Thunderhill, September 23-24, 2000
			    Testing Tires
			       (me out)

Maybe you're the impatient type who likes motorcycle race reports to
be about racing, or at least riding motorcycles. If that's the case,
skip to the "Saturday Morning" part below. Way below. Don't bother
scrolling. Use that "Find..." thing on the pull-down menu; it'll be
quicker.

For years the tire of choice for the EX250 has been the Dunlop
K591. Dunlop has discontinued that line of tires, so the search is on
for a replacement. Dunlop is supplying the GT501 as a replacement, but
the 100/90-16 size that EX250s have traditionally used in front is not
available in the 501, at least not in the US. Apparently there is such
a size available in some or all Asian markets, but even if we could
get some, they probably wouldn't be DOT-stamped so they would be
illegal for production racing. The closest thing available in the US
market is a 110/90-16, at least until Dunlop becomes convinced to
supply a 100/90-16 for us. In the rear, the sizes that have been used
with success in the 591 are 130/80-16 (which was discontinued), the
belted 130/90-16 (which replaced the 130/80-16 and is not to be
confused with the evil non-belted 130/90-16 tire that was available
all along), and the 120/80-16 front tire mounted backwards on the
rear. I have run the 591s with all three of those rear tire setups,
and they all worked. The 501 is being offered in a 130/90-16 rear and
a 120/80-16 front that can presumably be mounted backwards on the rear
just like the 591.

Going into this weekend, no one had ridden on a 501 on the track, at
least no one known to Terry Newby, the head honcho at Sport Tire
Services. Sport Tire Services is Dunlop's west coast race tire
distributor. Before he sold the 501 to racers, Terry wanted to confirm
that the tire would be suitable for use on the track and wasn't a step
backward from the 591 in any unexpected ways. To get that reassurance,
he asked me if I would test the 501 tires at Thunderhill this
weekend. I was very flattered that he chose me to test the tires, and
I started getting excited immediately with fantasies of having factory
talent scouts lining up outside my door, etc. :-) We planned to test
the tires at the test and tune day put on by the track on Friday the
22nd, right before the AFM weekend. I had already made plans to be at
the track that day, so this would work out well.

The other unusual thing about this weekend was that we were to have
the annual 4-hour endurance race on Saturday. Early in the year, Nick
Tenbrink (#809) had invited me to be on a team he was putting together
to ride his 1992 FZR600. John Prelock (#357) was to be the third
member of Team Sanford and Son, so named because of our team's fond
memories of that TV show and the appearance of Nick's bike transport
vehicle. I jumped at the opportunity to join up with these fast guys
and hopefully learn something about how to ride a bike with more than
a negligible amount of horsepower. The three of us (especially Nick)
spent several weekend days during the summer doing a complete rebuild
on the bike's somewhat tired (50,000+ miles) motor to get it
ready. The plan was that we would get the bike ready well in advance,
and then do a couple of track days on it to work bugs out in plenty of
time before the race. The final track day on the bike would be the
Friday Thunderhill test and tune day.

The run up to the weekend was eventful, and to fully explain the
weekend I have to explain some of the preparation and other stuff that
happened beforehand. In spite of our endurance team's best efforts,
the FZR600 wasn't really ready until the night before the race, and
even then it wasn't really ready (as we would confirm later). Some of
the things about the motor rebuild went without a hitch, and the
suspension prepared by Phil Douglas (#695) of Aftershocks was
completely plug-and-play. But there were a couple of snafus about who
would do some of the motor work, and a few of the parts didn't get
into the right hands until quite late. When the cylinder head finally
got back to Nick, it was missing a few valve retainer keepers and one
shim that must have gotten lost somewhere along the line when the
disassembled head was getting passed around like a hot potato trying
to figure out who was going to do the valve job on it.

