Getting Back In The Saddle
AFM Open Twins & Formula 40 Series - Round 6
Infineon Raceway: August 8th and 9th, 2009

Munroe Motors Racing's New Bodywork - "Thanks, Todd!"

I spent the four weeks since my little contretemps in July at Thunderhill turn 10 relaxin’ at home and letting my swollen legs and broken butt bone heal up. My doc said my “sacrum” showed hairline fractures in the x-rays - which explained why it hurt to sit on me R-S. My legs were swollen so much the skin was drum-tight, and were super-painful just getting out of bed in the morning. Needless to say I wasn’t working out in the gym or doing my secret yoga. By the time the August Round 6 arrived, I was feeling better, if not exactly fit.

In the week leading up to the race, I spent a few late nights getting my bike fixed up. The list of trashed items needing work was extensive – all the bodywork , front brake master cylinder and brake lines, right side controls, throttle and cables, dash panel, front fairing frame - which was crumpled beyond repair of the magicians working for Munroe Motors. Our latest member of the Munroe tech team Todd Chamberlin, who was an R&D engineer with Victory for many years and even endurance raced one for a while the mug, took the lead on fixing up our spare bodywork which needed some fiberglass repair from a previous incident by another rider who shall Tom remain nameless Montano – and did a great job, thanks Todd! Using my well-worn airline miles credit card, I bought myself deeper into debt, ordering and fitting new parts as needed. I managed to repair the broken dash which saved me several hundred dollars thank jiminy, and I deployed my spare, tricky-nicky, home-made throttle cable that marries a Monster throttle onto my 999 for a quick-turn racing throttle, yea!

When the Friday August 6th practice day hosted by Keigwins rolled around, I was ready and the bike was ready. The weather was beautiful, the track was warming up and we got on with it. I started off cautiously to make sure I hadn’t fouled something up with the new brakes. I’ve also found that Sears Point tears up tires in the morning until the track surface has warmed up good, so I went out on used tires for the first coupla sessions, and then got serious with some better rubber.

I’ve been working on my “build-up” …to try and get my attitude into the optimum state by the time my races come up. This means planning my practice days, new tire expenditures, training and visualization of beating Rossi – or at least Steve Metz and Ron Bunten – to corral my mental planets into alignment for the start of the actual race. This Friday afternoon I had fitted a choice set of low-mileage tires to burn up as I readjusted the bike’s suspension settings from Thunderhill to Sears Point, and by the mid-late afternoon the tires were about shot but I was turning pretty decent practice times for me - in the 1:46 range, about 2 seconds off my all-time best.

Ron Bunten on #843 leads Nick in Formula 40

However, in Saturday morning practice, I made a coupla decisions that threw off my “build-up”. I shoulda bought a fresh rear tire for practice, but didn’t, and consequently came in early from a couple of the morning practice sessions ‘cos the tire was worn out from Friday and sliding around. This doesn’t sound like much, but in order to go out to improve your lap time, or even to maintain your previous time, requires confidence in your tires and a firm goal in your mind. How can you do that when your tires are more worn out than before? And, by coming in early, I lost some focus on exactly what the heck I was out there practicing for!

Oh well “live and learn” as they say …or in my case, just “live”.
Formula old Fart is held late on Saturday afternoon - after practice, and after the Clubman (novice) races – which I like ‘cos I get in the mood the day before my main race on Sunday, Open Twins. I put a brand new rear tire on for the F40 race, because I’ve found out to my previous cost that you can’t get aggressive with the throttle on a used tire, and of course the race is when you need the most grip. Makes sense… but hurts the old bank balance at $300 a pop. The race really didn’t start as good as I’d have liked – I was about 6th or 7th into turn one – and I’m trying to get on the podium here! I was pretty nervous from being crashed out last month at T-hill, the flashbacks in my mind were hard to shake as I charged around Sears Point in close quarters with thirty other lunatics.

