TTX eGrand Prix at the AMA Nationals

The first electric bike race is about to take place in a few short days at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California. I was approached to be a rider for a bike running in the TTX eGP and I was excited at the opportunity of being a part of this historic event. Though excitement was mixed with nerves as well; the idea of riding an electric bike made by "some guy" as opposed to an Italian factory was a bit daunting.

The bike, a former 1995 Ninja 600, had just been replaced with new batteries that dropped one hundred pounds from the total weight. One hundred pounds! This brought it down to a measly 400 pounds, lighter than the original motorcycle. This was promising. There were some throttle issues, but they seemed fixable.

My other big concern was the tires. I'd never really ridden on a track with tires that had such large grooves in them. Even my supermotard tires were smoother. But I was assured by many accomplished racers that at the speeds I would be going, I'd have nothing to worry about. This in itself was worrying.

We showed up to test the bike at the track, the only way to determine whether it can be raced, and I had a few expectations, but not many. Unfortunately, my expectations were slashed beyond what I thought possible. I knew it would be different, but I was excited for the prospect of this new idea. However, the throttle problems were more than we thought and the poor little motor didn't seem able to haul the 400 pounds around at all. On my out lap I actually feared that I would start rolling backwards down the hill up to Turn 2.

It turns out that the throttle wasn't actually opening all the way, despite the full double grabs I was turning. There is also the possibility that the older (heavier) batteries were producing more power (current? watts?).

So we're making some changes and testing again in practice this weekend.

I'll update further with how things go, but come check out for yourself at the AMA Moto Jam this weekend, featuring not only the TTX eGrand Prix, but AMA National Road Racing, Supermoto, Motocross and Flat Track.

P.S. One unrelated perk that came from testing was that Moto Marin was demoing some bikes at the track and I got to ride the Aprilia RSV4 around Infineon. It was amazing! Go buy one. Better yet, buy me one.

AFM Round 2: Infineon

Since it's been so long since an update, I'll recap on the off-season and AFM Round 1 at Buttonwillow.

2010 brought Zoe together with the infamous and mysterious, grizzly mountain ducati fast guy, Pat Blackburn and the Mountain Militia Racing Team. With an 848 and a ton of moral support the 2010 season was shaping up to be a whole different ball game. Buttonwillow brought a few struggles, including a lack of track time and confidence on the bike. In case I wasn't nervous enough riding such an amazing bike, the first practice Saturday morning, coming through Riverside, I felt an explosion hit my foot and I thought I had blown a rod through the cases. I immediately stood the bike up, pulled in the clutch and shut it off, just in case. I coasted off the track to an access road on the right and got off to check out the damage. No holes in the cases, no oil pouring out... in fact, everything seemed fine. And then I noticed the back wheel didn't look right. Something was funny looking back there. Oh, there was no chain, that's why it looked weird. The chain decided to mysteriously snap (it wasn't too tight, it wasn't too old, and it didn't break at the master!) on me.

Everything seemed to be fine until I wound up in the same access road, pushing my bike back into the pits again, because, it turns out, the chain had caused a hairline crack in the case and it was slowly dripping oil onto my pipe and blowing off lots of smoke.

Life continued, racing happened and I struggled to figure out how to ride the 848.

But Round 2 at Infineon held more hope for me. Until my radiator started spewing fluid from a manufacturer's defect in the bracket, which caused it to spring a leak all over my rear wheel. With that under my belt I was a bit more cautious than necessary. Even my competition remarked that I looked less aggressive on the track. What had gotten into me?

I continued to mosey along through Saturday practice without riding the bike anywhere near its capabilities. As we gridded up for Formula Afemme I still hadn't gotten my head on straight. When the green flagged dropped I finally accomplished what I had been envisioning for the past three weeks and I got the hole shot and led the pack up the hill into turn 2. My lead didn't last long as Christie and Joy passed me into the carousel and quickly stepped away. I rode around in third while unbeknownst to me, Deb Barton was coming back from a mishap on the first lap. That sly little lady finally caught me and came around my outside in turn 7. With a carrot out in front I held on for the next couple laps, but as I drove to pass a bunch of lappers on the straight before 7 I held it open a little too long and blew the corner. With that mistake Deb picked up a lead and my podium chances faded away.

A little bit of me wishes I hadn't been racing so I could've watched Christie ride because I hear she was a bat out of hell. Hopefully next month I'll have a front row seat for that show.... or, even better, I'll just hear her behind me.

On Sunday morning I realized I had been afraid of chucking the bike down the track and wadding it into a little ball and I gave up that fear. I rode a little bit harder and ended up dropping 4 seconds from Saturday's best time. Though 750 Superbike and Formula 1 caught me off guard with millions of swarming bees diving into turn 2 on the start, Open Twins brought the civilized manner of racing back. I had a nice battle with a 1098, swapping positions a few times, and eventually taking advantage of a mistake he made.