And then there were the standard "I've never rebuilt this model of
motor before and the service manual doesn't really mention this part
and I don't know where the part goes" mistakes that we made in putting
the thing together. One particular transmission part that I left out
cost us at least half a day because when Nick finally pointed out to
me where it went, we tried to save effort in re-splitting the
cases. Our attempts to take things apart as little as possible led to
our having to split them about five times (four trying to take
shortcuts and once doing it right) instead of doing it right just
once. Moral: Don't try to save time. You'll just end up with gasket
goo in the main bearings and then the crankshaft won't turn. You will
have to do the job right in the end, so you might as well do it right
in the beginning.

In the early planning stages we had talked of getting the bike jetted
on a dyno and all sorts of nice stuff. In the end, we were lucky just
to have the thing running! I'm leaving out details best forgotten of
misprinted torque values in the service manual, thread inserts, etc.

Terry and I had decided that it might be a good idea to get a set of
the 501s mounted, balanced, and on the bike before we showed up at the
track because Friday was going to be a busy enough day for both of
us. I would be changing setups between the 130 and 120 rear tires,
testing those tires, and trying to learn to ride the endurance
bike. So I could get a set of the tires mounted and balanced, Terry
UPSed me a 130 rear and a 110 front. They arrived late in the week of
the 11th of September, and I didn't have time to do anything with them
before Lois and I left for a weekend away in Big Sur. The trip was
planned around the wedding of a couple of friends of ours, but would
also include some free time on Sunday afternoon. We got home on Sunday
with some daylight left, so I decided to go ahead and mount some
tires. I had a bunch of tires that needed dismounting, too, and I did
some of that job in the process. I got the set of 501s mounted, but
didn't take the time to balance them before I went to bed. I also left
a few tires that needed dismounting because I was just too tired to
finish with them.

John and Nick got the endurance bike running the same weekend; I
wasn't able to be there to help them because of the Big Sur trip, and
that might be why they were able to get it done. :-) They were also
lucky enough to get into a dP school at Thunderhill on Monday, so they
took the bike to do some debugging and to get familiar with riding it
on the track. The reports back from their day at the track were
basically good, but an old problem Nick experienced with the bike in
the past had returned: When the engine was hot, the bike wouldn't
restart properly. It would turn over and start, but would only gurgle
and would refuse to rev past 1000 RPM or so. This is not a good
feature for endurance racing since refueling must be done with a
stopped motor. When Nick explained this problem to me the next day, I
mentioned that it sounded like the carbs were set up too rich on the
pilot circuit, and that he might try turning the pilot screws in a
quarter or half turn at a time to see what difference that might make.

In addition to this issue, we knew we would have to work out an
AFM-legal oil catch pan, number plates, and a couple of other minor
things before the bike could be raced on Saturday.

Monday night I worked late and didn't get to the tire balancing that
still needed to be done for the 501 test.

Tuesday, everything got called into question when my brother William
rang me up at work to tell me our grandmother had died the night
before. Her death was expected, we just didn't know when it would
come. She was less than a month from her hundredth birthday, and had
been slowing down steadily over the past few months. I had gone so far
as to ask my father to do what he could to make sure the funeral
wouldn't be scheduled on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday because I
really didn't want to miss racing, and I really did want to go to her
funeral. When William called, he let me know the funeral was set for
Friday. My parents had just left town a few days before on a vacation
trip, and so they weren't around to advocate for a non-weekend
schedule when the decisions had to be made. I spent much of Tuesday
afternoon on the phone with all sorts of people trying to figure out
whether it would be possible for me to go to the funeral, and what the
consequences would be for the weekend's racing and tire testing.

It turned out I could get a flight out for the funeral on Thursday
night and could return late Friday afternoon, just in time to drive
through rush hour traffic to meet up with the rest of the endurance
team and head to the track environs. Of course this scenario meant I
had to sacrifice Friday at the track and break the commitments I had
made to Terry and Team Sanford and Son. On the other hand, I could
still get a little practice on Saturday morning [Did you use the
"find..." thing? Fooled you! You're not there yet!] before the
endurance race, and maybe that would be enough time to do what needed
doing. Everyone on the racing end and on my family's end was very
understanding about my situation, and in the end I felt no pressure
from anyone to go to the funeral or to go to the track on Friday. It
was a hard decision, but I decided to go to the funeral and hope that
I'd not be letting Terry and my team down too much. But I'm getting
ahead of myself. That decision wasn't fully made until Thursday
morning, and my chronological exposition is still sitting at Tuesday.