But I slowly settled down and figured out who was in front of me. Peter O’Sully and some other cat were disappearing up front, and between me and my archrival Rocket Ron Bunten, running in third place, were two interlopers. On the second lap I came over the top of turn two right behind interloper #1 and drove hard towards turn three and passed him on the outside before throwing my trusty Ducati into the dip. On the next lap, I passed Interloper #2 with a good drive over the top of turn 8A, out-braking him into the turn nine chicane. That left me in fourth place behind Ron. I slowly closed up onto his hind quarters – he was going a bit faster than me on fast corner exits and down the straights, but I would claw it back in the slower sections - and for the last two or three laps I was right there behind him. But I just didn’t have the guts, Ron wasn’t making any mistakes, and he took the checkered flag a few yards ahead of me, curses.

Sunday morning presented me with the final dilemma of the weekend – the Open Twins race was scheduled as race one, and there wasn’t enough time between the morning warm-up practice session and the race in which to change my rear tire. This meant that I had to put the new race tire on for the practice session and only put in two laps to scrub the tire in – not really any kind of warm-up for my body and mind. If I had a second 16.5” rear wheel, I could have practiced on a good used tire and had the fresh race tire mounted and ready to go. Note to self: make sure to have two identical rear wheels next season.

So right after practice we had the usual rider’s meeting, and then, as we gridded up for the Open Twins race, I got nervous as I could visualize leading the flippin’ race! I was in grid spot P2 because Twins fast guy Craig Smith had broken his foot last time at Thunderhill while leading, and was at home nursing his foot and playing with his new baby …and I’m somehow ahead of my archrival Steve Metz in points. The flag dropped, and sure enough I found myself leading the whole pack of hungry Twins riders up the hill towards turn 2. The next moment, points leader Matt Green eased around me at the entrance into two, and I followed him through the corner with a smile on my face ‘cos I knew my fantasy of winning the race had just evaporated. Being the jenius that I am, I was paying too much attention to Matt in front of me - I came out of the corner in the wrong gear and KTM Super Duke jockey Eric Gulbransen blasted past me as I fumbled with the shifter. Curses again, Red Baron. But I got my game on and followed those two as hard as I could for a coupla laps as they slowly slipped away from me.

Nick still in front of Steve Metz in Open Twins

Annoyingly I then started to slow down – I was a bit tired, and my mental state was not in “attack” mode anymore because I nearly highsided myself to the moon driving off the exit of turn seven, lap three. Through the first few corners of lap four I could just feel Metz gaining on me. Then, in the turn 8 esses, I got held up by a backmarker (passing backmarkers already???), and sure enough, Steve bloody well passed me on the brakes into nine. I tried to get back at him, but I really wasn’t in the mood to hang my rear end out in the breeze, plus I kept having the distracting thought that I was still gonna be in front of him in points even if he beat me. Once again that weekend, I crossed the finish line a few yards shy of third place, cursing myself for being a weenie. I could justify my ignoble descent from leading the race to fourth place due to my lack of training plus my practice snafu’s – but really I just got beat ‘cos I’m lame.

So now we’re coming up to the last round of the championship, scheduled for the weekend of September 18th-20th at Infineon. My plan is simple …I’ve decided I’m gonna beat Steve, or crash trying – it’s the only honorable course. So I’m going to take a leaf out of Mat Mladin’s book: hold the excuses, train hard, kick butt in the race, think about the points championship afterwards. So I’m at the gym working out like a jock, hitting the secret yoga training again, minimizing the booze consumption (gasp!), and visualizing success and $30 trophies – yeah!

Thanks as always to:- the crew at Munroe Motors especially Todd; Linda from Jungls Catering; Terry, Wes, Dennis and the boys at Dunlop; Jim, Dave and Nikki at Catalyst Reaction Suspension; Phil Douglas at Aftershocks; Brendan of Ducati North America; Jim Lubin of Vehicle-Systems.com; Michael and the PTT crew; special thanks to Pat Blackburn.