Summary of Races

WERA West at AutoClub – June 2014
MotoWestGP at Willow Springs – July 2014
WERA National at Miller Motorsports Park – July 2014

Preamble
20140727_155035With a busy couple of weeks of racing; I wish to extend my apologies for the delay in report outs. My goal is to get a race report out within a week preceding the event. While it’s been a very busy several weeks; I wish to open this with an announcement to welcome a new sponsor to the team! Racefuelz and Michael Aaron are providing support in keeping my motor running with the human equivalent of U4! Thank you Michael, and welcome to the show!

WERA West at AutoClub Speedway – June 29

Friday and Saturday practice found me running strong; and the ergonomics improving! It is amazing what a difference ergonomics makes when you’re trying to run strong! Cousin Matt Buanno made me a bumper plate for the tail section; and it is everything.

Open (A) Superbike
A weak start set me back from the beginning; and I found myself stuck behind another rider long enough for the lead pack to get away. When I finally got around him, I had a solo run for a good IMG_40659498557763lap and a half (where I netted my best time) before catching another rider. While struggling to pass this rider I had caught up to; I was passed by an additional rider. Just as I was attempting to set them up off the back straight, the red flag came out and the race ended with me in 10th place of 17 riders… and a new personal best lap time of 1:32.560.

Open (A) Superstock
Hard lessons learned from the previous race were put into motion. A marginally better start; and charging hard in the first few turns in an effort to set a good position; netted me an 8th place of 10 riders, with another matching personal best of 1:32.848.

MotoWestGP at Willow Springs – July 6th

20140705_055329-1With no Friday practice, due to the holiday, I spent Saturday messing around in never-never land. Re-familiarizing myself with Big Willow; and attempting to figure out what suspension settings were going to make myself, and my big, fast ZX10 happy. Then a little incident in turn 3; immediately following a significant geometry and suspension change found me on my head.

My amazing friends helped me repair the minor damage; and repair my banged up body. While I only missed one more practice session, it was not the way I wanted to end the day.
Cousin Matty Buanno arrived Saturday, late afternoon, and we spent the better part of the evening tearing my bike down, inspecting it, cleaning it, and making minor repairs.

Sunday morning practice was two quick rounds; and while I made significantly different suspension changes; they were going to have be “good enough” because that was all I got!

IMG_395120995103570Taking the grid as the first female competitor in Formula 1; I was just hoping for a good start and solid lap times. Unfortunately, my start was awful. I’m learning the tricks of this slipper clutch thing. Dump the clutch and it goes in the air; feather the clutch too much, and it just sits there and slips. I had starts down incredibly well on my R1 – non-slipper – and would rocket into turn one in the top 3. This new bike is taking some getting used to. I’ve had some pretty stellar starts, but they’re few and far between… for now.

Exiting turn one in last place, I reminded myself it was a long race, and to just relax. 12 laps in the 103 deg ambient heat at Willow Springs is a long race. In an attempt to set up the rider in front of me for a front straight pass, I was horrified to feel the front end pushing/pumping in the high speed turn nine. That all too familiar pump/push that I experienced before losing the front in turn three the day before was a big flashing neon sign that read “watch yourself”. At first, I thought the turn nine event was an isolated incident; a result of something I did wrong; but when I attempted to pick up corner speed in turn one; the front slid again. And again in turn two, and turn four, and turn eight. While none were as close to the edge as turn nine; I rode to the limit; and kept it away from that line.

I felt horribly limited in corner speed as a result of my front end situation. All that aside; I managed to finish 5th and take home another personal best at Willow Springs of 1:26.6! Nearly 2 seconds faster than my previous best! Now… clean up that handling issue and I think a 25 is in my near future!

WERA National at Miller Motorsports Park

20140724_203850Friday practice was almost missed entirely while doing significant measurement of the bike with Lenny Albin. Lenny supported me the duration I had my R1 (5 years); and he told Barry Wressel; of GP Suspensioin/KFG Racing; that he would take care of me this weekend. What started out as help with ride height adjustment, turned into a multi-measurement affair.

Lenny helped me to make a few adjustments to obtain a specific trail to the bike; and I was able to go out and get the last two rounds of practice. Saturday morning was productive; and we found a setting that seemed reasonable; but based on my lap times; I added another turn and another click to give me “room to grow”. A lesson I learned from Willow.

Open (A) Superstock (Saturday)
I used up all the room to grow and the front was pushing/sliding again. Needless to say, I was really becoming intimidated by the front end. A poor start, and nervous limitations netted me a 9th of 14 riders and a new personal best lap time of 2:01.491; a lap time that surprised me, given my personal situation.

Open (A) Superbike (Saturday)
20140726_173224To address the front pushing issue, Lenny replaced the springs (0.90 to 0.95) with 2 turns of preload rather than the 8 turns used with the 0.90 springs. It seemed to be the golden ticket, because I spent the 6 lap premier Superbike race gaining confidence in the front end with every turn. Barry had recently re-valved the forks, and it provided such amazing front end feel. Between the two changes; the front was just unbelievable, and exactly what I needed to gain confidence and build corner speed. My corner speed was the single largest component that separated me from the next faster guy in front.  It showed. With a stellar start I netted myself the best finish of the weekend and a new personal best lap time!
Finished 7th of 14 riders with a new best of 2:00.617.