Tuesday evenings my jazz combo rehearses. No matter how much
preparation I had to do for the weekend, I needed to do the rehearsal
because we had invited a guest to sit in at the rehearsal and I didn't
want to stand him up. Also, the rehearsal would be a very welcome
break from worrying about travel logistics and trying to figure out
how many airline flights, rush-hour drives up highway 80, and track
sessions I could fit together in a 24-hour period. Before the
rehearsal, I stopped by Phil's shop in Palo Alto to finish the tire
dismounting job I had started on Sunday night. I had gotten the
impression that he had some goodies at his shop that kept the job from
having to be done entirely by hand, but that was wrong. So while I
stood there and watched, Phil did the same dismounting by hand that I
had just been too lazy to do on Sunday. If I had known, I wouldn't
have bothered him. He has nicer tire irons than I do, so maybe it
wasn't completely a waste of his time.

When I got home after rehearsal I was still feeling the pressure of
too many things not yet done, so I balanced the front wheel with the
110/90-16 501 on it and put it on the bike. Getting it on the bike was
a little tricky because the larger tire required moving the fender
upward for clearance. This sort of thing was exactly the reason for
fitting the tires in advance, and it made me glad I was doing it
instead of waiting until I was at the track and under even worse time
pressure. If I was going to make it to the track, that is. My thoughts
were filled with visions of getting to Birmingham (Alabama, where the
funeral would be) and then having return flight after return flight
cancelled through the weekend while I sat there and imagined myself
racing.

At some point on Tuesday I talked with Nick and learned that he
planned to get the endurance bike ASAP to Alex Torres (#105) at
Fastline in Fremont so Alex could try to fix the non-starting-when-hot
problem.

Wednesday came and I spent more time on the phone, more time agonizing
over what to do, and did actually manage to get some work done at my
job. The end of Wednesday came and Nick said the endurance bike hadn't
been looked at yet, and told me he wasn't likely to get the bike back
until late Thursday at the earliest. Figuring that he still needed to
put in a day of preparation (mostly oil catch pan work), Nick said it
seemed like the bike wouldn't be available to be ridden on Friday even
if I didn't go to the funeral. So if I did Friday it would only be
tire testing and EX250 practice -- still valuable, and not something I
wanted to miss. Wednesday night after work I balanced the rear rim
with the 130/90-16 501 on it and fitted the rim to the bike. Luckily
that process went smoothly and nothing had to be relocated or ground
away.

By the time I went to bed Wednesday night, I was pretty sure I was
going to miss the Friday practice and tire test so I could travel. I
would just have to hope the flight back on Friday didn't get cancelled
or delayed too much. Team Sanford and Son's faithful pit helper, Carl
Hill, graciously agreed to swap vehicles with me for Thursday so that
if I left town I wouldn't have to park my car with trailer and bikes
at the San Jose airport, and so I wouldn't have to drive home from the
airport Friday night before driving to the track. If these logistics
seem confusing to you, you're not alone.

Along the way dealing with all the tire stuff, I made the time to
weigh and measure the circumference of each of the different tire
sizes and models I had in my possession. I got lazy and measured these
with the tires mounted on rims, without sprocket carriers or spacers,
but with brake rotors and cush drive rubber. The weights were done
with a bathroom scale of questionable precision and accuracy, but
here's the data for anyone interested:

model	size		circumference	weight
K591	130/90-16	78 inches	26.5 lb.
GT501	130/90-16	79 inches	26 lb.

K591	120/80-16	74.5 inches	22.5 lb.
GT501	120/80-16	???		???	(not measured yet)

K591	100/90-16	72 inches	19.75 lb.
GT501	110/90-16	74.5 inches	21 lb.

