Buttonwillow
			 19-21 October, 2001

This was set to be a fun weekend. I already had the main results I was
looking for this year: Much more comfort and familiarity with the 750,
and my second class championship on the 250. Goals that remained to be
fulfilled were less important to me: I wanted to win a race at every
track, and I had not won yet this year at Buttonwillow. I wanted to
hold onto my overall points lead in the club to get the number 6 plate
for next year. I wanted to better my lap times on the 750; having done
2:00.25 laps at a track day in early October, I was hoping to get a
second or two under the 2-minute mark on that bike. And I wanted to
see how fast I could go on my EX250 at Buttonwillow; no one in 250
production had really gone fast at our last visit to Buttonwillow in
March, and Paul Somerville's (#311) unofficial lap record of 2:09.3x
from last October had stood through March's event with no one even
getting into the 2:09s.

My EX250 had better horsepower after being rebuilt than it had ever
had before. Its peak number was now 36.2 bhp, making it equal to the
best motors I know of in the class (not counting Joe's 37.0 bhp
monster spare motor). This was my first time ever to have a motor as
powerful as anyone's in the class, and I was looking forward to the
experience. :-)

				Friday

I crashed the big bike for the first time fairly early in the day, and
set it aside for the rest of the day. The laps before my crash had me
back into the low 2:00.x range, and I was looking for my first
sub-2:00 lap when I ended up on my head. Alas.

The crash happened as I was entering the "sweeper," also called turn
9. There is a bump on the inside at the asphalt seam between the
turn's pavement and the straightaway, and if it weren't for that bump
I think the ideal line would hug the inside of the turn there. I take
a line that skirts the outside of the bump, which puts me about 4-5
feet from the inside edge of the track as I leave the straightaway
pavement and enter the turn. On that line, I still hit a little of the
bump, but I avoid the worst of it. I was just making the transition
onto the gas when the front end went away right after that bump. There
wasn't a lot of damage to the bike, but it needed a bunch of minor
things.

I focused on the little bike then for the rest of the day. Paul had
gotten solidly back into the 2:09s already by the time I started
trying to speed up on the EX250. In my second or third session I went
out behind Paul to see if I could match his 2:09 pace, and I found
myself impatient early on to go faster than he was going. I don't know
whether he was sandbagging because I was watching, or if he was just
coming up to speed gradually, but I passed him and started trying to
speed up. Something about knowing he was back there made me put my
head down. I was into the 2:09s pretty quickly, and before the end of
the session I had done a 2:08.X according to my on-board timer, a new
unofficial Buttonwillow 250 production lap record. I noticed that my
recent months' work on body positioning was really beginning to pay
off. At that record-setting pace, I hardly dragged my toes at
all. That's a big change from just a short while ago.

Sometime around mid-day on Friday someone told me Stuart Stratton had
been killed at Daytona earlier that day in a freak accident. There
were few details, but the details weren't really important. I was not
Stuart's closest friend, but we had spent some time talking together
at a party or two and at the track. He was a very direct and likable
guy, and I was very sad to learn of this loss to our club and
community. Needless to say, I wasn't the only one.

Adam Fernandes and Bruce Gutman loaned/gave me their fiberglassing
supplies to use for fixing the GSX-R.

			     Friday night

After dinner, Bruce Gutman and Guy Hutchison helped me repair the
bodywork for the GSX-R. It was great to have their help because I was
using the "cures really fast" version of the resin hardener, so things
needed to be choreographed. As a bonus, Guy did an amazing job of
rebuilding a ram air duct that I thought was beyond salvaging. I
handed him shards of plastic and a roll of duct tape. A few minutes
later he handed me back an air scoop and half a roll of duct
tape. Amazing.

			       Saturday

After hearing Gabe Ets-Hokin's rendition of the national anthem at
Sears Point in September, Paul Somerville had suggested that he and I
put together a duo version and sing that at the October date. We tried
some ideas out in Joe Pardo's van in September. A couple of people
asked us afterward why we were sitting in a closed van listening to
the national anthem really loud on the radio. Paul got in touch with
Barbara and volunteered our services, and she wanted us to audition
before actually delivering the goods. This was to be the day of our
audition, so at lunch time Paul and I did a quick run-through and then
went to race control to see if we had what Barbara was looking
for. I'm not sure what she was looking for, but the "audition" lasted
about five syllables before she said we were good to go for the
riders' meeting on Sunday.

I spent the first 2/3 of the day alternating between riding the little
bike and leisurely repairing the big one. By mid-afternoon, I had the
big bike ready for a shakedown session on the track to see whether any
real problems remained. Before that time, though, I continued
working on my riding on the little bike. As usual, consistency was the
missing thing.

