Tires so far this season:

At beginning of season (Buttonwillow), practiced on W/X set from last
season for a bit, then moved tires from W/X to A/W and bought new for
W/X.

At Sears in April, didn't buy tires.

At Sears in May, bought new tires. Had suspension leak on W/X, so put
the new tires on A/W and rode the dP school with them. Rear tire
shredded in a novel way, which several people commented on. Saturday
rode W/X on the tires bought new in March, leaving the tires bought
new in May on the A/W. Sunday for practice and race, moved the new
tires from A/W to W/X. Did I swap rims, or put spare rims on the A/W?
Probably the former. Crashed the W/X on the shredded rear tire in the
race.

June, Thunderhill. Bought a set of tires from Redwood City
Honda. Mounted the rear to go on W/X with the front bought in May.
Held onto the front for later. Did two pre-weekend track days and the
AFM weekend on the new rear and the month-old front. Several people
commented that the rear looked badly cupped and very worn at the end
of the AFM weekend.

July, Sears. Wasn't sure I should, but bought a new rear to replace
the one mounted in June. Had Terry mount the front from the Redwood
City Honda purchase, so ran on new tires. Probably should put the W/X
tires from June onto the A/W.

			     Sears Point
			   July 15-16, 2000

No chance at getting any Sears Point track time before the Saturday
half-day practice. All the racer-useful Sears Point dP schools are
over for the year.

Drove up to Novato Friday night, arrived later than I wanted to thanks
to traffic, but slept OK.

			       Saturday

I had coached myself on practice attitude during the week, telling
myself I needed to really hit the ground running at the beginning of
practice because there would be no Friday track time to gently ease
myself into the spirit of things. When I went out for the first
session Saturday morning, though, I quickly grew afraid I wouldn't be
able to come up to speed at all because the track was so slippery and
plagued by new bumps and obstacles. Apparently it was some
four-wheeled things that had left big tire-patty turds in turns 3 and
10, occasioned the installation of a giant evil bumpy slippery patch
in the exit of turn 7 and rippled the seam between old and new
pavement entering turn 4.

After the first couple of laps of the first session, the turn 7 patch
started to warm up and wasn't quite so slippery. I was in the second
practice group; I would have thought the first group would warm it up
for us, but it seemed like they must have slacked on that duty.

The watch on my handlebar said 2:09s for the first session. Not good,
but not bad for a first practice of the day on a sort of cold track in
marginal conditions. The AFM's lap timing computer had some sort of
problem and didn't get times for the first session, which is OK with
me. It was working well for the rest of the weekend, apparently.

I figured if we got three practice sessions I would try to get into
2:06s for the second session and 2:03s for the third one. A high 2:03
is my best Sears Point practice time ever, so this was an ambitious
goal but I felt it was what I needed to do to be ready for the race on
Sunday.

In the second session the clouds had started to burn off a little, and
the air was warmer. The patch at the exit of 7 still made me feel
tentative but wasn't nearly as slippery as it had been. It turned out
I got into the mid 2:04s, which is a decent practice time for me, and
quite a bit better than the 2:06s I was supposing I would do. This
made me feel good. What made me feel bad was that Nick Tenbrink (#809)
went out a little behind me and chased me down, doing a mid 2:03 in
the process. His fastest lap was nearly as good as my fastest Sears
Point race lap to date, and was better than my fastest practice lap to
date. I watched him ride through the carousel after he passed me, and
seeing that took away any question of whether it had been worth his
trouble to get his bike straightened recently. His speed starting
around mid-corner looked impossible; I'm sure my perception was
colored by having fallen off going too fast there in May, but even so
he was definitely getting through there pretty fast and looking very
comfortable.

The third session on Saturday I hoped to catch a tow from Nick and try
to learn his Carousel secrets plus whetever else he would teach me. He
contrived to avoid sharing his valuable techniques, though, by going
out late for the session. Rather than miss track time, I went out on
my own. John Rabasa (#789) got out one or two mini-groups ahead of me,
and he was running on-bike video for the first time so I made it a
goal to catch and pass him, which I did near the end of the
second-to-last lap. Lots of traffic. For some reason only three laps
showed up on the AFM's time sheet. 2:07s and a mid 2:04 for me; no
secrets learned from Nick and no documented improvement from session
two.