Thursday came and I decided to go to Alabama for the 11AM Friday
funeral. My flight would leave San Jose at 2:05 Thursday afternoon. It
would probably be my last opportunity to see the aunts, uncles,
cousins, kids of cousins, and maybe even grandkids of cousins(!) all
in the same place at the same time. I also looked forward to seeing my
brother and his wife and kids. All the visits would be too brief, but
it seemed like it might be worth it.

Thursday afternoon it was drizzling and foggy in the Santa Cruz
mountains. As I drove Carl's truck over Bear Creek Road toward the
airport, I turned on the headlights and thought to myself, "Do these
things beep at me if I leave them on?" I decided I would just have to
remember to turn them off when I parked at the airport.

I basically didn't think about racing very much while I was
traveling. I did some work with my laptop on the airplane, arrived in
Birmingham, visited with my parents who had aborted their vacation and
returned from Italy, slept, woke up, got ready and went to the
funeral, visited with lots of relatives for too little time, and got
back on an airplane. I actually arrived back in San Jose completely on
time Friday evening, and was looking forward to executing the planned
rendezvous with Carl so we could head north to Nick's place, pick up
the FZR600, and head to the track. I got in Carl's truck and turned
the key, and of course nothing happened.

Did you know the company with the long term parking operation contract
at SJC will give you a free jump start if you need one? I guess that's
included in the $27 price of parking there for a bit over a day. It
took an extra 25 minutes or so, but I was soon on my way. Did I
mention that Carl's truck doesn't have an idiot alarm on the
headlights? I hooked up with Carl and apologized for hastening the
death of his truck's battery. We embedded ourselves in the Friday
afternoon rush hour traffic.

Around 8:00 we got to Nick's place in Hercules, and the bike was
nearly ready. I learned from Nick that Alex hadn't been able to
reproduce the hard starting problem, and so had given the bike back
without doing anything to it. According to Nick, Alex felt we didn't
have a too-rich problem at idle, so we didn't change anything. Nick
and John finished getting the bike ready. We got the stuff loaded. We
got gas. We got food. We got going. We got to the track environs and
got to sleep some time around 12:30 or 1:00 AM, which wasn't too bad
compared to some of the things I had imagined might happen.

			   Saturday Morning

Made it to the track. Finally. It seemed like about two weeks since I
got that phone call from William on Tuesday... except in those two
weeks I had misplaced some sleep somewhere. But I had bikes with tires
on them, and things kept falling into place at the last minute. Since
John and Nick had both gotten to practice on the FZR600 on Monday,
they let me have both morning endurance practice sessions. I badly
needed them. I've always enjoyed trying to see how fast I can go on a
bike that I basically have no idea how to ride. I had fun. I went
slow. Nick and John (and the AFM's dbCom timing and scoring system)
timed me at 2:14, 2:13, 2:12 in my last practice session on the
bike. Extrapolating, we can see that with about 10-12 more laps of
practice I would have been going almost fast. Unfortunately I didn't
get those practice laps. At the end of my sessions when the motor was
still hot, we tried restarting the bike, hoping to suss out whether
the starting problem was still present. The bike restarted fine both
times, so we hoped for the best.

On the EX250, the 501 tires felt very good. I was pleased with how
quickly they seemed to scrub in, and with how well they stuck. I was
disappointed that I didn't go faster on them, but I went fast enough
to feel I had a good idea they were as good or better than the 591s in
terms of grip and stability. At the end of the first session on the
501s I thought there was a good chance I would decide to race on them
on Sunday, and I felt even more strongly at the end of my second
session on them. Because there were only two practice sessions per
group on Saturday, I decided I would stay with the 130 setup in the
rear rather than change to the 120 and race on something I hadn't
practiced with on Saturday. Terry still wanted to get some feedback on
the 120 tire in the rear, so I agreed that I would try to run a race
after 250 production on Sunday using the 120 setup.

