Prologue
			   Tuesday, 17 July, 2001

Did an open practice day at Thunderhill where a significant chunk of
the time was spent working one-on-one doing informal instruction with
a couple of other riders. With the time I had left over to focus on my
own riding, I worked mainly with my GSX-R 750. I didn't go very
fast. Even on the little bike I had trouble getting near my times. My
best on the big bike was a mid 2:06, and my best on the little bike
was a mid or high 2:14.

After a late afternoon session on the big bike, I noticed oil on the
front of the fuel tank and triple clamp. It didn't take long for me to
realize the seal on one end of my steering damper that had been oozing
fluid was now doing something more in the "gushing" category. I was
very lucky to be pitted next to Phil Douglas (#695) who said he had a
new seal in stock at Aftershocks and would get the service done for me
and deliver the repaired damper to the track on Friday. Once again,
another racer is saved a lot of hassle by this kind and highly
competent man.

I took my poor performance on this practice day to mean that after a
seven-week break from racing I really needed the practice, and I was
glad to have gotten it. I hoped I would be able to come up to speed
for the weekend quickly on Friday.


			     Thunderhill
			  20 - 22 July, 2001
			 The Spell is Broken

				Friday

Phil went out of his way to get me my newly serviced steering damper
almost first thing when he arrived.

Friday I learned from Paul Somerville (#311) that Joe Pardo (#728)
wouldn't be racing. He had broken his collarbone when he crashed in
practice in June, and the bone hadn't healed enough for him to get the
go-ahead for racing.

I didn't come up to speed as quickly as I would have liked. My best
lap on the big bike was one where Jeff Hagan (#2) came past me at a
slacking pace and I gave chase. He must have been somewhere in the
2:01 range; I did a low 2:04 on that lap. On the little bike, I didn't
manage to do too well, either. My best lap was a 2:13.34, with a bunch
of laps in the 2:14s.

It seemed strange that no other 250 production riders were going
particularly fast, either. I expected to have to battle to keep up
with Paul's times in practice, but he wasn't up to his normal pace and
I had little trouble running him down and passing him the couple of
times I saw him on the track. During one session in the afternoon Paul
and I rode around together; I was hoping to get a little insight into
his weaknesses and a little inspiration to step it up. The session was
fun, but disappointing because we both felt like we were riding hard
but our times were two seconds or more off the pace we both felt we
needed to be at. At one point in that session Paul was ahead of me and
gave a big thumbs-up as he ran out onto the curb at the exit of turn
6. I hadn't seen anything unusual, but when we got back to the pits he
explained that he had saved a very big slide.

As usual, riding both bikes had me hot and tired. When I ride both
bikes, I end up staying in my leathers about four times as much as if
I were riding only one, so the heat really gets to me more. It wasn't
terribly hot by Thunderhill standards (mid 30s celcius, low 90s
fahrenheit) but being in my leathers so much made me have to fight to
stay hydrated. I had sat out one big-bike session in the morning, and
I decided to sit out a little-bike session in the afternoon to keep
from getting exhausted. While I sat out and rested, Paul crashed in
turn 6, right where he had had the big slide in the session
prior. Since he saved the first slide, he had been playing with the
edge of traction there and it bit him. His bike looked pretty toasted,
and he got a ride with Guy Hutchison to the hospital for ankle X-rays.

I assumed that perhaps Paul wouldn't race on Sunday and I was really
disappointed that he might be out of action. Usually when someone
heads to the hospital, they come back with casts, doctors' orders to
behave, etc. I like to beat Paul, but not by having him not race!

By Friday night, though, I heard Paul had gotten out of the hospital
with a sprain-only dianosis and was headed home for a serious day of
wrenching on Saturday to get the bike ready for racing on Sunday. I
was still disappointed that Paul had crashed, but I was happy it
sounded like he would be back to race.