On the last lap of the session (after I was ahead), Chris McGrail
(#886) highsided in the carousel right in front of John Rabasa, and
John couldn't avoid hitting Chris's bike. The video equipment and the
tape survived; the video is very impressive. John and Chris both got
injured hands/wrists; they'll be OK after a while. Chris's bike is
especially messed up. It looked like basically everything was either
shattered or bent. At least for John it's his left wrist that's
injured so he'll be able to write a legible crash appeal. Having video
to back up one's crash appeal letter must be a pretty cool feeling.

A bunch of 250 production riders seemed to speed up in practice on
Saturday and set new personal best times. Chris (on the lap before he
highsided), Nick, Ginny, Julia, etc., etc. It seemed like lots of
people were exceeding their past performance. Unfortunately not me,
though. This seems to happen often: Other people get faster while I
sit still or get slower...

Before the school I thought of taking the A/W (spare) bike out in the
school, at least for the follow-the-leader sessions. But the bike
proved hard to start thanks to a low battery that probably hadn't been
charged since the bike was last ridden in May, so I gave up easily and
decided to ride the W/X in the school.

The afternoon started out pretty uneventfully. After leading our group
of students around, Frank and I diced a little bit in the open
practice session, which was good fun. We were both going pretty slowly
(2:05 flats for me) but we had a good time until Frank put his hand up
and pulled off. I didn't find out why he pulled off until Sunday.

The open practice went smoothly until very near the end when a student
who I never managed to identify took me out in the carousel. I had
passed him/her and two other riders, and s/he reappeared to my left
rear and began widening his/her line. And widening, and widening. I
had just passed someone else on the inside, so I couldn't just widen
my own line for fear of hitting that person. I held my line and hoped
the widener would miss me. S/he didn't; his/her front hit my rear, and
I went surfing. I was amazed the other rider didn't fall, but s/he
didn't.

The bike was basically sound, but needed a couple hours' work to get
it ready for the race on Sunday so I stayed after everything was over
and worked on it. The biggest bummer to me about the crash, aside from
not being able to figure out who hit me (and probably make sure they
failed the school), was to mess up my new leathers. Structurally the
leathers were still fine, but they didn't look new any more. :-(

				Sunday

I hadn't ridden the W/X since the crash Saturday, so I figured I
should make sure the A/W was serviceable in case I needed it. Got it
started with jumper cables and took it out in the first (all
production) morning practice group. I had hard-mounted the front
fender on the A/W since June after seeing Paul Somerville's (#311)
setup that depended on his fork brace to keep slider motion from
cracking the plastic fender. I supposed that removing my metal fender
bracket meant I should re-fit my old Telefix fork brace, so I did. The
fork brace seems to be a big part of the overheating problem I used to
have, since even on that somewhat chilly morning the bike ran quite
hot. Just as bad, the bike felt pretty scary so I guess I'd better
take that brace back off. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the
fender; probably just leave it the way it is and see what happens.

Part of the scariness of the bike was probably the old hard tires and
the cold slippery track. It was a slide-fest for a couple of laps
until things calmed down. I didn't manage anything better than a mid
2:09, which was sort of disappointing. It's sad that that bike can
still be made so easily to handle badly.

I rode the W/X in the third practice group, and was disappointed with
my times on it, too. The best I managed was a mid 2:06. After that
session I realized I was letting my anger and frustration over
yesterday's crash get in the way of focusing on the present. I made a
conscious decision to try to let go of Saturday afternoon, and once I
realized how much this was likely to help, I didn't let my times from
the morning practice worry me.

I was still worried about Nick and Frank Mazur (#8), though. I knew
they wouldn't make the race easy for me. There were also others to
worry about, when I felt like worrying. Alex Torres (#105) did at
least one 2:04 in the race in May, and I didn't see a good reason for
him to go slower now. John Rabasa and Chris McGrail are two more
potential troublemakers, but at least for this one day they were out
of the picture because of the crash they staged Saturday for the video
camera. Don't forget Kevin Scott (#680) who has a history of getting
trophies at Sears Point, and people like Paul Somerville and John
Prelock (#357) who could discover an extra little burst of speed at
any time.

Before the riders' meeting, I asked Frank why he had put his hand up
in the school practice and disappeared on Saturday. He told me he had
been having trouble with fuel delivery to his carburetors, but that he
had the problem solved for Sunday. He said his bike ran fine in the
morning practice.

250 production was the first race of the day, which means going to the
riders' meeting with the bike and wearing all the gear. I usually
don't like doing that, but this time the weather wasn't hot so I
didn't mind. Somehow I was preoccupied and managed not to have my
usual case of butterflies when Barbara ran through the starting
procedure. Sometimes the butterflies are worse when she's talking
about it than when it's actually happening.

