Full / glamorous-style write-up to follow later this week...
Here's the stream-of-consciousness version:
Late night Wednesday trying to diagnose my van's starting issues (in order to win, one must first show up).
Late night Thursday because of loading, getting to Willows, finishing up some work stuff, etc.
Friday: practice was awesome, doing easy 1:53's in the second practice. Life was good. Sorted out some suspension stuff. Then the motor blew. Ended up loading up the bike and bringing back to San Francisco. I worked on it until about 12:30am, Drew worked until about 2:30am and ended up sleeping in my Sprinter at the shop.
Saturday: met Scott at 6:30am and went through the motor and finished diagnosing and putting together a gameplan. My valves were bent, my exhaust cam was toast, one piston was messed up, and one set of con rod bearings were toast. Good thing I happened to have purchased a set of 1098R heads that had come into the shop on Wednesday (I remember telling the guy "no hurry"... thankfully he shipped them promptly). Also a good thing I took him up on the offer to throw in the stock pistons and cylinders (initially I had said "no, that's okay... I don't need those"). Scott/Drew replaced the heads, set the cam timing (which was WAY off), set the squish. Scott gave me a one-time "emergency" pass and did the con-rod bearings without splitting the cases. In general, this is a terrible idea, but since the motor really only needed to last about 16 laps, he was okay with doing this. Loaded up the bike and got back to the track around 4:30. Took it to the dyno, but ended up with a terrible map -- got wayyyy too lean. Had to stop just after 6pm due to noise rules, so ended the day without a really workable map. BTW: I had to operate the mapping software on the dyno. This was new for me, but had no choice -- I had to do it or it wasn't going to happen.
Sunday: started early in order to tech. Got the bike to the dyno at 8:00 for last-minute "emergency" mapping session. I had 3 ideas of how to fix the map, and we were going to spend about 20 minutes on 3 attempts to get a decent map. Had a buddy come by to give me 20 minutes warning before my session so we could get the bike back to my pits, slap on a fresh (warm) rear and I'd head out with a cold front tire. Well, that plan got f'ed because about 20 minutes into mapping, my throttle cable broke. I didn't have a spare. When I stepped out of the dyno room to call my mechanic Drew (who had been working on prepping my 749 backup bike), I discovered the track was shut down.... for a RAIN DELAY! This was a huge blessing -- it gave us PRECIOUS time to get the bike up and running and still catch practice.
I ran around the pits and tracked down a spare set of cables and a spare tube. The cables required a special clip that we didn't have in order to hold them in place on the throttle body assembly, so we jimmied a solution with safety wire. Good thing that isn't an important safety part....
Got the bike buttoned back up in time to catch two laps of practice. The map actually felt okay! Not perfect, but the motor was strong pulling out of turns -- regained some pep and then some!
Open Twins was my first race of the day and race # 3, so I had to go with what I had.
I lined up and (as usual) got a mediocre start. 3rd on the grid, I was 6th heading into turn 2. I was 7th heading into turn 3, but then Nick Hayman (who had just passed me) binned it. At this point I considered "I'm guaranteed no worse than 4th in the championship, maybe I just take it easy with this hastily-assembled motor". Then I thought about the effort Scott and Drew put in and said "no make the beast with two backsing way -- I'm going after GoGo and Pat.". Next up was Chase McFarland on a Buell. he'd held me up at previous races and allowed folks to check out on me. I said "not today." I passed him out of turn 6, getting on the gas hard enough so that I wheelied past him. Next was Pat Blackburn on a 1098R and then Gogo on his RC8R.
Pat got past GoGo on the back straight before the end of the second lap. I noticed I was able to close much of the gap between these two, but wasn't close enough to do anything. I gained more ground on the front straight, but again needed to be closer. I couldn't let Pat get away because I needed to beat GoGo by 2 places in order to pass him in the championship.
I closed in on GoGo BIG TIME heading into turn 2. I began nibbling away at his lead over me, and finally got close by the end of the second lap. I got a good run on him out of turn 13, heading down the back straight. As I closed in I could see he was braking early and his bike was incredibly unstable. I thought about making a risky move to pass going into 14. Then I remembered his post on Barf with a picture of one of the guys in his crew with a sad look on his face and the caption "Sonny P. growing tired of being passed on the front straight". Since I knew I had the motor on him, I decided to wait and pass him going up the front straight. I came past him almost before we got past the rumble strips on the exit of 15 and left him for dead. God that felt good.