Most race-pace laps on the little bike, I do maybe 40% of the corners
properly -- rarely more than 50%. But somewhere during one
particularly good practice session I found one lap way better than
usual. I figure I did about 65-70% of the corners properly, and for
that I was rewarded with another lap record, this time a
2:07.596. Before I did it, I would probably have bet such a lap wasn't
possible for us mortals on "production"-legal EX250s. But there it
was. Maybe I'll never be able to do it again. No other laps were even
in the 2:07s, but several more were low 2:08s, with at least one
2:08.0x.

I had the big bike ready to try out for two sessions near the end of
the day. I was happy to learn it went fine. It felt a little less
stable than it had before the crash so I figured something was
probably bent at least a little bit. I could also see that the
steering damper had started leaking a little, so I wondered whether
maybe the crash had blown a seal in it. But the bike was very ridable,
and I found it pretty easy to get back to the 2:01 lap time range in
these two sessions.

				Sunday

Sunday morning practice went smoothly and uneventfully. I got back
into the 2:08s on the little bike and into the 2:00s on the big one.

The riders' meeting meant it was time for Paul and me to deliver the
goods. We had opted to use two microphones at once because we felt the
small sound system for the riders' meeting announcements would work
better for the assembled group, but we were also supposed to supply
our patriotic strains to the whole paddock area over the track's PA
system. It went well. There's one spot where my harmony line makes
sort of a strange jump, and I hadn't practiced it enough to do it
without thinking. I landed a little sideways on the target note, but I
was only out of shape for an instant. Still, it was an oopsie. :-) I'm
usually pretty good at nailing that sort of thing but not always...

The 750 production race came before 250 production, and I found myself
riding in "survival mode" to keep from crashing and missing the 250
race. A lot of this year's races on the big bike had been this way for
me. If the 250 race came first, I was mentally tired when I rode the
750. If the 250 race came second, I rode the 750 too cautiously.

I spent the 750 race in the 2:00-2:01 range, again never getting below
2:00 flat. I placed eighth in the race, which was a little
disappointing, but it was reasonable. The people who finished ahead of
me all did faster laps than I did, and no one behind me did. My best
lap was a 2:00.429. I had hoped to go faster than this, but
considering my crash on Friday and the fact that bike was a little
bent and unstable, I'm not surprised that I didn't.

The 250 production race went by very quickly for me. My strategy for
this race was to have fun by going fast and hopefully to open up a big
lead and dominate the race. I had spent the whole year riding only as
fast as necessary to win (and sometimes not even that fast), but this
time I had more of the luxury of not having to play it safe. I had the
confidence from Friday and Saturday's practice times that I could
crush my competition in the race -- no one else had even gotten into
the 2:08s and I had done a 2:07 and a bunch of low 2:08s. So I was
riding hard right from the green flag.

I got a good start from the pole position, but two riders (Paul and
Frank Mazur (#8)) pulled ahead of me to the outside before the
entrance to turn one. I passed them both back with a tight line
through that corner, and I had the lead through turn two and into turn
three. Not that many people trail-brake the way I do in the first
right-hander of turn three, and there's a good reason why. I overdid
it just a little, lost the front, and crashed out into the dust on
that first lap. Oops. So much for crushing the competition. :-(

I watched the race from outside turn 3, and it was pretty
entertaining, especially as I was joined in the dirt by Vlastimyl
Kotyza (#175) when a rear-brake maneuver on his part went wrong. Paul
won the race, with Tom Dorsey (#63) gaining on him for a while, then
apparently holding steady near the end.

Had I won (or even reasonably finished) that race, my points would
have gotten me the AFM #6 plate for the 2002 season. Crashing and
having to rely on my points from the 750 production race this day
meant that I got #7 instead, fulfilling John Davis's (#90) wish that
the #6 plate not be taken on a Ninja 250. Instead it was taken by him,
on a TZ250.

And now it's the off season. Time to straighten bent bikes, check
motors to make sure they're doing OK, repair plastic (damn near
*every* piece of plastic on both bikes), stitch gloves together from
parts, figure out whether my boots are worth saving, and so on.

My plans for next year are to focus on learning to ride the big
bike. I tried to focus on that more seriously this year, but the
prospect of another 250 production class championship was too exciting
for me, and my attention mainly went there instead. I plan to ride the
250 again next year, but I will make certain I am not in danger of
winning the championship again. I plan to skip the first 250
production race of the year, and then skip races later in the year as
needed to keep myself from getting caught up in that class. I enjoy
the class and its people, but I stand to learn more from the big bike
at this point.