Greg's Corner

I raced my 2008 Kawasaki ZX-10R at Homestead this past weekend and will race again August 30^th and 31^st, again at Homestead.

Homestead is fun.  I has two hard braking zone and four hard acceleration straights in which I was running up the gears from 2^nd to 5^th.   Turns 1 and 10 are 5^th gear turns off the Nascar straights down to the infield.  As is typical of such turns they’re bumpy and have traction changes in the middle of them.  Of the other turns, only the 6/7 combination presents any real challenge.  6 and 7 are almost close enough to form a single turn but not quite.  I was taking turn 6 in 2^nd gear then quickly upshifting two gears to 4^th for turn 7.

Saturday was all practice and was entirely about learning the track.  At the end of practice I changed from the Qualifiers to the NTec tires.  Yeah, enough about that. 

On Sunday my first race(GTO) was at 9:30.  Well, at 9:00 it started raining hard.  Knowing the NTec tires on the bike were totally out of their element, I suited up and went out to see how bad the track was.  There were large puddles in the middle of the corners and outside of them very slick concrete patches.  I at least made it around the track and back to the pits where I sat out the race one of the other racers wasn’t that lucky, he crashed on the warm up lap. 

My next race(Unlimited Supersport) was the first race right after lunch.  In between the two races there was a big guessing game being played by everyone in the pits of whether to change to wets or not.  Every time the rain lightened up activity in the pits would slow as racers and mechanics stepped out of the garages to peer into the sky.  Eventually, I decided that no matter what the weather did the track would still be wet enough for wets.  I bought a set of Dunlop wets and got them on just in time for my next race. 

Since I was a late entry, I started from the back of the grid.  I passed two riders going into turn 1 and then took four laps to pass the next two.  I had better corner speed but I was too easy on the throttle exiting the corner to make a pass on them.  As I began to trust the rain tires more, I passed both of them on the same lap and dropped 5 seconds off my laps times despite having severe fogging problems with my faceshield.  With no one insight for the final lap, I finished 5^th.

I had five races to wait for my next race(Unlimited Superbike.)  Again there was a lot of indecision but the sun did decide to show itself and the track did dry.  Luckily I was able to get the tires changed from the wets to NTecs just in time to go out on track.  While my tires were being changed there seemed to be a problem with the valves stem on the front wheel.  Not a problem for Randy at the Dunlop.  He put a new valve stem in and I was off to the races.

The NTecs were cold, I didn’t have time to heat them on tire warmers prior to the race.  Out on the warm up lap I was quite surprised with their grip but they warned me they were cold when I started getting on the gas hard coming out of the corners.  I stated the Superbike race from the back of the grid again though this time there were 17 racers instead of 9 for the wet Supersport race.  I was last going into turn 1 but passed someone by turn 2.  I was getting faster with each lap and had worked my way up to 10^th place by lap 5.  But then my right hand started cramping up due to me gripping too hard during acceleration.  I slowed down some and just tried to make it to the end of the race.  I finished the race in 13^th.

My next race was the very last race of the day, Unlimited GP.  With the sun out, the track dry, and the right tires on the bike, there was nothing to do but enjoy the other races.  Finally it was my turn again.  When I took the bike off the stands, I saw that the front tire was flat.  I went over to the Dunlop trailer but they couldn’t find a leak anywhere.  They put another new valve stem in just in the previous one was a problem but by then the Unlimited GP race was already over.

So, I raced in two of four races entered and got a 5^th and 13^th to show for it.  It was great to again race a bike built for me.  And I’m really looking forward to the next race because I have a good idea on the areas I need to improve and I can improve them.

Thank you Martin for putting together a great bike.

Thank you Steve for providing me with the NTecs.

Thank you Keith and Cobie for the help and encouragement you’ve provided.

Finally, Thank you Susan for saying, “Yes.”

Homestead-Miami Speedway
August 30^th-31^st.

August was a very busy month for me.  Thankfully my wife, Susan, and my mechanic, David, took over and made things happen that needed happening.   A huge thank you goes out to the two of them.  Without their dedication neither I nor the bike would have been ready for the race.

After July’s race, I realized I needed to work on some specific items to get faster.   So I arranged to take the California Superbike School as a student at Barber Motorsports Park on August 24^th.  That meant my schedule for August went like this:

·         Start painting the bike using paint cans on the 6^th.

