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After much discussion, Ingrid and me decided to run the 600 for round 4. This decision did not come lightly, since neither one of us were keen to start at the back of a class known for its aggression and propensity to grind racers into the dirt. We put together a plan to ride conservatively and test the waters. Basically just stick our toe in and see how it feels.

I’ve only been on the 600 a few times, probably less than 5 times, so our expectations were understandably low. After about 20 broken drill bits, a gallon of RTV and some case covers from Woodcraft, we were ready to head to the Friday open practice at Thunderhill.

My first session out and cracked off some 59s with ease and spent the rest of the day getting used to GP shifting and dialing in the suspension. New markers were required on all the corners to cope with higher entry speeds and more power. The day was super windy but very productive.

Breezed through Tech on Saturday and dipped into the 58s before gridding up for the first race of Formula 40 Middleweight. I rolled up to my spot at the very back of the grid and prepared to launch. There really was nowhere for me to go with all the riders in front so I elected to just roll around the first lap until everyone strung out a bit. We were going so slow through turns 4, 5, and 6 that I actually had the clutch pulled in most of the time.

After the first lap I started moving forward with no real urgency and ended up finishing 7th with a best of 1:59. Not bad, but certainly not good. Things will improve as I get better grid positions and a chance to grab onto faster riders.

600Production was much the same – roll around and then start moving up the field. Finished 14th with 1:57. Our final race was the last race of the day in 750Production. Since we had to pack up and drive home directly after the race, I pretty much took it as an opportunity to test out some different markers and passing zones. I ended up 13th in that race with a 1:59.

Now to the good parts. For the first time in a LONG time I had actually had fun racing! It was so nice to have a bike that didn’t require anything other than gas and tires. No leaking oil, mechanicals, overheating etc. Just hop on and race. I like it!

I’m still a few seconds off the leader’s pace, but am confident that it will come with more seat time and some more tuning.

We’re not in contention for any championship finishes, so my goals are pretty simple. Maybe a top 10 finish and inch a little closer to the leader’s pace.

That’s it. Aim low. Things can only get better!

Starting from WAAAAY in the back!

Ingrid looks on nervously.

Finally, some room to work with.

Exiting the 11-12-13 combo

Just a quick update. Round three never happened.

I struggled with brake issues all day Saturday and despite putting a new Brembo master cylinder and new pads, the brakes would fade badly after a few laps and I would have to pull off. I tried scuffing the pads between sessions and that temporarily restored braking power, but they would go right back to fading again.

The weekend had a few “firsts” for me:

-I bumped myself DOWN a practice group for the first time ever because of pathetic laptimes.

-Ran off track three times for the first time ever. Also a result of not being able to slow the bike down.

-Voluntarily decided not to race and packed everything up Saturday evening.

At this point, I have no plan to go forward. There’s just too many things wrong right now. My gut tell me it’s time to step away.

I was the short Asian kid in a New York grade school, PS32, that got picked on and bullied. That’s what happens when you attend a school mostly populated by white, Italian and Jewish kids. I didn’t really have any friends to band together with for protection, so when the bullies came around to get my lunch money I was pretty easy pickins’ for them.

It worked like this: if I just handed it over they would let me off with maybe just a shove or punch, but if I resisted, they would form a circle and bounce me around like a piñata. Typical bully stuff I suppose. Either way, I went hungry for the day.

So somewhere along the way I decided that I didn’t like the way it felt inside to just hand over the money, and in fact I preferred to make them work for it. This eventually evolved to the point where I would pick myself up and throw rocks at them or yell obscenities after they had finished their shakedown, followed by them coming back and bouncing me around some more. I guess I just wanted things to be on my terms, not theirs.

Years later, that sort of stuff stopped happening when I learned to scrap and eventually learned to like that too. But, that’s a whole different story…

I guess the point is, I’m stubborn and like things to go my way. I think most racers are that way.

So here we are at Round 3 after 3 blown motors and sitting at the bottom of points standings. The SV500 will be down for at least a few more months while BRG rebuilds it again.