			       Saturday

I bought some pictures from Mo Kaluta that continue begging the
question: When am I finally going to get my body position
consistent?!? I *know* what I *want* to be doing (Mladin's picture on
the front of the May, 2001 issue of RRW&MT is a good example), and I
know what I usually *am* doing (picture of me from nearly the same
angle in turn 11 at Sears by Mo is a good example), and the two are
quite different. Both his elbows touch his legs; only one of mine
does. My outside elbow rests near my knee. His outside elbow rests
about 1/3 of the way up his thigh. My head is almost directly in line
with the windscreen (from the angle of the photo); his is inside it
(from a nearly identical angle).

I missed a Saturday session on the big bike because I had it apart to
install a short-turn throttle setup that Scott Winders (#901) had
envisioned and encouraged K.C. Gager to build.

The story of Saturday was basically more relatively slow lap times on
both bikes. Even though I rode it for only one session, I felt like my
consistency was improving on the big bike, and I certainly was growing
more comfortable with hard braking and accelerating at higher
speeds. Unfortunately this comfort didn't seem to express itself as
better lap times. I know I was getting faster in some places (turn 7,
braking before turn 1), so I must have been getting slower in other
places to compensate. Alas. I think mostly as I've gotten better on
the brakes and gas, I've gotten worse in the corners. This would be a
good thing to fix.

Saturday afternoon I taught at the AFM's first Race School held at
Thunderhill. I missed another practice session on the big bike because
it conflicted with an instructors' meeting for the AFM Race School. It
turned out I could have substituted another practice group, but by the
time I learned this it was too late. Next time I'll know. This wasn't
such a big deal because I knew the school would give me a little time
on the track anyway, and I could ride the big bike for that.

For the school we had almost as many instructors in our group as we
had students. It went pretty well and all but two of the students in
my group passed. It was one of the nice schools in which even though
there isn't much time, it seems like some of the students in my group
actually picked up some good riding tips and improved their
performance thanks to advice from instructors. I was a little alarmed
at the number of crashes in the open practice session, though. I'm not
really sure what was responsible for that, but more students than
usual fell down.

				Sunday

It was good to see Paul back at the track, limping only slightly, and
ready for action!

In the morning practice I worked on my body position and noticed that
the more closely I imitated Mladin, the fewer ground clearance issues
I had. Traction at Thunderhill is so good that ground clearance was
limiting me in several turns on the little bike when I didn't lower my
upper body enough. Lowering my upper body more allowed me to keep my
toes from grinding into the ground, raise my inside knee more, and go
faster. I got only one clean lap on the little bike in Sunday morning
practice after my new tires were scrubbed in, and that one was a
mid-2:12. It would turn out to be my only dip into the 2:12 range for
the whole weekend. I came upon Paul during this session and it looked
like he was struggling.

After the practice session, I took the little bike to a secluded area
for a few practice starts. I tried about ten of them and every single
one was horrible. I gave up in discouragement.

As it had with the little bike, Sunday morning practice yielded my
fastest lap for the weekend on the big bike, too: a 2:02.780. At the
time, I thought this was an improvement over my Thunderhill times from
May, but I was misremembering my previous best time as a 2:03.x. In
reality my best from May was a 2:02.684, so I didn't improve at all,
except a bit in the very real area of consistency. My speed on the 750
still seems to depend a lot on who I'm chasing. If I'm chasing someone
just slower than me, I lack the confidence to pass them; if I'm
chasing someone just faster than me, I can get a tow and match or
nearly match their times. Unfortunately the latter didn't really
happen at all for me this weekend.

250 production was the first race of the day. I have no idea how it
happened, but I got a good start. I was off the line first, and Frank
motored by me just before turn 1. I passed Frank back around the
outside going into turn 2, and that was pretty much the race for me. I
looked back near the end of the first lap and saw I had a pretty big
gap; I couldn't even tell for sure who was running second, but it
looked like Paul. Another look back somewhat later confirmed that it
was Paul. I was impressed that he was running second after his crash
and after what had looked like a disquieting Sunday morning practice
session. Not only was he second, but he wasn't going terribly slow,
either! Still, it was slow enough that I was able to keep a good
handle on the race, it seemed. With such a big gap back to second
place I decided to ride comfortably rather than risk crashing, so I
took it easy and kept looking back to manage the gap. This was a nice
position to be in, and it contrasted starkly with the story of my race
in May when I got a bad start. In May I set a lap record and came home
with third place. This month I didn't have to go fast, thanks to my
good start and opening up a gap early.