Overall, I learned a lot and prepared myself for next month. With some more track time before the next race I should hopefully be ready to lift up my skirt and ride.

photo courtesy of christie cooley

Final Round of AFM 2009

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.

I need a 600! Or to not make the same mistake lap after lap. Or a 125 and the deb barton race school.

On the Eve of Infineon

Back to Sears Point this weekend. My head's in a better spot than it was last month, so hopefully it'll stay that way. I have decided to ride how I ride, because otherwise it's no fun. And what's the point of racing if it's no fun. So I'm getting excited and running through the track in my head as I lay here anxiously awaiting the morrow.

What also has me buzzed is this Laguna 600 race. I need to find me a 600 though. I also need a 600 for the lady race at Barber in October. No point in trying to be competitive when I've got half the horse power. Come to think of it, there's a lovely 675 in my garage, though I'm not sure I'd dare ask my roommate to ride it. There is also that old hunk of junk R6 that Chuck Sorensen rides on Red Shaft days... I wonder really if that's more competitive than my SV? It may not be. Our garage is getting sadly thin on bikes these days. We've gone from 10 to 7 in the past couple weeks, and I fear it's soon to be 6...

Anyway, it's 9:49 which looks like bedtime to me. So see you all at the track. And feel free to offer me a race ready 600 for the upcoming months, if you happen to have one lying around.

At the Gates of ThunderHell

It felt like the incendiary pits of hell at AFM's Round 5 on July 11th and 12th. With three digit temperatures and not a cloud in site, the water never quenched the thirst and even peeling leathers off wasn't much of a relief. I am usually not bothered by such heat, but with my head full of fears, it tooks its toll. Don't worry, I didn't suddenly start to fear motorcycles. What I feared all weekend long was another complaint against my riding from some pesky little boys who don't like getting passed by a chick. I feared getting a fine I couldn't pay or getting suspended or disqualified from an AFM event.

I tried to ignore the fear that was holding me back, and I tried to focus on riding. I recently read "Twist of the Wrist", Keith Code's guide to racing, and I was trying to apply the little bits of information I extracted from that book. Mainly I worked on reference points, and since the repave, Thunderhill is seriously lacking in good reference points. My goal was at least three for each turn, hopefully six. Unfortunately, turns 4, 6 and 8 left me hanging with only one or two points for each. Though I cannot express how much glee it brought me to see the white strips recently painted in turn 8. While I did find many new reference points for the rest of the track, I was still going slow. Granted it was just practice, but come on... why no improvement?

As Friday came to a close, I was still hopeful for Formula AFemme, my weekend hadn't gone down the toilet quite yet. I even talked to rider rep, Jason Butler about the exact definition of "passing too aggressively", now it's just a matter of opinion whether or not I'm actually doing this. However, as Saturday progressed, some of my fears materialized. I was in lovely practice group 2, not getting at all frustrated with the people in front of me, and being very good at passing nicely, when all of a sudden, this guy passes me and moves right back in on my line and brakes for the corner. I almost smash into his rear tire, but luckily my ZX6 brakes are pretty badass. So whatevs, not a big deal, but coming out of the corner and dude is going slow: probably worked so hard to pass me that he messed up his line. So I pass him back. Don't think he liked that. This goes on for like two laps. Every other turn he tries to pass me, can't make the pass stick, I pass him back. It was only frustrating because he kept on coming back into my line after he passed me which would cause me to almost hit him. Quite rude, especially for practice. My soft take off was sliding pretty often at this point: through most of 2, most of 3, always over the top of 5, definitely in 8, and usually in 14... So I came in and when I came down the front straight and stuck my hand up, dude pulls in front of me and sticks his hand up too. Like he couldn't even get off the track behind me... Anyway, I went over to him to say "hi, please don't complain about me, p.s. it sucks when you cut back in onto my line" and he ripped into me! "A little aggressive for practice, don't you think?" Um, me? Don't I think? You were the one passing me, I was just passing you back cause you couldn't make your passes stick. Was I supposed to just back off and let him have the pass because he had the balls to try it? I don't think that's the way it works... but AFM does have some interesting rules. Maybe when someone shows you a wheel you're supposed to let them have the turn... If that's really the case I need to go back to Supermoto.

Anyway, this incident upset me greatly. Because if he were to complain, I'd be the one getting a fine. So more stress got piled on and my head got into an even worse state than it had been in. Furthermore, apparently one of the little mosquitos ran out of gas in 12 and caused Jenn to avert disaster by hitting the hay bails and doing a number on herself. So poor Jenn is a mess, Christie and Deb have to work, and the ladies' race is slowly fading away to nothing. Luckily we had new girl, ex-drag racer Stacy to come and play. Her start in her Clubman race was amazing, as it was in Formula AFemme, and after half a lap and one 750 down, the 600s were out of site. Every lap I came onto the front straight and saw them going into Turn 1. And it was the first time in my racing career that I had really really wished for horsepower.