The warm-up lap was uneventful. Happily, 250 production was the second
wave on the grid this time, which positions the front row far enough
back from the starter's tower that we don't have to crane and twist
into funny positions to see the flag. An added bonus was that we had a
four-member front row instead of five, which gave me the illusion of
getting a better start because I saw fewer people in front of me after
the flag flew. Actually, maybe I did get a better start than usual
because I managed to get in front of Nick before heading up the hill.

It didn't do me any good to get in front of Nick, though, because Paul
was in front of me, keeping me in check while Frank stormed away up
ahead. Paul slowed down more than I expected for turn 2, which brought
me to a stop and Nick went motoring by on the drive out. Paul G-Forced
his way up the hill to 3A with Nick in hot pursuit, but I didn't have
the ponies to get close enough to try a pass going into 4. Nick was
close enough, though, and got by Paul on the brakes going into 4. My
opportunity to pass Paul came at the entrance to the carousel, and I
took it. Nick wasn't too far ahead at that point, and I got good drive
out of the carousel which put me right with him going up the straight
to turn 7. Nick told me after the race that he knew the pass was
coming in that corner. I passed him going into 7 on the brakes and
started trying to reel Frank in. He had opened up a good sized gap,
but it looked possible.

The race was young, and I kept in mind my May performance in which I
threw away the day's worth of points in my gambit to win on the first
lap. I gradually snuck up on Frank for the remainder of lap 1 and most
of lap 2. By turn 10 of lap 2 it looked like the pass was within
reach, and I got good drive out of turn 10. I'm not sure how, but down
the straight toward 11 I closed on Frank in spite of his motor and his
size; I got him on the brakes going into 11.

Lap 2 chasing Frank down was a 2:02.8, better than my previous best by
a significant margin. Lap 3, leading Frank, was a 2:02.5. I allowed
myself peeks back at Frank once or twice a lap; he was always
there. With the race still young, and with the feeling that Frank
probably couldn't jump up and run away from me even if he could get
back by, I kept trying hard but tried to let a little of the edge come
off to make sure I stayed upright. According to the time sheet I
slowed down by a second and a half after the third lap -- a much
bigger slowdown than it felt like! I have little doubt that Frank
could have passed me with the 2:04 flat pace I was doing on lap 4,
even though the lapped traffic was quite heavy. Hopefully I would have
been able to speed back up and take him back if he'd done that, but he
didn't do it. Instead he disappeared from behind me. I later found out
his fuel delivery problem had resurfaced and taken him nearly out of
the race. He was able to limp across the line for 24th place, but we
never got our chance to see whether he would threaten me at the end of
the race.

I looked back over and over, trying to make sure he wasn't back there
somewhere, and after seeing nothing at all but lapped traffic, I
consciously started to relax and slow down even further. Here, the
time sheet says I didn't actually slow down at all. Lap 5 was just
under a 2:05, maybe because of a couple of wrong guesses I made in the
dense lapped traffic, but laps 6 and 7, when I thought I was slowing
down, went right back to 2:04 flat. On lap 8 I finally really did slow
down farther, taking the checkered flag all alone with a mid 2:05.

When I had looked back Nick was nowhere to be seen, but he finished
second with a gap of several seconds (someone said about 4 seconds?
seems like I would have seen him at that distance). Third was Alex
Torres. Kevin Scott, who was having bike trouble and an off day,
finished fourth.

On the cooldown lap, I was nearly taken out by a vintage guy on a
Bultaco (not David Stark) when he exited turn 3A near the right side
of the track and made a big left turn in the middle of the straight to
get to the left to enter turn 4. Even though it's OK to exit 3A in a
weird place, it's very important to enter turn 4 on the perfect racing
line when you're taking your cooldown lap, you know, even if it means
punting someone else off the track. I passed the guy and gave him a
big dirty look and pantomimed STOP WEAVING AROUND, GODDAMMIT! at
him. I hope he got the idea. He must have thought the cooldown lap
meant, "You're all alone on the track now. You own it. Do whatever you
want with it."

In the end, though, I survived the race and I survived Mr. Bultaco. I
had finally gotten my first Sears Point win and bettered my times by
about a second in the process without a tow. It would have been nice
to beat Frank in a fair fight to the finish, and I have a fantasy that
I could have done it. Maybe next month we'll see. Frank's fuel
delivery misfortune makes the class championship points race more
exciting for everyone except Frank, though. If my sketchy estimation
is right, Nick is in the lead now with 300 points, I'm in 2nd 9 points
behind Nick, and Frank is 2 points behind me.