Hey, It's Racing Season! 
(Thoughts from a Rank Amateur)


Thursday - April 15, 1999

Tax Day. Do I have time to get my taxes in *and* prep for the race
weekend? Paul's already at the track; he can't take my bike up. I can't
really ride the bike up and still get all my race gear there, so I'd
better just pack up for corner working/pit crewing and be done with it.

Despite folks being gone this weekend already, there's a bit of
conversation on the Team Daemon list today, and people crawl out of the
woodwork to give me options for getting the bike to the track. Yay Team
Daemon! ;) End result: Bruce is going to try to take my bike up on his
trailer Saturday when he comes up. Excellent!


Friday - April 16, 1999

I leave work early to get to the track. I call Paul before I depart to see
if he needs anything brought up. He wants me to pick up the goped trailer,
but I don't leave work *that* early. Oh, well.

I get to the track and find Cooch in the garage. Wow, we have a garage! I
don't know where to put anything, because back when we didn't have a
garage, everything had its place - right next to our tents. I run back and
forth between the garage and Paul's tent for awhile before I give up and
decide to set up later. I take Cooch for a walk and then go talk to Paul
in Turn 3. He's got work to do on his bike, so I take over his corner
while he runs off to Street&Comp, and some Penguin student immediately
crashes. Hey, it's racing season! We're baaaaack!


Saturday - April 17, 1999

The bike is in no shape to race. It's been in a wet garage all winter;
parts are rusting, parts are inexplicably broken, it needs new tires, and
in general needs a whole lot of lovin' maintenance.

I guess it's time.

I haven't decided yet if I'm ready to race. I'm not feeling like I'm quite
in the place I need to be to get out on the track, and even corner working
seems a bit much right now. However, if I decide tomorrow I'm ready, I'd
better have a bike ready, too.

I spend the day moving pretty slowly, helping Paul, Bruce, and Rob get
ready for their races, and working on my bike here and there when I have
time and motivation. I keep looking at that rear tire and hoping it will
have gotten rid of that flat spot from highway commuting by the next time
I look at it. (Last year, Peter Kates said one day I'll have to make a
decision about whether or not this is a touring/commuting bike, or a race
bike. I expect that my first crash will make that decision for me. ;)

I clean a lot of bits, and discover that there is metal under much of that
grime, and under that rust which happened when I wasn't looking. (Now that
I've finally acquired a garage, the next step is acquiring a garage door.)
I get a metal brush and scrub all the rust off my relatively new chain,
give it a good lube, and then later clean and lube it again. Eventually I
bite the bullet and go over to Street&Comp to see if they have a rear tire
that will fit my bike. I decide on a Pirelli Dragon instead of No Chance
Of Racing This Weekend (I wanted a Metzeler MEZ1), and after I retrieve
it, Tim puts the tire back on for me before dinner.

At the end of the day, Rob helps me drain the anti-freeze, and Paul and
Bruce re-do the safety wiring that had been undone for all the previous
work. I put numbers on the bike, putter around some more, and go to bed,
figuring I'll decide on racing in the morning.


Sunday - April 18, 1999

I wake up at 5:15 am to find a sheet of ice on my tent. I figure this is
bad, except that it prevents me from getting wet as I crawl out from under
the rain fly, which makes me very happy. I scrape the windshield and
driver windows of my car and head for the showers. The hot water is
broken, so I head for another set of showers, which are locked. I go to
the third set of showers and find slightly warm water. An inauspicious
start, but I'll take luke-warm water over cold any day. I grab Cooch, and
rush out to registration only to wait in line until 7:30 for them to open.
I run into Galen, who's just coming up for the day, and chit-chat with
people and shiver until I can register for my race.

Evidently I forgot that I wasn't ready.

Back in the garage, I realize that I have very little time to tech and
still get into my new Vanson leathers before 8:00 practice. Rob offers to
go to tech for me, but I figure I have *just* enough of a window to do it.
Over at tech, there's a long line, and a tech inspectors' pow-wow going on
while we all wait nervously and look at our watches. Finally they let us
through, and Bob Perkins reminds me that I have a new tire and to take it
easy until it's scrubbed in. I assure him that I'll be careful, and get
myself back to the Team Daemon garage quickly. I do the "ouch! that armor
sure hurts my chins" dance on Bruce's convenient little changing carpet
and throw my corner worker jacket on over the leathers to cover the perf
holes. (How did I not notice these leathers are perfed when I bought them?
It's 40 degrees! Gack!)

Final call for Amateur Red practice. Rob and I head out, and try to avoid
the puddles of water everywhere in the pits. As I ride out pit road I
remember what it's like to be on the track, the excitement and the slight
nervousness of really Being Out There. Dick Jalbert gives me the customary
thumbs up, and I move into Turn 1A. All of a sudden, I'm losing traction,
at about 25 mph and hardly leaned over at all. Whoa, this new tire is
*slick*! I ease off the throttle and keep it more upright going around
Turn 2 and Turn 3. I want my tires to warm up a little so I twist the
throttle a bit; I know that most people scrub tires about 30 seconds
faster per lap than my best time ever, so I should be safe. Tire's a
little slippery still in Turn 10, so I decide to stay steady for 3 entire
laps. I begin to get the feeling for the track again, and I forget about
the nervousness I had on pit road. I try to lean more in each turn, to
make sure the tire's scrubbed in everywhere I intend to use it later. (I
still intend to learn how to race before I learn how to crash.) Before I
know it, the checkered flag is out, and I head back in. I wish I'd had
another hour to keep going around, but I'll have to wait until my next
fifteen minutes of practice.

