the Shift Warning light is too low. Adjust this to a higher RPM.
Also, I took
these pictures of my rear tire. This tire has about four race-pace sessions on it - and it's chewed up awfully unacceptably. I worked with Dave Moss on-track the week before to resolve this problem and made great progress, but something must have changed - is it me? Is there this much difference between 2:11 and 2:05 that the tire doesn't last anymore? Or is it just because I'm so "spoiled" by the BMW DTC that I'm hammering the throttle and messing up the tire with reckless abandon? I'll note what I do to resolve this, but in the mean time, I definitely marked this configuration as "poor" in my notebook.
And, since this is an S1000RR forum: Formula Pacific is the "premiere" class in AFM - the fastest of the fast, with almost no rules regarding modifications and bike setup. They ran two FP races this weekend (to make up for a rain-day): the Saturday race finished BMW-BMW-BMW on the podium; The Sunday race ended with BMW-BMW-Yamaha and a BMW in fourth. In Open Production and Clubman Heavyweight, there was only a single BMW representing all of us - and it was me, at the bottom of the lists. Clearly, I can't claim "equipment" as an excuse for not putting in better times!
The next event is a "make-up" round at Thunderhill, again, on September 10-11. I'm already signed up and hope to run into some other S1000RR's while I'm browsing the paddock, but I won't complain if I just catch a glimpse of one of my BMW's sisters escaping from me over the horizon.
--Ed Chung #916
Race Report from AFM 2011.6 at Thunderhill Raceway, CA
#77 Race/Track Bike
Domn8er
Jeep Rubicon
S1000RR
), rather the ones you're battling out for a measly ole one position better.
Black Hurrican
White Thunder
Linear Mode