We have a new addition to the family, a Honda VFR400 I picked up from a friend.  Her name is Seabiscuit and she’s sitting in the back of our RV right now. It ain’t gonna’ be easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is.

Fall down three. Get up four.

For those of you that have been following along (does anyone actually read this blog?) on this little journey over the past four years, hey – we’ve had some fun. Right? We’ve jackassed our way from a bumbling yellow plater to somehow winning a championship, and finishing at the top more times than we should have.

For the second round this season, we showed up with our third motor and just a shred of hope to pull out a successful season. BRG had the engine failures resolved and if I could win every race for the remainder of the season, I could win another 500 Twins championship by one point. ONE. It doesn’t sound like much to hope for. There’s zero room for error. But, I like a good challenge and felt ready to take it on.

In 450 Superbike, I came from the back row to 2nd place and tried to stay with Elrod, but just couldn’t hang. I finished comfortably in 2nd place and was happy with the results since 450SB is my “fun” race.

I went back and made some suspension and tire changes in preparation for 500 Twins and got ready for the grid. Got a really nice start with a holeshot and was running away, but the dreaded red flag came out. Another restart (with the race shortened to 6 laps) and another holeshot. This time we all managed to remain upright and I was riding well – out front and just getting into the groove.

Then the bike started feeling really soft.

Two corners later, I had the throttle pinned mid -corner in T4 and was barely able to keep from falling over. The motor was dying. It felt like it was having an asthma attack and just wheezing like a deflated beach ball. I thought just maybe I could at least finish the race and get some points, but by T9 I changed my plan to just making it off track and not having to suffer the indignity of pushing my bike back to our pit.

Arm raised in the air through T10 while waving the Ninja 250’s by and I exited the track in T11. The bike sputtered and limped back to our pit before giving one last cough and backfire to let me know it was completely dead, and also that our relationship was officially over. RIP little 500. We had some good times. None of them this year though.

This is the third motor that’s blown on that bike. One for each time it’s been out on track. Thanks BRG!

I want to say thank-you to my wife Ingrid for all the love and support she’s given my over the last 4 years and for sticking by me through thick and thin. What more could a guy ask for? Thanks to all my fellow racers and competitors that have become our friends. Lately, I’ve looked more forward to spending time with you guys than actually being on track.

And finally, thank YOU for following along. Hope you enjoyed the ride!

I would much rather just skip this post, but you have to take the good with the bad and it wouldn’t be fair to only ever post happy stories.  Enough foreshadowing.

My new motor blew during break-in on the dyno and we scrambled to get it fixed with two days to spare, which we did. Sort of. I took Thursday and Friday off to safety-wire and prep the bike and haul everything down to Buttonwillow for Friday practice.  The day started off good with the bike running strong. I was down to 2:02s almost immediately and was working on suspension and geometry for the new Pirelli tires, but I began to notice that the bike didn’t want to idle and *seemed* to be losing power.

My first thought was maybe some bad fuel, so I siphoned the tank, put fresh fuel in and headed out for a few more sessions. The bike died coming off track on the last session and I had to push into the paddock. I thought maybe I ran out of fuel but that wasn’t the case. Also the entire left side of the bike was covered in oil, even to the point of soaking the rear wheel.

Zoran had an o-ring for a torn countershaft seal and after cleaning up the bike I was ready to head out again but the bike wouldn’t start. Would. Not. Start.

I messed with it for a few hours and finally begged Zoran to come over and take a look. He spent a few hours with me going through the carbs and electrical system until finally pulling the front valve cover off and discovering that there was no clearance on the intake valves, which meant collapsed valves or seats. DAMN!

After a fitful night’s sleep we packed up early Sunday morning and made the Drive of Shame home.

So that’s it. Zero points for round one and most likely any chance of a championship.  We just may be done with this.

The start of AFM 2010 is two months away. Time to get serious and start putting some effort into this.