In both practice sessions on Saturday I noticed that I was dragging my
toe and bike parts in turn 1 where I usually don't drag anything except
my knee. This was happening even though I was exiting turn 1 with less
speed than usual. I had also noticed that the move to the 110 tire up
front seemed to have slowed the bike's steering down a little, just
enough to be noticeable. Without considering the slow steering, it's
sort of strange that moving to tires that raise both ends of the bike
will introduce dragging trouble, but when you think about the fact that
a slower turn-in means you use more lean angle later in the turn, it
makes sense. I decided that on Sunday I would try lowering the triple
clamps on the fork tubes to speed up the steering a little and see
whether this improved my dragging problem.

			  Saturday Afternoon

Time for the endurance race. All the stuff is in place. Nick is riding
first, then John, then me. In addition to Carl's help with scoring and
pit work, we would have Timojhen Mark (#930) who had graciously
volunteered to help us.

The warm-up lap wasn't underway long before someone in an adjacent pit
pointed out that someone had crashed entering turn 3. It turned out to
be Nick, who had overestimated the traction he would get from the new,
cold tires we had put on the bike for the race. He wheeled the bike into
the pits and we got it repaired well enough to get back out on the track
after missing about 15 minutes of the race.

Once he got on the track, Nick's riding stint went very well. He did a
bunch of 2:09.xx laps, which isn't fast for a 600, but it was faster
than I would be able to go so it seemed fast to me. When his shift was
up our rider change and refueling went well, but when John went to
restart the bike and take off, the bike had to be bump started because
the electric starter wouldn't turn the motor over. To make matters
worse, the bike also showed its old hard-starting problem again. We
toyed with the bike for a while without results trying to get it to
rev properly, and in spite of what Nick had told me Alex had said,
the problem still looked like very rich idle carburetion to me. So on
a lark I turned off the fuel petcock. After gurgling along for about
fifteen more seconds the bike roared to life. We switched on the fuel
and John was on his way.

For one lap. John didn't come around at the end of his first lap, and
when I looked up the front straight I saw John pushing the bike in
from turn 15. The bike had stopped on him, and it had stopped suddenly
enough that it sounded like an ignition problem to me. The fact that
the ignition system seemed not to work well coupled with the failure
of the electric start suggested a dead battery, but the battery seemed
good enough to run the idiot lights so we sent poor John back out
again after getting the bike started. Of course the bike did the same
thing again, but this time he was able to coast farther into the
pits. We started looking for the problem in earnest this time, and it
took a while but eventually we put a meter on the battery leads with
the bike running to test the charging voltage. The charging looked
good, so the only remaining culprit was the battery itself, which
usually isn't the problem in situations like this. We got lucky and
discovered that the battery from a late model EX250 fits the FZR600; I
swapped in the battery from my spare sprint bike and we were on our
way again.

The bike ran fine through the rest of John's riding stint and then it
was my turn. The bike is a combination of a lot of fun and a lot of
work to ride. Things drag, like part of the frame, the engine cases,
and the oil catch pan. The throttle grip was slipping a little on the
twist thingy, too, which meant I would often think I was at full
throttle only to discover I had another eighth-turn or so to go. My
best laps were some low 2:10s; I was mostly in the 2:11 and 2:12
range. I had gone for about an hour and 12 minutes of my hour and
twenty minute shift when I saw the oil light flicker on as I crested
the cyclone. The engine had shown no signs of trouble, but it wasn't
worth a few extra laps to risk blowing up the motor we had put so much
work into. We were already nearly in last place among the teams still
running, so there seemed to be little point in continuing to ride. I
pulled into the pits and we called it a day.

Nick, John, Carl, and I wanted to wash the day's sweat and grunge off,
and then the team wanted to take Carl and Timojhen out to dinner.
Timojhen kindly let us use the shower in his hotel room so we wouldn't
have to drive out to Nick's cousins' house where we were staying and
then back into Willows. After a nice dinner at the Santa Fe grill, Carl
headed home and the rest of us slept soundly Saturday night.

				Sunday

Sunday came, and with the endurance race over with, I could focus on one
bike and one race. I lowered the front end of the bike to speed the
steering like I had decided to do after I had hard parts dragging in
turn 1 on Saturday.

