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5/21/06 Sonoma California's Infineon Raceway, "Pro Lashes" Before you enter a pro race, like AMA Superbike, or Formula Extreme, you really should ask yourself "What are our goals?" Especially as a regionally based team with minimal backing, you're going to have to face the fact that while winning a pro race would be phenomenal, if not even unbelievable, it's probably not a realistic goal to set for yourself (YET). The opinion of at least one of the fastest guys in Superbike today is, "If you're not entering a race to win it, then what are you doing there?" Well, I can see his point - to a point - which segues nicely into mine. "What are you doing there?" Saturday looked much clearer, and what was supposed to be a pre-race practice, now became our unofficial qualifying session. We completed eight laps, and in that time I realized our footpegs were mistakenly mounted in the lower holes, so we were left dragging them on the ground just about everywhere, our shifter was too high, the bars were a click too far in, and the levers were too high. Talk about anal retentive... "Just ride the damn thing," you might say. Well, those little things add up, so after eight laps we were done. Turns out we were eighteenth fastest. Oh, crap... No worries though. "Remember our goals." I kept saying to myself. The only problem we could see for the race was a slight oil leak coming from around the clutch basket. This is a problem we've had before, so we replaced the seal behind the clutch last week. It was still leaking though, but not so bad (only a trace was visible on the clutch cover after eight laps), so we lined up just like that. I had my sights set on getting past the entire front row, but when the light went green and I got into the clutch, we didn't really launch so hard. In fact I believe we lost a bit of ground (as it turns out there was more oil IN the "dry" clutch pack than anyone had realized). Turn two was horrible. Bikes were everywhere, some was coming off someone's leg as another bike rubbed up on him, and even Craig McClean run up our inside going into two. Bastid! I guess I was being a bit too conservative. It took us a bit to get used to all the new settings again, but once we did we were back in business. We got back by McClean by rolling through the carousel turn and moving up his outside, with a plan to square off our exit and power underneath him down the next straight. Oddly enough, though, we rolled a little faster than I had planned on so I changed our plan to just power around his outside through the exit and down that entire straight. The best part of that race was when McClean sensed us on his outside and let his bike run wide to pinch us off. I kept the throttle pinned as he moved us into the marbles and the rear tire began to lose traction - in a fun sort of way - and we did finally get by him. Then on the brakes for seven I blew my mark and he went right back by on our inside. "Does it get better than this?" Dicing back and forth with another Ducati 749R really gives you a good idea of what others are up against when they take you on.... We did get by McClean again, this time on the front straight, but by now most of the field was pretty far ahead. We kept in it, each lap getting quicker and quicker, until about the tenth lap when the rear tire began moving around quite a bit. It took a little more work, riding fast with a slippery tire under us, but we managed to close in on a few of the regular national guys like Nicky Moore, and Grant Riggs, with only a few laps to go. When a bike up ahead just keeps getting smaller, that gets you down a bit. But when it keeps getting bigger, that makes you HUNGRY. Going into the last lap I thought we had a good chance of catching at least one of them, but suddenly the bike began to lose power. I thought twice about it as we went down the front straight, but kept in it, and just at that very moment Jason turned to Tracy on the hot pit and said "Oh crap... Did you hear that pop? I don't like that sound.. It sounds like he's running out of gas!" Tracy turned back and slowly said, one word at a time, "Don't..... even..... tell me...... after all that work out there, on the sixteenth lap of a seventeen lap race, he's gunna run out of gas....?" Sure enough, that's exactly what happened. I put my hand up coming out of turn two and rode through the grass to park my best little buddy behind the tire wall - while Jason Disalvo and Eric Bostrom burned up their tires heading for the checkered flag.
Some might expect we'd be pissed. Maybe even disappointed. But no, not this time. We came with two goals, and we left with two accomplishments. MotoItaliano made the show their first time at a national, and we just went faster on our little bike - on the slower AMA layout of Infineon (AMA changes the course a bit to slow the superbikes down going through what they consider a dangerous turn one), than we had gone the weekend previous with the faster layout, on our faster bike! THAT is progress. And now we're feeling pretty damn good about our next AFM round this coming weekend... Stay tuned, and stay safe
Eric "GoGo" Gulbransen, Tracy Gulbransen, Matthew Pilla, Motorcycle racing, AFM, Ducati 749R, 999R, race story, MotoItaliano |
