Having won the 250 production championship last year, I did some thinking this winter about what should be the next step. I was concerned about the amount of money involved in doing anything, since none of the serious options looked cheap. One alternative was to stick with 250 production and try to defend the championship. It's a great group of people, the sportsmanship is unequalled anywhere else, and there's no question that win or lose, I would have a lot of fun. Another possibility was to sell the whole menagerie of EX250 stuff and buy a bigger bike that would teach me much more about riding skills than I stood to learn with another year on a four-stroke 250. This option seemed too expensive even to consider, except for the fact that there was a possible sponsorship deal in the works that *might* supply me with a bike to ride. In the end I decided, against some portion of my better judgment, to pursue both. This even though I learned the potential sponsor wasn't going to be able to afford to get a bike. Not that I could really afford to do it, but I managed to buy Kenyon Kluge's 1998 GSX-R750 and to make a pretty substantial investment in upgrades for my EX250. I also made the decision knowing full well I am likely to run into "focus issues." Most people have a hard time riding two very different bikes and doing well on even one of them. To help heal the financial wounds, and in view of the fact that I don't have a way to haul three bikes to the track anyway, I sold my spare EX250 to Dick Rossi. Winter preparation thoughts on 250 production went something like this: I wanted my main EX250 to be a bike that I felt I could win on, and I felt I had done enough time on a machine that was good but not one of the best in the class. Paul Somerville (#311) showed me at Buttonwillow in October, 2000 that EX250 rims modified by Kosman to fit 17-inch radial tires had a real advantage over my setup based on the stock rims. And even though I invested fairly heavily in top-end work by Factory/Wheelsmith in early 1999, I had nonetheless spent my entire racing career competing against people with more horsepower than me. I decided I would try to fix both of these problems for the 2001 season. To wit, I took an old spare motor to Mike Norman at G-Force to be built as best he could, and I sent off a set of rims to Kosman to be modified for 17-inch radials. Winter preparation thoughts on 750 production were along the following lines: I spent quite a bit of time talking with Scott Winders, who gave me lots of good setup advice and was a very useful sounding board when I had ideas about my goals. I felt I had made only small improvements in my riding during the last year or so, and I relished the thought of learning again by leaps and bounds. Scott recommended that I try something really different, and since he had experience with GSX-R 750s himself, he suggested I hunt one down. I agreed with him that such a bike couldn't help but teach me a huge amount, and they seemed to be fairly available because everyone wanted to upgrade to the 2000-2001 model. After careful thought, I decided it was more important to me to learn and improve my riding than it was to win as many trophies and points as possible. This is what I tell myself whenever I worry about "focus issues" getting in the way of trophies in 250 production. :-) At the same time, I've put a lot of money and effort into my EX250 platform during the off season, and I'd like that not to be wasted energy. When I bought the GSX-R from Kenyon, he generously agreed to get it measured by Computrack to make sure the chassis was straight. James Randolph at Computrack in Milpitas found that the chassis was straight, but the triple clamps were bent. He straightened the clamps and the bike was good to go. One of the benefits of getting it measured is that I got a sheet showing exactly where the chassis setup stood, so I knew what changes I needed to make if I wanted to get particular setup numbers like swingarm angle, rake, trail, etc. I tried to go to a couple of track days in preparation for the start of the season, but they were both essentially rained out. I got a few laps at one of them, but only enough to make sure the bikes were not falling apart. No real practice time. It came to about 8 dry laps on a rainy day in February at Buttonwillow. Buttonwillow 9-11 March, 2001 Friday practice I began coming to terms with the 750. My best laps on that bike were high 2:06s. Very slow, but I'm definitely learning. Hopefully I'll be able to translate the things I'm learning into going faster eventually. No great shakes on the 250; some 2:11s, I think. I could definitely feel the difference between the old motor and the new G-Force one, with the new one making somewhat more power everywhere. It's not the 35-36 hp peak huge power that G-Force has become known for, but it's better than what I had and it's going to get some more tuning work so I have high hopes. I was quite tired at the end of the day from riding two bikes; I haven't been tired