I wanted to keep the gap big because I knew there would be lapped
traffic later in the race, and bad luck in lapped traffic can cost
time really quickly. At one point around mid-race Paul closed the gap
slightly and I upped the tempo a bit to restore my cushion. Also
around this time I began to see that Tom Dorsey (#63) was running in
third, right with Paul. I was rooting for Tom to get past Paul into
second place because that finishing order would give me a bigger lead
in the points. It was not to be, though. Near the end of the race I
stopped seeing Tom, and I later learned he had gotten separated from
Paul by a bad break in lapped traffic. I took the checkered flag with
a gap of about 3.5 seconds over Paul, who took second. Tom's bad luck
in traffic must have been really bad, because he went from dicing with
Paul to being nearly 5 seconds behind in the space of a lap or
two. Still, Tom got third place and did the fastest lap of the race at
a 2:13.151. That isn't awfully fast by the standards set this May, but
it's impressively fast for a bias-ply setup. I don't know of any
bias-ply production 250 time close to that one at Thunderhill. To hear
Tom tell it after the race, he earned that time by playing chicken
with the traction gods and got very lucky to save one or two of the
incidents in that game. My fastest lap of the race was a 2:13.372, and
the slowest was a 2:14.533.

Taking the win in 250 production meant I had finally done something
I'd never done before: I won from pole position. This was my first
time to win a race when I started it with the points lead (and hence
pole position on the grid). I was beginning to think it could never
happen because of some universal law or something. Now that this hex
is lifted, maybe there can be more!

After 250 production, I waited. 750 production was the tenth race of
the day. I was glad to get to spend a few hours out of my leathers.

Someone cleaned my face shield for me before the 750 production race!
Maybe someone picked up my helmet by mistake, and before they realized
it wasn't theirs, they had cleaned the face shield. Or maybe someone
really meant to do me a favor. In either case, a big thanks to whoever
it was. I had cleaned the shield recently, but it had quickly
accumulated a bunch of little bug splats again and having a clear
shield for 750 production was very welcome.

Finally race 10 rolled around; I was already tired before we took off
for the warm-up lap. When the green flag flew, I got my standard
horrible start and started trying to work my way up. I wound up behind
Jim Saucier (#289) who I think had been gridded beside me. Before I
worked out how to pass him on the first lap, I saw black flags. The
race was stopped and we went back to the paddock; I still don't know
what happened except that it seemed like an incident in turn 3 that
must have happened after I went by. In the restart I got off the line
better than I had the first time, and rode around the outside of a
bunch of people in turn 1. I spent a fairly uneventful race passing a
few people and slowly making my way up to the tail end of a
four-person group that included me, Alan Fortin (#200), Brian Shannon
(#65), and Scott Wilson (#423). As the end of the race neared it
seemed like the front two, Scott and Brian, broke away a little from
Alan and me, and Alan began to fade some. On the last lap in turn 2 he
slowed just a bit extra, and that was enough to make him easy to
pass. I snuck by and he didn't come back to defend the position. I
crossed the line ninth, my first top-ten finish on the big bike. It
doesn't mean much because one or two front-runners were out injured,
and another couple of people (including Alan) were having a bad
day. My best lap time was no better than in May when I finished 13th,
although my average lap time was nearly a second a lap faster, so
there has been some improvment in consistency... My fastest lap this
time was a 2:03.507, and my slowest was a 2:04.733.

So another race weekend ended well for me, and comparatively well for
the rest of the 250 production family, too: In terms of injuries, this
weekend was far easier on us than our last time out at Sears Point. I
extended my lead to 18 points over Paul; I still need to stay upright
(most important!)  and do well at the remaining events to remain in
the hunt for the championship.


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