Nothing great happened in morning practice; still disappointed with my
times, but aren't I always? I caught my right knee slider on the lip of
the inside curbing in turn 15 and shattered the plastic of the puck. The
impact also tore a bunch of the stitching that holds the puck backing
onto the velcro. Looks like it might finally be time to retire that
knee slider; it's been with me since I started racing in 1996. My
dragging problem in turn 1 was miraculously gone. I gained ground
clearance by lowering my bike!

The plan for Sunday was to do three races instead of one or two because
of the tire testing thing. I would normally try to get home earlier
from Thunderhill because it's a bit of a drive, but getting to pretend
I'm a factory tire tester is worth it.

250 superbike was race 6, which put it right after Open GP and right
before Formula Pacific. Open GP was an eventful race, with Jeff Hagan
(#47) having some sort of mechanical trouble on the last lap that caused
his bike to spray a fine mist of oil, with the occasional generous
splash thrown in. According to the third-generation hearsay I got, he
was meatballed and/or warned by the turn workers all the way around the
track, and he ignored them, supposedly resulting in his disqualification
from the race. The people behind him somehow managed to avoid falling in
his oil. The workers did their best for about an hour to clean up the
stripe of oil around the racing line, and all the while I was wondering
whether I really wanted to go out for the 250 superbike race at all.
Racing on an oily track is not my idea of fun.

Finally we were called for the 250 superbike warm-up lap, and I went out
to have a look at the track. Nick had decided to conserve his tires and
not run this race, so my main reason for doing the race was to get more
experience on the 501s. The track had a few spots where there clearly
was still an oil problem, but it looked like with a conservative
approach and a few weird lines I would be able to do the race safely, if
slowly. So I decided to take the start and do the race. The race went
pretty uneventfully. I spent most of the time behind Mike Lohmeyer
(#177) and Dan Baldini (#151), who is new to our class but not to
racing. He has recently moved up to 250 production from racing 600s with
some success. The main slippery spots were turns 3 and 4, and turn 14.
In turn 3 it seemed best to go inside the oil. Turn 4's oil was right at
the apex so it was pretty easy to go outside it. In turn 14, the oil had
the effect of narrowing the track by about 10-12 feet on the chute
between 14 and 15. That chute seems really narrow anyway because the
exit of 14 is so tight, so the oil posed an interesting challenge there.

The 250 production race was gridded behind 450 production, which makes
the start easier because we don't have to crane our necks to see the
starter. When the flag flew, I got a good start in terms of accelerating
the bike, but I got my start later than everyone else on the front row.
The result was that the whole row took off without me, but I was able to
pass Nick somewhere before or in turn 1. The remaining front-row sitters
were Frank Mazur (#8) and Paul Somerville (#311). I'm not sure where I
got by Frank. Maybe going into turn 1 on the second lap? Anyway, it
wasn't long before Paul was leading the race and I was in second right
on his rear wheel. In the turns, anyway. On the straights, he had a HUGE
motor advantage, much bigger than it had been any other time this year.
My current theory about why he had such a big acceleration advantage is
that the set of 501s is slightly heavier than any set of tires I've run
before, and Paul had also switched just before this weekend to a set of
Kosman-modified rims with D207s on them; Paul's new rims are very likely
lighter than his old ones. I don't know yet by how much they are
lighter; I'm working on getting that data together. Of course mass is
only an approximation to moment of inertia, but rims tend to be pretty
uniform in how they distribute their mass so I think it's not completely
stupid to consider mass as an easy approximation.

The oil problems in turn 4 seemed to have gone away, but the outside
entrance of 3 still looked like I should avoid it, so I never went out
there. The oily area in the exit of 14 was similar; I just stayed inside
of it because it looked as bad as it had two races before. Apparently
few others had been running through it, so I expected its traction
hadn't changed much.