like that at the end of a practice day in a long time. Saturday morning practice One session with consistent good times on the 250. It turned out I wouldn't better these times on Sunday. It seemed easier to do those times on the radials than it had on the bias-ply, but I never did manage any times that seemed impossible on the bias ply tires. I basically consider 2:10.0 to be just about the bias ply limit. I went slower on the 750 than I had on Friday. In my first Saturday session on the 750 I had a cold-tires first-lap near-highside moment in the left-hand part of turns 3, and the side-to-side violence of the event activated the bike's tip-over sensor. Before this happened, I didn't know the bike had a tip-over sensor; I didn't figure out until quite some time later why I hadn't been able to restart the bike until I switched the ignition off and on again. Two people had to explain to me that the tip-over sensor had gotten all excited before I understood what had happened. My cold-tires moment together with the bike's noticeable tendency to shake its head added up to my going slower on Saturday than I had on Friday. I wonder if the headshake behavior is normal, or if it indicates a problem. I plan to get someone fast to ride the bike and comment on it as soon as possible. I suspect it's just me, since when the thing accelerates I tend to hold onto the bars like a waterskier holding a tow handle. None of the 250 production riders seemed to be going fast in practice. To the best of my knowledge I set the best practice time at a mid-2:10, and I was surprised no one else was close to that. Tom Dorsey said he was having trouble getting into going fast mentally, and Paul Somerville seemed to be having a similar experience to Tom's. Still, I knew they would both be people to watch in the race on Sunday. New Riders' School I had meant to ride the EX250 in open practice, but after a lap on that bike the front fender started shaking violently to the point that I thought it might separate completely. It had been cracked for some time, and the cracks were getting slowly worse... but now they were getting quickly worse. I parked that bike and rode the 750 for practice. After the open practice was over I got out my ABS cement, safety wire, and drill, and did the standard Frankenstein patch job on the fender. It held well on Sunday. Sunday Morning practice Nothing interesting happened in Sunday morning's practice. I scrubbed in a new set of tires on the 250, and rode around slowly on the 750. 750 production 750 production was the day's fourth race, and it came before lunch. I did one practice start with Chris Wysocki in the hot pit, and it seemed to go OK. When the race started, though, I did the most horrible start of my life. I was so worried about looping the bike that I just barely pulled away from the line. I didn't ride very well in the race, either. I spent the whole race s-l-o-w-l-y closing the gap between me and Eric Welch who finished just in front of me. 250 production 250 production came after lunch -- the day's sixth race. I blew the start pretty badly. Maybe this is my first identifiable "focus issue"; maybe it's because I had tried to launch the 750 earlier that I started so poorly on the 250. I doubt it's because of the different (Barnett) clutch spring and (stock) clutch plate setup in the G-Force motor -- other people start just fine on the same components. The most likely explanation is that I just sucked at the start, no excuses. I came off the line sort of slowly, and I noticed the whole front row was pulling away from me. I never noticed a problem with my own start -- no wheelie, no bogging, no problem -- but everyone in the front row pulled away from me. There was still no obvious trouble when the second row came past, but by then I was beginning to figure I must have done something wrong. I made it into turn 1 in 8th or 10th place, I think, and started trying to recover as Paul, Frank Mazur (#10), Joe Pardo (#728, who had motored his way into the front pack by turn 1, it seemed), and Nick Tenbrink (#80) pulled away at the front. I think I made it up to about fourth place by turn 3, and then I spent several corners closing the gap to the group in front. By the time we reached the Riverside Banking, I was poised to pass Nick; he got into a mild tank-slapper at the exit of that corner which made the pass easy for me. After that I was in third, Joe was in second, and Paul was leading. Joe's riding looked sort of scary. Being in second place he was obviously riding well, but he looked like he was about to crash in many corners. Multiple turn-ins for each turn, mid-turn corrections, that sort of thing. He never got totally out of control, though, so it was probably part of a carefully-conceived strategy to keep me from passing him. :-) It worked at least once; I was about to go under him at the exit of the bus stop, but he feinted the start of his turn really early and I aborted the pass. My drive onto the banking was destroyed. Not long after that I got