Second practice, a lot more people on the track. The day is warmer, the
track is warmer, my tires are scrubbed. I decide to practice racing, this
time. Smooth first lap, no real shifting, no real acceleration, just
moving with the bike and feeling good about riding. Second lap, try to
maximize speed by keeping good lines, and hanging off. I don't really have
the knack of hanging off; every time I try it I destabilize the bike some.
I think I need to find someone good at this who rides slightly faster than
I do, and follow them around. A few times, people pass me in the slightly
straight bits and I get to follow them around corners. I seem to be better
at carrying my speed through the turns than a lot of other new racers, and
my lines are also keeping me in the right place most of the time to get
the most out of them.

I do not like to go fast.

I like to be smooth - it feels... more right, to me. My heroes are Doug
Chandler, Jason Pridmore, and Eric Wood. Somehow, though, they manage to
be smooth *and* fast instead of just smooth. I guess I'll get there.

It occurs to me that I need to remind myself to Use The Throttle in places
where I actually can do that (back straight, exit of T4, exit of T10), but
I seem to only remember that option on the front straight, long after I
should have downshifted and opened it up exiting T11. See, I know how to
ride, I just don't know how to race. But that's what I'm here for, to
learn how to race. I practice accelerating, and it's surprisingly fun. I'm
still trying to hang off, and I'm attempting to be stable and consistent.
I look down at my duct tape on the tank which reads "TT" and "B" (advice
from Race Control for chick racers ;) and try to do that, too. My brain is
juggling a lot of extra things for this little racing exercise, and I hope
that I am up to the task of getting it all down. It's like learning how to
ride all over again. I pass someone for the first time ever. It's trivial,
which surprises me. But there are only two of us - we have a lot of room.
Rob passes me and I decide to follow him around the track. I come up on
him really fast in Turn 3 and I wind up taking the entire turn with the
clutch in. Sigh. That's my scariest turn, and I was hoping to get one more
run at it while feeling good.

Practice is over... that was way too soon. Again.

During the day, while I help the guys with their races and consider my
afternoon race, I think about being competitive. I don't really have the
inherent drive to be competitive - it's just not in my basic nature.
(Don't tell me it's a female thing - most women I know are competitive,
they're just not usually testosterone-laden about it. ;) I realize that in
a lot of ways, I'm better than a lot of the people I'm on the track with,
in terms of smoothness and concept of where to be and when. (I guess all
that corner working has done some good in that regard.) And from this I
realize I have a building block for the competitive edge. If I really am
better at some of these things, shouldn't I be beating some of these
people around the track? What's holding me back? It's certainly not my
skill, nor is it my bike. The big barrier here is my brain, and
acceleration is the first step in getting over it.

I get a little nervous before my race. I discover that the two classes in
my race are heavy weight super bikes and light weight super sport. My
corner working experience has taught me to fear the amateurs on the big
bikes, and I don't want to be on the track with them. I especially don't
want them lapping me, since I'm in the second wave and they're going to
catch me. Well, I have armor this time, so if I do get tagged, I'm less
likely to get hurt.

Race time: I'm gridded next to Paul Conley from Motomarket. That's kinda
cool. He's a real sweetie and I feel more at home while we're chatting
before the five minute board.

The race begins. First wave is off, and I look for our green flag for the
second wave. I catch it a moment too late and I'm off to a slow start.
This doesn't bother me too much, as the big bikes are just now entering
Turn 1A and I know what a mess that usually is. Indeed, as I approach Turn
1, there's a yellow flag waving. I slow down and try to figure out where
not to go as I enter the turn - I don't find anything and try to get back
to the idea that this is a race, not an accident scene that I have to deal
with. As I come around Turn 2, I see another yellow flag waving; someone's
down in Turn 3. I get around that situation and continue with the race.
For awhile, the track is my own, and then I come up on someone. The guy
immediately ahead of me is Not Very Good. I decide to try to pass him - he
goes faster than I do, but he's kinda sloppy. I feel the competitive urge
hit, and I chase him for awhile. Then I realize that my riding is getting
sloppy, too, and that I'm headed for disaster if I don't start thinking
about riding instead of passing. I start concentrating again on riding
well and I forget all about the guy ahead of me. (Later I reflect upon how
the competetive drive made me stop thinking, and I wonder about how to
balance the urges so that I want to *win* but I don't stop being smart
about it.)

Soon, I come up over Turn 5 and I see all the big bikes entering 3 below
me, out of the corner of my eye. I start thinking about them about to pass
me, and I don't want that to happen - they're fast and inexperienced, a
combination I don't like. I get rattled and start to slow down, and then I
realize I *really* don't want them to pass me in the beautiful section of
the track that is Turns 6-10. I gun it to get through there, hold everyone
up in the chicane between Turns 11 and 12, and let them all pass me on the
front straight. Whew. Somewhere during that stretch between 6-9 I've
realized that I need to ride *my* ride, not anyone else's, and I stop
paying super-close attention to what everyone else is doing.

I try to push myself some more without being stupid, with some small
success. As I've been reminded a couple of times already, it's a better
race when I Just Ride, so I concentrate on that. I have a couple of scary
moments when someone passes me on the outside in 9, and someone else comes
up almost immediately and passes me on the inside, where there is really
no room for that. I stand it up a bit and hope that nobody is on the
outside following the first guy by my tires, and I drop anchor some as I
enter Turn 10. I think this is the last lap, anyway, and people are
pushing for position, so I let them do that and try not to get in anyone's
way. I cross the finish line and remind myself not to blow Turn 1 just
because the race is over, and to wave at all the corner workers as I go
around for the cooldown lap.

I come into the pit and realize I really liked that. Heh.

Later, I check my lap times and I've dropped 2 seconds off my best from
last year, and 20 seconds since this morning's practices. I came in 11th
in my race.

I gotta do this more often.