I was impressed by Paul's getting in the lead and holding it well; he
definitely wasn't showing any sign of feeling pressure from leading a
race for the first time. I sat back and watched him for a while, looking
for opportunities to pass, and I tried a few of the ones I saw. The
results were consistent: I would pass him and he would motor back by me
on the next straight. We did this once when I passed him in turn 6 -- he
motored past before turn 8 -- and again when I passed him in the chute
between 14 and 15 -- he motored past again before the starter's tower.
I hadn't seen a wheel from behind, even though I knew we were running a
pace where Nick could probably attack us handily. I figured I could
either frustrate myself passing Paul and getting passed back, or I could
wait until there was an opportunity to make a decisive enough pass that
he wouldn't be able to recover the lead. Generally I don't believe in
waiting strategies because too many things can happen. Opportunities
don't always appear; sometimes you have to make them. And red flags can
end the race and revert scoring to the previous lap at any time, so
letting your opponent cross start/finish ahead of you any time past
halfway through the race is risky. Still for some reason I decided to
wait rather than force the issue.

This time waiting worked. Somewhere around the exit of turn 2 or the
entrance of turn 3 on the penultimate lap we encountered some lapped
traffic, and Paul made a bad decision about how to pass them. I hadn't
really been planning on trying anything at that point, but I was
essentially forced to pass Paul and the lappers as they pushed him wider
and wider in turn 3. Now I had a few turns to put a little distance on
Paul before the next straight, and I hoped it would be enough. If it was
enough, I would just have to make sure I continued to make good passing
decisions because one wrong move in traffic could swap our places
again. I still hadn't seen Paul when I entered turn 1 on the last lap,
and I knew this was a good sign because I had survived all the major
straights without getting re-passed. Unfortunately a big gob of 4-6
lapped riders was coming up on the horizon, and I didn't see how I was
going to get through without slowing down. The interaction started at
the entrance of turn 3 on the last lap, and I got by several of the
lappers. Two of them, though, formed a curtain that was slowly closing
in front of me and blocking my movement to the left. The lapper to my
left didn't see me, and pushed me more and more to the inside of turn 3,
so much that I decided to ride slightly into the dirt, using the edge of
the asphalt as a berm. That strategy would stop working as soon as the
inside curbing started, so I made sure I was back on the asphalt by
then. Once the roadblocks started drifting left to prepare for turn 4,
I rode around the right side of them, and I was looking for Paul. I
don't know why he didn't get by me, since these two lappers had slowed
me down so much, but I didn't see him. Just riding my best for the rest
of the lap turned out to be enough. I got the win by about 1.3 seconds
over Paul, who finished second. Dan Baldini finished third, with Frank
fourth. I think Dan Kimble (#689) was fifth, and Nick came in sixth for
some bizarre reason. I don't know why he wasn't up front fighting for
the win, and I didn't get a free minute to ask him about it before he
packed up and left the track to head home. The results sheet said he did
the fastest lap of the race at a 2:13.875, and my fastest lap was a new
personal best for me at 2:14.40x.

Since Frank and Nick finished a few spots back from the front, the
points situation is better than I had dreamt it could be. Going into
this race, Nick had a 20 point lead on me, and Frank was ahead of me by
16 points. The win is worth 18 points over fourth place and 28 points
over sixth, so I'm now in the lead with Frank two points behind me and
Nick is in third, sitting six points behind Frank. So I'm by no means
secure in my spot, but I am at least back in the running. As Nick's
uncharacteristic result illustrates, anything can happen in the one
remaining weekend of the season.

Congratulations to Paul for an excellent finish and fantastic riding!

After the 250 production race I had the space of two races to swap the
bike over to a 120 tire as I'd told Terry I would do. Changing to the
120 tire in the rear alters the effective gearing and ride height, and
in order to properly test the tire I felt I should set the bike up as
well as I knew how for the tire size. This meant changing suspension
links and gearing, and the gearing change meant swapping chains because
the 108-link chain is too long to use with a 45-tooth sprocket.

