*** Preview, written Tuesday, October 12, 1999 ***

Monday, October 11, 1999: Did a track day at Thunderhill because I
won't be able to make the Friday practice on October 22 before the
race weekend. I don't want to be completely rusty at Thunderhill when
I arrive there, because I won't get much practice on Saturday thanks
to the 4-hour Endurance race to be held Saturday afternoon.

The practice day was good, especially since Chris McGrail and Paul
Somerville went along and gave me ample chasing and dicing
opportunities. Chris in particular was looking very fast. He and I
each did 2:16.1 laps with several mid-2:16's each. Although we seemed
pretty evenly matched on the clock, his riding looked more skillful to
me because he was doing a couple of things that I never could
emulate. In particular, his speed into and out of turn 6 was simply
something I couldn't match. Every single lap, he would get the drive
on me there and either pull away (if he was in front) or stand a good
chance of pulling alongside during the 7-8-9 straight section if he
was in back. He was doing a similar thing in turn 9, the up-and-over
turn in the new back section. In turn 9 I think I might have finally
learned the lesson he was trying to teach, but earlier in the day he
would consistently get into that turn hotter than me and come out with
noticeably better drive down the hill. Places where I was stronger
included turn 1 (although he learned the lesson), entrance of turn 2
(and he was usually faster on the exit), turn 3 (sometimes), drive out
of turn 11 through the esses and onto the straight, and speed in turns
14 and 15. He seemed more confident than me in the entrance to the
cyclone, although I could sometimes pull a little on him going down
the hill at the exit. My line in turn 10 still isn't very consistent,
and my braking for that turn isn't so great either.

Unfortunately for me, Chris is probably going to do the Friday
practice on the 22nd, and I'll have to miss it because of a commitment
at work. So Chris will have a little extra sharpness for the race. If
he and I get comparable starts, it should be a fabulous dice.

I didn't get to watch Paul's riding and learn from him as much as I
learned from Chris because it seemed like he couldn't quite keep up at
our pace most of the day, and he wasn't quite as aggressive in his
passing as Chris and I were. But he was basically right there, and it
isn't going to be trivial to beat him on the 24th. He gets pretty
consistently good starts, and if Kelly doesn't show up (no one seems
to have heard from him lately), Paul will be on the front row.

			 *** end preview ***

I got to Willows on the night of Friday the 22nd having endured a long
and fairly boring all-day meeting at work. Worse than the meeting and
the drive, though, was the fact that I had a cold just swinging into
top gear and threatening to rob me of all my energy for the weekend. I
practiced my best denial techniques, but the methods of mind over snot
weren't faring very well against the virus.

Hearing of the jihad waged against me by the forces of mucus, Paul
traded me a big jar of Trader Joe's Lemon-Ginger-Echinacea potion for
the promise of a similar-sized container of Gatorade the next day,
which was most kind of him. It at least made me feel like I was doing
something about my cold.

			   *** Saturday ***

Saturday's morning practice was divided into the four normal groups
plus one group of bikes that were to be entered in the endurance
race. My plans for the weekend included riding the endurance race with
Team Zero Velocity, which was made up of Mike Lowenstein (#152), Steve
Demopoulos (#955), and me.

Each practice group was to get two sessions. Mike and Steve had
already ridden the bike more or less to their hearts' content on
Friday, so the Saturday sessions were mine for the taking. Except that
Mike was a little late getting to the track, which meant that I got
only one session on his bike since having all team members present is
a prerequisite to registration for the endurance race, and
registration is a prerequisite to teching the bike.

Before I got out in an endurance practice session, I went out in my
sprint group and tried to get up to speed as quickly as I could
because I knew I was playing catch-up to people who had been at the
track on Friday. I followed Chris out at the beginning of the session
hoping to get instant speed through a tow, but he knew I was back
there and he was sandbagging. I passed him after just over a lap, when
it looked like he wasn't going to speed up quickly enough. I think I
did 2:18's in that session; not fast, but OK.

My next time on the track was on the endurance bike. I got comfortable
on the bike fairly quickly and felt like I was doing 2:19's and 2:20's
without much effort by the end of the session.

The next session, on my own bike, saw me back near my previous best
times, within less than a half second. I felt this was good, since
those times would easily have been good enough to win the race at the
AFM's last visit to Thunderhill (in June, when I crashed out). Others
were doing similar times, though, so I knew I couldn't be too
complacent. The standard had been raised, as usual.

Those three sessions of practice were all there was to Saturday
morning. Saturday afternoon was the endurance race. Our goal was to
finish, hopefully without blowing up the bike, and we did that. We
sacrificed a trophy to a chain that had to be adjusted at each of our
two pit stops, but since we met our goal of finishing with the bike
running well, we didn't feel too bad about that. My 1-hour and
20-minute stint was the last of the three, and the highlight of the
race for me were the messages of appreciation the team showed me on
my pit boards for the lap times I was doing (2:18's -- 2:20's). Mike's
bike was handling well, and made it easy to do those times for the
whole hour and a third, staying very relaxed. I was surprised at the
end of the race that I wasn't nearly as exhausted as I expected to be
based on past 4-hour race experience.

Saturday evening, Team Zero Velocity treated its helpers to dinner at
Franco's in Willows. Special thanks to Denise, Gwyn, and Carl (did I
leave anyone out?) who kept score and gave us pit help.

			   *** Sunday ***

In morning practice I did times I felt good about (2:16-something).
That session was my first chance to see Frank Mazur (#80) and Kevin
Scott (#680) on the track, and I felt pretty good about what I saw.

The first race of the day was 250 Superbike. I opted to watch rather
than ride, as I felt ready for the production race and I didn't want
to put myself at risk. I timed the leading four-stroke 250's, and saw
that Nick Tenbrink (#809) was doing times nearly equal to my best! And
this was with no practice either Friday or Saturday. That boy knows
how to get up to speed quickly! It was clear I was going to have to
worry about him in the production race.

	 more detail should appear in the following paragraph

Production race: Mediocre start, passed many in turn 1, several more
in turn 2, and then was in second place behind Kevin who led for just
over a lap. I took the lead going around the outside into turn 2 on
the second lap, and led the rest of the race until the last corner
where Nick passed me in traffic for his well-deserved first win.

On the third or fourth lap I had a truly evil-seeming slide in turn
10, my only real slide of the weekend. Gary Rather was shooting
pictures from outside that turn, and I have to wonder if he got the
antics on film. Probably not, but I can have my little fantasy.

Getting second place in this race while John Prelock (#357) got
seventh was good enough to move me past John into third place in the
class, which came as a big surprise given my two DNF's earlier in the
season. I had thought I was out of the points entirely. An even
bigger, and somewhat unfortunate surprise was that Kevin crashed about
three turns after I passed him, and his not finishing the race meant I
wound up second in the class for the year! I'm happy to have finished
so well, but I wish it hadn't involved Kevin's crash. But then if *I*
hadn't also crashed earlier in the year...