Open (A) Superstock (Sunday)
A marginally better start helped me run pretty strong in the opening race of the day; and repeated my best lap time with a 2:00.696 but a dismal 10th place finish, of 12 riders.
This time, I was gaining confidence in the rear, and the grip; resulting in significantly more aggressive acceleration. This required an addition of preload to the shock spring; which previously had none. Adding some preload helped the front to track better on corner exits. It wanted to just push wide as soon as I aggressively picked up the throttle. A fun little game I played with my R1, a lot. This also netted me a huge wheelie between the first and second attitude that startled me! Ha ha!

Open (A) Superbike (Sunday)
A mediocre start from the 4th row found me floundering around near the rear on the start; but barreling into turn one with significant bravery netted me a great position to follow a fast group, and hang on to them as long as I could, and it proved to showcase my weak areas. Unfortunately, my poor fitness, and injuries reared their ugly heads during this race. I struggled with getting the bike to turn; my mental and physical capacity was dwindling with every turn. My left collarbone has effectively been damaged since December. I had the plate removed late December; the bone broke on its own 3 weeks later. It was re-plated in February; I snapped the bone during my fall in April; and I found out that my bones are very slow to heal. The break is 10 weeks old, and it has the healing equivalent of 3 weeks.

To end the weekend on a not so great note; I finished 9th of 13 riders; with a best lap of 2:02.277.

There were some amazing, positive, and inspiring things that came from my Miller weekend:

  • I dropped 3 seconds from my previous best lap time.
  • I re-gained confidence in the front end.
  • I started to finally put together a map of how my riding style and the ZX10 settings fit together for the best handling.
  • And finally… I had the most incredible experience off the track…

Following the Superstock race on Saturday; two gentlemen came by my garage because they wanted their photo taken with me! When I invited them over to my bike while I sat on it with them on each side; they just had the biggest smiles; and it just made their day!

But what made my day was having a little 10 year old girl walk right up to me and comment how cool it was that I was the only girl racing and that “I don’t care what anybody thinks!” Turns out she’s the niece of a fellow WERA West racer, in the garage next to me. We chatted for a bit; and when I told her that after my last race she could sit on my bike and we’d take pictures she nearly jumped to the ceiling!! We took photos together with her sitting on my bike. I think she may be a future racer!

Following the Superbike race on Saturday; a family came by my garage, with their 5 year old daughter, and commented how their daughter wanted to meet me; and how she was asking if any girls were racing. We took photos of her sitting on my bike; and we’re both giving the thumbs up.

I’ve never been approached by anyone wanting their photos taken with me; so that was an interesting experience. Meeting those little girls made me realize the significant impact I have on little girls watching the races. It is often a treat to see spectators and corner workers giving me kudos during the cool down lap; but it was a very special treat to see the excitement in the eyes of a little girl who did not think girls could race with the boys in the liter bike class – let alone any class… that made my whole month. I really, really, really wish I had posters to sign and give to those girls. I will have some for next time, for sure.

Thank you…
HUGE thank you to cousin Matty Buanno for taking care of myself; and my two friends Kris Aldemen and Fabrice Vilder. Thank you Matty for helping me at Willow, Miller and AutoClub. Thank you to Barry Wressel for the amazing new fork internals!!! Thank you to Jeremy Toye for putting up with the multitude of text messages while I was freaking out – at Miller, at Willow and at AutoClub – and in general tolerating me 😉

I wish to extend heartfelt gratitude to Alessandro Assanti of Bike911.com, for the support that, literally, makes this possible. Thank you to Lenny Albin for the support track side at Miller – and your lovely better half, Karen!! Thank you to Dustin at Vortex for arranging delivery of the hardware to the race track for me!!! Thank you to Michael Aaron of RaceFuelz for getting the delicious fuel delivered to the race track in time to tackle the physically demanding Miller on a brutally hot weekend! Thank you to Dale Kieffer of Racer’s Edge for allowing me to pick up my fuel and tires despite coming by at 2am!!
Thank you to Ken Hill for coming by our garage and spending time with us, going over the race track; and for hosting that fantastic clinic after hours on Friday!! Very special thank you to Jasn Parkinson for the immense support, track secrets; and all around “racersitter” duties at Miller. Thank you to Johnny Turco for exceptional pit boy duties at Miller!!
Very special thank you to Kris Aldeman and Fabrice Vilder for putting up with me, helping me out; and just flat out being awesome pit mates. Extra very special thank you to Fabrice and Julian for helping to put me back together after I fell down at Willow; and thank you very much to you two, and Matty & Ryan Harper for helping to put my ZX10 back together after it was covered in dirt, and had a few parts broken. Thank you for that footpeg Ryan!!!

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The following sponsors are who make this weekend – and all my race weekends – possible…
Graves Motorsports (gravesport.com)
Jeremy Toye (#ToyeBuilt)
Alessandro Assanti of Bike911 (bike911.com)
Pirelli Tires (CT Racing – ctracetires.com)
Cortech (cortechperformance.com)
Impact Safe-T Armor (impactarmor.com)
Scorpion Helmets (scorpionusa.com)
KFG Racing/GP Suspension (kfgracing.com)
JRi Shocks (jrishocks.com)
HELLA HIGH California (gethellahigh.com)
Moonstone Cellars (moonstonecellars.com)
STAR School (starmotorycle.com)
MC ProDesign (mcprodesign.com)
Chicken Hawk Racing (chickenhawkracing.com)
Vortex Racing (vortexracing.com)
Joe Salas of 4theRiders (4theriders.com
RaceFuelz (racefuelz.com)

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