Alas, Sunday was upon us and my head was still hindering my riding. I raced like I had never raced before. Not in a good way... but like I had never been in a race before. I'm not even sure I passed anyone, so great was my fear of the AFM's wrath. This left me far at the back of the pack where people are scary. Someone almost hit me going into turn 10 and the two guys in front of me were almost comical to watch. One guy really, really wanted to pass this other guy, but he couldn't get it together. Every turn he'd go for an inside pass and every time, right at the last minute he'd realize he wasn't going to make it so he'd pull all the way across the track back to the outside to get a better line and better drive out. If he had just stuck his normal line to begin with he would've a) not been in danger of smashing into me, cutting me off or slamming on the brakes right in front of me, and b) probably gotten the other dude on drive out of the corner. So I almost feared to get too near to these two because it seemed overly dangerous. However, after being frustrated and depressed about it all morning, I was determined to have a fun afternoon.

I waited for a few more hours in the blistering heat, tired, but unable to sleep, thirsty and dry mouthed, with all the water I could need. Finally, time for Open Twins. The race that can only be fun because I am so underpowered it's comical. And I was starting in front of GoGo, so that would boost my ego. Second call and I'm getting my gear on. Brian's checking my tire pressure. Check's the rear. Check's the front. What's wrong? Third call... Why is the rear pressure dropping? Go out and race? With the pressure dropping so visibly? Can I do that. I don't think so... Tire off, sprayed down, where's the leak? We can't find it. Bridgestone boys can't find it... oh, there it is. And it looks like there's something inside my tire. Something in my brand new tire with 18 laps on it. And after Brian digs it out with a knife we see that it's half of a little master link clip from a 125. And it punctured a hole in my tire. To top my weekend off and remind me how much money I just threw away.

So on the drive home when I was thinking about why I did this if it wasn't any fun, I resolved to have fun. Even if it means the AFM fines me or kicks me out. There's no point in racing if I'm not having fun. So Infineon, here I come, ready to kick some ass, pass some boys and have fun with all the girls.

PIR and AFM Round 4

I know I'm way behind here in updates, but that makes my life easier cause most of you know what's going on anyway... So we'll keep it simple.

PIR May 30th and 31st.
My awesome idol Peter Lenz went into to turn one with no brakes and wound up the bionic boy, putting a rough edge on the weekend. I was having run riding though and was doing alright in my first race. Until I made a silly mistake and got a little greedy on the gas while leaned over way too much. Out came the rear and there I was sliding across the track and into the dirt... no big deal... until the lapper I had just passed found no where else to ride but over me. So I wound up incapacitated at the Lenz's house for a few days where I was very well taken care of.

After a couple weeks I was ready, in spirit at least, for the first Thunderhill race of the year. By the end of Friday practice I was back to last year's race pace and feeling like I was riding at a turtle's pace, so that seemed promising. However, over the course of the weekend, I did not improve as I was planning to. I really feel like I'm at a bit of a stand still and need some one on one coaching to let me step to the next level. Hopefully I'll figure out a way to make it to the California Superbike School, but they're not back at Infineon for months, which makes me sad. You can read all about the rest of my AFM weekend here: http://www.roadracerx.com/news/rem-omrra-pir-race-report/.

After the weekend wound down and I was thinking about how frustrating it is to still have to start so far back on the grid because of the beginning of the season's mishaps, I got dealt another hard hand. A nice little letter from the AFM warning me to calm down on the track because other riders have complained about me "passing too aggresively". I have yet to respond, but I'm making time to do that this week because the letter left me crestfallen and confused. I race motorcycles. How is there any way in the world for that to be not aggressive? I'm unclear what is aggresive passing and what is not aggressive passing, adn by whose definition? Furthermore, I don't know why aggressive passing (in my understanding of how the AFM sees it) is wrong. If I don't come into contact with anyone and I don't cause them to fall down, go off track or even almost fall down, I don't understand how that still falls under "too aggresive", but it must because I have a letter saying so. I am going to respond to the AFM and ask them to explain this to me, so that I know what to do and how to ride without getting into trouble, because it is very upsetting to me to think that other races think I'm not in control or not being as safe as possible (keep in mind, racing motorcycles is not safe, we just ride as safe as we are able to).

Hopefully I'll have such good news next montht that I won't be able to contain myself and you'll hear from me soon. In the mean time, starts "following" me, so that it looks like I have more than two friends!