Part 1 of my two-part plan was complete. Now I needed to get past Pat. I settled in to a good rhythm and found myself close enough to make a move by the end of the fourth lap. Again, heading up the front straight I now had some power on Pat (in the past, I would lose contact as Pat pulled away on the front straight). Pat stayed to the left to discourage an "inside" pass, so I stayed on his right (unfortunately missing the opportunity to give him a blast of Double Dog exhaust), and I made a tidy pass held a very tight line to discourage Pat from trying to come back past on the inside. I put my head down and ground out two laps from there.
I wasn't seeing my pit signals, so I was pretty freaked out -- if GoGo got back past Pat, I would not pass him in the championship. After I crossed the checkered flag in third place, I went through turn one and looked over my left shoulder to see how they had finished. I felt a cold dagger in my heart as I only saw GoGo's bike approaching turn 1. I shouted "make the beast with two backs..." in my helmet. Then I looked over my right shoulder and saw Pat Blackburn was right there. I then shouted "... yeah!!!" I realized I had gotten him. I screamed my head off the rest of the lap. I did my best GoGo impersonation of fist pumps and celebrations. I cranked a nice big ol' wheelie up the back straight past my pit area.
It felt so good. When I got back to my pit, I found out Randolph had beaten Siglin, so he passed me in the points and I finished 3rd for the season behind Siglin and Randolph. But most importantly ahead of GoGo. Man. That felt sooooo good.
The rest of the day was uneventful. Afraid of killing my motor, I ran the 749 in OpenGP and diced it out with a few guys.
I ran Open Superbike at the end of the day. A crappy start killed my chance at finishing 5th in the race, which is what I needed to move up a position in the championship, so I ended up 7th for the season in Open Superbike in my first season in the class. I was pretty happy with the result and glad to be starting from the 2nd row instead of ~30th position (where I began the season lo' so many months ago at Buttonwillow).
A quick reflection on the "woes" I had from this season:
1) February -- after driving from Thunderhill to Buttonwillow to get some seat time at the track, I had a leak after the 1st session and had to pack up and go home
2) Early March -- Keigwins weekend at Buttonwillow and after the 2nd session, could not shift from 3rd gear to 4th gear. Thought it was a bent shift fork...
3) AFM weekend in March -- back with the 1198 and new shift forks. 1st lap on Friday practice, ran into the same "false neutral" issue going into Riverside. I loaded up and drove back to SF. I was back at the track by 11pm after the shop did a full engine rebuild and replaced my transmission.
4) AFM weekend in March -- starting from Pole Position in Open Twins, I stalled the bike on the grid. (epic fail)
5) AFM weekend in April. The transmission on my van breaks on my way up to the Friday Keigwins day pre-AFM. I borrow a van and get up to the track in the afternoon for a couple sessions.
6) AFM weekend in April. Open Twins race my clutch slave cylinder failed and I had trouble downshifting. I lost two spots I could have easily had back.
7) AFM weekend in April. After replacing the slave cylinder, I get back out and blow the motor on the second lap of Open GP. Main bearing failed and cracked my cases.
AFM weekend in May. Starter motor fails on Saturday morning. Quick run back to San Francisco to replace.
9) AFM weekend in May. Make it back up to the track in time for practice, and the cylinder head lost a plug and was blowing oil -- almost wiping me out in the carousel.
10) June trackday -- blow a hole in the exhaust header
11) AFM weekend in October -- Friday: belt jumped/seized cams/valves bent/piston cooked/rod bearings toast
12) AFM weekend in October -- Sunday AM while on the dyno ~45 minutes before my practice session: throttle cable snaps
What a year! And I thought after I blew my motor twice on the 749R last year and cracked two sets of cases that I had seen the worst of it...
So.... all that, and I finished a few points shy of repeating 2nd place in Open Twins, but I stayed on the podium and completed my come-from-behind charge to pass GoGo for the season. What a great feeling, and made me soooo happy I stuck it out through all the shit.