Two races would never have been enough time to swap all the stuff if
it hadn't been for the help of John and Nick, my endurance teammates
and fellow 250 production racers. They were both great -- they just
jumped in and did what needed to be done the whole time. The bike was
ready to go just as I hopped on it at final call for the 500 twins
warmup lap. I owe them both a huge debt of thanks. Also critical in
getting the bike ready was a spare rim Denise Howard (#732) loaned
me. The rim had allowed me to get the 120 tire mounted before the
production race so I didn't have to wait for mounting and balancing to
happen in the critical period between 250 production and 500 twins. I
had actually brought along my own spare rim for this purpose, but in a
moment of senility I sent it home with Carl Saturday night without
ever using it and without thinking about why I had brought it! Big
thanks to Denise for her generosity in compensating for my stupid
error.

The 500 twins race turned into a war of attrition in front, so much so
that just by being the first production 250 to finish, I got fourth
place! Ken Baer's (#999) chain came off, Paddy Mee (#982) rear-ended
another rider in a failed passing attempt, broke off his own brake
lever, and ran off at turn 14, across the hot track between 7 and 8 (!),
and into the field where he crashed in some sort of hole out there and
broke his hand. Peter Rooney (#959) had some kind of mechanical problem
and just barely managed to finish the race a few yards ahead of me in
third place.

The 120 tire seemed to perform well. We got two warm-up laps because
someone caused a delay by crashing during the first one. I appreciated
the second warm-up lap because it gave me confidence that the 120 tire
was actually scrubbed enough to race on. I was disappointed in my
times after the race; the best I could muster was a 2:17 flat, more
than 2.5 seconds off my best lap from the 250 production race. All the
standard excuses apply, I guess. As a proud member in good standing of
Team Woulda Coulda Shoulda, I have to say the sad thing is that if I'd
been closer to my proper lap times, I would have had a trophy in 500
twins by beating Peter. More to the point, though, even though I didn't
go fast, the tire is clearly good enough to race on. It never complained
or did anything weird. I'll test it further at Buttonwillow in October.

After all that racing I was pretty tired. It took me an insanely long
time to get all my stuff loaded up and hit the road. I actually
couldn't find room in my car for a couple of things and ended up
having to borrow space in Jack's truck. Lucky for me Jack was still
around. He could afford to load slowly because he was going to pick
Paddy up at the hospital where he went to get his hand looked at.

I owe lots of people lots of thanks for this excellent and jam-packed
weekend. In no particular order:

To Nick, for doing way more than his share of preparing the endurance
bike, for supplying the bike in the first place, for inviting me to be
on his team, for persisting in the endurance effort when things got
difficult again and again, for pushing me constantly to improve my
riding, and for giving me vital help in the pits so I could test the
120 tire.

To Carl, for his invaluable help with scoring the endurance race, for
pit stop management, for his trip to procure pit-board supplies, for
bike and gear transportation, and for his incredible flexibility of
schedule in the day or so before the weekend.

To Phil, for sharing his tools, his brawn, and his tire skills with me,
and for his work and advice on my suspension which continues to be
confidence inspiring and very effective.

To Timojhen, for his much needed scoring and pit help in the
endurance race, and for letting Carl, Nick, John, and me wash up at his
hotel room before going out to our Team Sanford and Son dinner.

To Alex for going beyond the call of duty several times to help John,
Nick, and me get the FZR600 ready for the endurance race in the face
of lost and broken parts and suspected starting trouble.

To Eddie Benson (#301) for helping Nick and Alex in the search for
replacement parts for the FZR600.

To John, for joining our endurance team and contributing his riding
skill, days of preparation work on the bike, pit help, and good attitude
to the effort, and for his lifesaving help in getting my setups swapped
for tire testing.

To Terry Newby, for offering me the privilege of testing and using the
new 501 tires, for being so understanding when my grandmother's death
threatened the testing, and for being so adaptable to get the job mostly
done with me in the time that was available.

To Denise for the loan of her spare rim, without which I wouldn't have
gotten to test the 120 tire on the rear of my bike.

To my partner Lois Steinberg for her incredible help in getting my stuff
ready to go to Alabama and to the track on short, high-pressure notice.