The last weekend of the 2009 AFM season brought up a lot of different emotions for me. I was disappointed that the racing was over for the year, but also relieved that I'd made it through. And as the weekend progressed, my juxtaposing feelings became more and more apparent.
Friday practice with Red Shaft was helpful for me, with some quality guidance from their elite league of AMA champion instructors. Combined with the skills I had learned from my recent California Superbike School experience, I made quite a few improvements in my riding. Chuck Sorensen elaborated on his recommedation that I make my moves more "violent", saying that I needed to shorten the time in which I input directions to my motorcycle. The time it takes for me to brake, start and complete a turn needed to take less time. In April Chuck had just called this "being more violent", but my Superbike School instuctor Lonnie, and Keith Code's classroom instruction, made this idea much clearer to me. And I think I was successful at shortening my input time in at least a couple of places (namely 2 and 11).
I went into Saturday practice feeling comfortable and confident. Though practice went relatively well, I wasn't getting my times down to where I wanted them to be (the story of a racer's life). Saturday ending up dragging on due to some unfortunate incidents in the clubman races in the afternoon and all of the races were pushed to Sunday. This was a bit frustrating after all the waiting, but I usually ride better on Sundays anyway, so we still took our Formula AFemme year end photo with a phenomenal 14 entrants (probably the largest female road race in the history of US Road Racing). It was great to see all the girls out there and made thoughts of next year even more enticing.
Sunday morning came and my morning practice session was faster than all of Saturday had been. Very exciting. I was ready to kick some lady butt in Formula AFemme. Sadly, amazing fast lady Deb Barton high sided her 125 in turn 2 on Saturday, so she was holding out to win her Formula III championship, which she did! However, the grid was still huge. Shelina lined up after her 3rd place finish in Clubman Middleweight and at the drop of the flag she was up the hill into Turn 2 taking the hole shot. But Joy was on her ass and got around her into the carousel, never to be seen again. As I started gaining on Shelina, Christie Cooley came around me out of turn 6, just to put the pressure on. We went back and forth over the next lap and I resigned myself to strategizing my moves: I'd wait until the last lap and then get her Turn 9. I knew I had her there, and I should be able to hold her off til the finish line, but she was flying through the carousel, so if I passed her before the last lap, she'd probably just pass me back (how is she going through there so fast?!). So I was biding my time, but I knew she felt me back there, and poor Shelina heard those two twins scratching at her heels. Before I knew what to make of it Christie blew turn 11 and I was back in front of her. I knew she'd make up her mistake quickly, but I was coming up on some lappers and I took everyone to my advantage. Back on Shelina's tail, she headed into 7 and went under a Clubman lightweight rider. I knew if I had to weight him out through the esses she'd gain a major gap on me and Christie would catch back up, as 8/8a is one of my fastest bits, so in that split second I too went under him into the second apex of 7, but he knew I was coming and had opened up for me which was very kind of him. Though I was right on Shelina, she wasn't letting up one bit! Back to back races seems to do her good. Though I saw her start to tire, it was to no avail as the last lap was approaching and my little SV can't compete down the line to the finish, so I held third place which thankfully kept me in second overall for the season. Vice-Champion Formula AFemme.
This race was a great way to end the inaugural year of Formula AFemme and really made me excited for next year. But the day was not over yet, in fact, it had just started. Open Twins was next on my list and I was ready to take on the big bikes. Shelina and I had pushed ourselves in AFemme and we were both at consistent 1:51-1:50s for the whole race, so 1098s beware! I recently switched to GP shift and made a very stupid mistake on the start, trying to shift up from first into... first. So that got be into turn 2 about dead last. But by turn 4 I was up somewhere around 15th and turn 7 got me up to 10th or 11th. Unfortunately a couple of 1098s felt it necessary to pass me on the straight away but I was confident I could get them back (we were only doing 1:53s at this point). Staying in front of those guys would have gotten me a top ten finish and that would've been nice; however, there was a red flag and the race was not restarted due to the long day we were already going to have. So I ended up in 12th.
Next up was 650 Twins, finally some bikes who couldn't completely out-motor me. But whilst we were battling out the first lap, going five-wide into Turn 9, someone hit Dave Sapsis (to my left), causing Mickey (right in front of me) to swerve towards me to avoid hitting Dave. Though I was somehow uninvolved in that carnage, my master cylinder reservoir decided it wasn't happy with its current position and wanted to move a little to the right to pinch of the hose going to the master. So when I let up on the lever to turn into 9 the pressure wasn't letting up in the brake lines and the pistons continued to extend, clamping my brake pads onto the rotors. The last decision I made was to turn in kind of tight to avoid Mickey, and before I even got the chance to turn I was across the track narrowly avoiding Frost's Twin Works SV. One can imagine how the day went from there. Though Deb managed to sufficiently cheer me up with one too many glasses of Perrier Jouet, I was quite annoyed at my brake failure. Apparently I am not supposed to use "zip tie" and "brakes" in the same sentence, so I won't elaborate on the issue.
As aforementioned, my weekend was full of completely opposing emotions resulting from all the highs and lows that occured, including but not limited to my managing to lock up second place in the AFemme championship, as well as my front brakes.
I do want to say thanks to everyone who made this year possible for me:
Motion Pro
JST Racing
Big B Racing
Bridgestone Tires/Forward Motion
Suomy Helmets
Catalyst Reaction Suspension Tuning
Proactive Chiropractice
And the Lenz's for taking care of me in P-town.
And thanks to all of the Formula AFemme Sponsors:
Bridgestone
Michelin
Viets
Hands on Track
Pacific Track Time
Keigwins at the Track
Race Ready Motorsports
Military, police, fire personel who help protect us
All the ladies who came out to race with us!
Thanks to anyone and everyone else that I may have forgotten to mention. Can't wait for next year.