to watch Joe lead a race for his first time; his riding had smoothed out and he looked much more comfortable. He got under Paul on the entrance to the west hill, and Paul got him back into turn 1. Both Joe and Paul said Paul's pass into turn 1 was scary and nearly had Paul running off the track, but for whatever reason it didn't look unusual to me at all. It just looked like a normal pass on a somewhat weird line that was needed to make the pass happen. I probably wasn't paying enough attention. Paul was obviously excited to see his teammate lead a race -- he gave Joe a big thumbs-up once he had the lead back. By this time I had seen how to avoid getting held up by Joe in the corners leading onto fast sections, and I held back in the bus stop for the drive onto the banking. It worked; I went up the west hill right on Joe's tail and passed him into the west hill where he had passed Paul earlier. It was amazing to see the performance of Joe's bike on the straights; he would pull several lengths on me when I was behind him, and when I was in front he easily showed up ahead of me before turn 1. I braked later than he did and held the position, but he was making it clear he was there. A lap or two later I dealt with Paul in about the same place where I had passed Joe. It took a little longer to make the pass on Paul stick completely, but it stuck. For a while, anyway. :-) My dicing with Paul and Joe, and watching them dice with each other, was some of the most fun I've had while racing. It was a blast! At that point I made my major mistake of the race. Well, it wasn't a mistake really, because it wasn't the result of a bad conscious decision, but it was something I should have done differently. As soon as I got in front, rather than speed up and do my lap times, I slowed down! Just like that incompetent SUV driver that passes you and then holds you up! Instead of the 2:10 laps I had done in practice, or the 2:09 laps I felt capable of, I did laps in the 2:12-2:13 range. Lapped traffic was there, but not terribly heavy; I've gone much faster in heavier traffic, and most of the passes weren't major holdups. So I think I was just slacking. I guess I still had some cobwebs left over from the off season. I kept thinking with each lapper that I could get by and have Paul be held up, but it never happened. Paul got by every one of them unimpeded. Those slow laps cost me the race, just like slow laps will do. Headed for the checkered flag, I had the lead coming out of the last corner onto the straight, but Paul was right there and he put his superior motor to good use. He simply motored by me before the line, and crossed a bike length or so ahead of me for his second win. I later learned from Paul's race report that he had even hit his rev limiter and fallen out of my draft momentarily. That's how good his acceleration is compared to mine. "Waiter -- I'll have what he's having, please." :-) Joe finished behind me in third place, Frank Mazur took fourth, Tom Dorsey worked his way up to fifth by the end, and Steve Chan finished sixth. Rounding out the top ten were last year's top 250 production novice Dan Kimble, suspension tuner extraordinaire Phil Douglas, fine drummer Vlastimyl Kotyza, and an obviously improving-and-on-the-move Scott Riddle. Although I sure would have liked to win, there are lots of worse ways to start the season than getting second place. So I just need to get my act together for future race dates and fix my head so when the time comes to ride, I can ride properly. I also look forward to a little more R&D time on the tuning of my G-Force motor. I'd especially like to thank Mike Norman of G-Force who put in a lot of overtime hours getting my motor ready for this race date, and who has been the epitome of professionalism and good communication in the course of my engine-building project. Although I'd like to improve it further, my engine ran flawlessly at Buttonwillow and I would recommend G-Force to anyone who is considering a performance-oriented engine rebuild. It was great to see Mike come through the school with flying colors and join us on the race track; I look forward to seeing him out there having fun again in April. Congratulations to Paul on his second race win -- he seems to be establishing a streak at Buttonwillow and showing that his first win there last year was no accident! Congratulations, too, to Joe on his first podium finish! You have really moved up to a new level, Joe, and I look forward to racing with you more this year. Finally, good wishes to everyone who crashed and got hurt this weekend. John Rabasa crashed before his weekend really got started, pushed off line by a passing rider. Kathy Cushing made it through the 250 production race fine, but crashed hard in the 250 superbike race. She hit her head, so lots of people were worried and then relieved to learn she's going to be fine. A few of the new riders crashed, too, and I'm hoping all of them will get back on the horse and give things another chance in April or whenever they can.