·         Coach at the California Superbike School on the 13^th and 14^th at New Jersey Motorsports Park.

·         David and Susan finish painting the bike on the 15^th.

·         Attend a track day on the 16^th at Jennings GP track in North Florida with David and his friend Louis.

·         On the 17^th I drove to Miami for a six week plus contract with Microsoft.

·         On the 18^th, David and his friend Louis Schumacher start repainting the bike using Louis’ professional paint gun and paints.

·         I drive back to Clearwater on the 22^nd.

·         On the 23^rd, David, Susan and I drive to Barber Motorsports Park with the bike to attend the California Superbike School.

·         On the 24^th, I attend the School and then David and Susan drive back to Clearwater with the bike.  I stay and coach with the Superbike School for two more days.

·         On the 26^th I fly back to Miami.

·         On the 29^th, David, Chrissy – his wife, Kobe – his son, and Susan drive to Miami with the bike. 

·         On the 30^th and 31^st we race.

All that work paid off.  The bike looks great thanks to David, Louis, and Susan. 

Thanks to the track day at Jennings and being a student at the California Superbike School, I bettered my times from last month by more than 3 seconds a lap – 1:34.6 to a 1:31.5.  Better yet, I wasn’t getting tired running the faster laps.

Saturday was a practice day.  I ran in three sessions and worked my way down to 1:31 lap times – 11^th fastest expert and 13^th fastest for the day.  The faster experts were running 1:27s so I’ve definitely improved and am only 4 seconds off instead of the 9 seconds I was last month.

Sunday we had to deal with Hurricane Gustav’s outer bands.  It would rain and then start to dry out and then rain again.

  The first race at 9:30, a 25-minute race called GTO, was held in the rain.  With rain tires on the bike I was running 1:47 lap times and finished 7^th in the race.  My lap times were slower than my previous best rain laps last month of 1:42. 

During the race the rain stopped and the wind was drying the track pretty quickly.  I carefully looked at the latest radar on my computer and estimated that my next race would be a dry race so David put DOT race tires on the bike.  Unfortunately one of the races prior to mine was red flagged (stopped) due to a multi-bike crash and the race schedule was changed.  Instead of my race happening before lunch it was now going to happen after lunch. 

About 15 minutes before my second race, Unlimited Supersport, it rained again.  Without time to change back to rain tires I went out on the DOTs.  On the warm up lap it seemed OK.  The racers on rain tires weren’t pulling away from me anywhere. 

When the green flag dropped I even had enough traction to wheelie off the line.  Going through turns 2 and 3 through I quickly realized I was in trouble.  By the time I got to turns 6 and 7 I was convinced I had a flat rear tire.  I pulled off the track at turn 8, inspected the rear tire and determined it was fine.  By that time of course I was not only in last place as an expert, all the amateur racers had gone by too.  I finished that race in 12^th – last place for the experts.

With more rain coming, David put rain tires back on the bike and just when that was starting to look like the wrong decision, rain came in.  When you have rain tires on you want rain!

This race, Unlimited Superbike, went much better.  I passed a couple riders on the opening two laps and battled with another on the last lap.  He passed me going into turn 3 and then almost crashed 4 times trying to stay in front of me.  Held me off and I finished 7^th.

That was the last rain race.  The wind dried out the track fairly quickly and DOTs went back on the bike.  The last race of the day was Unlimited GP.  There were still a couple wet spots on the track in very bad places and I was about 5 seconds a lap slower than the leaders.  I finished 7^th out of 10.

So the results are:

GTO – 7^th

Unlimited Supersport – 12^th

Unlimited Superbike – 7^th

Unlimited GP – 7^th

A good weekend in that I’m improving and the team is coming together.   Next race is the big one – Daytona, October 16^th through the 19^th.  I’ll be racing in five races spread out over all four days.

Thanks to Steve Brubaker of Race Tire Services for the excellent Dunlop tires.  I definitely could not do this without his support. 

Thank you Louis for volunteering to paint the bike with your paint gun and paints.

Thank you Chrissy Bruce, for taking pictures, lending me your husband, and helping out as needed.

Thank you David Bruce for your tireless (OK, you were tired but you made it happen) work in painting the bike, driving, working on the truck, changing the tires and everything else.  Awesome!

And of course, thank you Susan.  I love you.