KC from BRG Racing is building the bike right now and we expect good things from it. He does excellent work and I can’t wait to see what kind of power the bike puts down on the dyno.

Just a few other small details to take care of and we should be ready in a few weeks. I haven’t been on a a moto in what seems like forever so I need to sign up for a trackday and shake out the cobwebs.

I can feel the excitement building by just writing this stuff down. It’s going to be great year.

Just a few pics from last weekend’s Awards Banquet in Berkeley. Just like last year, it was so much fun to see everyone enjoying themselves and spending time together away from racetracks.

Ready to go!

Congratulations to David Raff. You’re number 8 for 2010!!!!!!!

Go Pirelli!

Vik, me and Jon.

As the night wore on, the table started getting crowded.

Yeah!

Hope you enjoyed the pics.

I hope everyone had a nice Holiday season and is ready to take on the new year. Time seems to be accelerating the last few weeks. Stuff that I had put off a few months ago are now looming up and the pressure is starting to build. Good. I need something to get me off my ass and moving.

We spent the holiday break down in Palm Springs, riding our mountain bikes and training for some races that are coming soon. PS was fantastic! The weather was mid-70s with bright skies and the trails were incredible. Looking forward to our next visit there.

We put in over 20 hours on the bikes and got in some quality climbing and super sweet singletrack. The views were incredible.

Overlooking Cathedral City

The Ridge Trail was epic! A single track descent along a steep ridge with huge vistas and drop-offs on both sides. I could do that kind of riding all day.

We managed to only get lost once thanks to GPS.

This year should be great with a full season of AFM and several MTB races!

Just got back from two days at Thunderhill on the 600. I’ve been on SVs so long that I really don’t know how to ride an inline 600 properly and although I could probably figure it out with enough time, I felt the time had come to seek professional help. If you’re a fan of motorcycle racing then you know that Doug Chandler is considered to be one of the best racers to ever throw a leg over. Doug is a friend of ours which made the experience that much better since we already have a relationship.

The tires on my 600 already had 4 days on them and were kind of shot but I didn’t really want to spend money on what would probably be my last trackday this year. And besides, I would be riding at a reduced pace to learn and try new techniques and ideas. I learned so much in one day that I couldn’t even wrap my head around all the things that need to be changed in my riding, but the good news is that I understand exactly what I need to do and now have a path to get to those goals. I’ve never had any sort of schooling or instruction and have survived this long by just watching and learning as I went.

With a little bit of work I was able to get to low 1:59s in traffic and feel there’s much more time to be made and know how to do it. Looking forward to next season!

Last weekend was the last round of racing for 2009, and it was a good one! We won both the 450 Superbike and 500 Twins races and finished 2nd and 1st in overall points, respectively. A Championship sure feels good!

500 Twins: 7/7 wins

450 Superbike: 7th, 1st, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 1st.

I owe a huge thanks to Alex Florea of AFMotorsports for the Michelin tires, R-Tech fuel, and Vesrah brakes. Also thanks to Joe of 4Theriders for all the great pictures that I’m able to share on this website. And of course, thanks to Ingrid for all her help and support this season.

I realize this may sound like some cheesy, infomercial but I really do owe a ton of thanks to several people so bear with me.

Vik Anderson and Jon Foreman made for some extremely fun and competitive racing this season, so thanks to you guys. Especially Vik, who never backed down and in doing so pushed us both to new limits. In spite of that, the three of us had zero crashes for the year. Amazing!

Ok, now that we have that out of the way, on to other kudos.

Congratulations to David Raff for winning 650 Twins and 650 Production on Sunday! It was great to see you guys at the Podium Celebration. What an outstanding year you had with the 650P Championship, 2nd in 650T and 3rd in FIV, overall. Oh, and you’ll be sporting the #8 plate in 2010. You done good!

David Wallis finished 3rd overall in 450SB and really earned that one, battling with Jon and Vik all season.

That’s all for now. Time to step away for a bit and enjoy the off-season. Thanks for following along on our little journey!