The "Do or Die" Final Round
AFM Open Twins & Formula 40 Series - Round 7
Infineon Raceway: September 18th and 20th, 2009

The final round of the 2009 AFM road-racing season was upon us, here in the best place in the first world – good ol’ Northern California. Time to review my goals and hone my last-chance, last-ditch strategies for the race weekend.

In Formula 40 – a.k.a. Formula Old Fart – I was running in fourth place for the year, my chances of a top-three position scuppered by a D.N.F. at Thunderhill in July when my exhaust header pipe broke during the race. The only possible chance I had now was if Gavin Botha, the dude in third place, managed to crash himself out of this last round and I got a decent finish. But we all know it’s bad juju to wish misfortune on someone just so you can do better – so my plan was to ride as well as possible and see what happened.

I had a better chance in Open Twins… I was currently in second place in the championship, and my archrival “Tiger” Steve Metz was behind me in third. My race strategy took a little thought: I could simply follow Tiger Steve around for 8 laps and I would get enough points to secure second place for the year - but that seemed to me like a lame choice. I was only ahead of Steve in points because he had crashed during the July race at Thunderhill, otherwise he had been finishing just ahead of me pretty much all year. However… our buddy, and fast Twins racer Craig Smith, who was the next guy behind me and Steve in points, was out with a broken foot - meaning I could actually score no points in this final round and still get third for the year. So I decided that my challenge was to ride my rear end off to beat Steve and claim an honorable second for the year, or crash trying …in which case I would still get third. Rossi would not take the safe option and nor should I – this is racing after all.

OK so it was decided: ride as fast as possible in both classes, hope that some minor but race-ending unlucky break happens to Gavin in Formula Has-Been, and risk all to beat El Tigre Esteve in Open Twins.

Rocket Ron leads Nick Hayman and Pat Blackburn

The Friday before the weekend was a Ride Red Shift track day at Infineon, and a perfect practice day for me. Donna has some highly-qualified instructors working her Red Shift days – including the one-and-only “King” Tom Montano, and 3-time AMA 250 champ Chuckie Sorensen.  It had been six weeks since I’d last ridden on a track and I was worried I had gotten rusty, so I signed up to have Tom and Chuckie to drag me around for a session each.

My tricky-nicky plans this weekend included bringing a spare bike. Many moons ago, the Munroe crew had built a 2002 Ducati 998S to compete in some AMA Superbike rounds with “the King” at the helm. We still had it in the back of the shop, gathering dust and very occasionally seeing sunshine putting in track day duty. I spent an evening or two with ace Munroe spannerjockey Todd Chamberlin, getting the bike spit-polished and tuned up. The bike was actually quite cool – factory racing swinging arm, factory hollow cast magnesium triple clamps, ‘90’s-spec WSB Ohlins forks …and in 2002 it had dyno’d out at 148 rear wheel horses. This was going to be some fresh entertainment for me ‘cos the bike is frikin’ awesome to ride, but really it was a back-up in case I trashed my trusty 999S and didn’t want to ask Pat Blackburn to lend me his 848 again.

So I put in a coupla practice sessions on the 998S to adjust controls, tune-in the suspension settings, and check the thing still ran good and straight. Holy cow! …it felt as fast as my 999S, more stable on acceleration, and lighter turning into corners. As Rossi said: gallina vecchia fa buon brodo – or – there’s many a good tune played on an old fiddle.

Chuckie told me something after he followed me around in a session that made me stop and think. He said my lines were fine, but I was being too smooth entering corners - I should turn the bike into the corner more aggressively. I’ve read that the pros flip the bike down onto their knee very quickly… guess I need more practice.

My zenith on Friday came after lunch. I was moving along pretty good on my 999S when a rider slipped by me oh-so-smoothly – Montano on his beat-up ’07 Honda 600. I followed him around for the next couple of laps and got a very clear lesson on how high corner speed with less horsepower beats low corner speed and high horsepower. On the entrance to the Carousel – a critical corner at Infineon - he would simply brake less and carry higher speed, and with a coupla quick Hail Marys I followed him in. I posted my best practice time of the day that lap – a 45.6.

Saturday dawned bright and cheerful – I was looking forward to a fun day at Infineon with practice until 3pm and then Formula Old Geezer race at 4:30 after the novice “Clubman” races. My rear tire was shagged after Friday, so I pony’d up for a new one, having learnt my lesson at the last race weekend not to be cheap with rear tires ‘cos you waste your practice time concentrating on not crashing. I also took my rear shock over to the Catalyst Reaction pit for a revalve before practice started. Dave Moss had come to my pit on Friday afternoon and observed that I was tearing my rear tire from too much rebound damping, and seeing as my clicker was set to 26 clicks out, I needed a quick re-shim by the legend Jim Williams, Dave’s technical partner and part-time Munroe wrenchwrangler-extraordinaire.

In the early practice sessions I started to realize that my 999’s engine area was making a quiet but definite rumbly-grindy noise exiting corners – most noticeable in turn 7. I was concerned over the age of my rear chain, which was more than a year old, and I decided to change it just in case – breaking a chain almost always has disastrous results. Unfortunately that wasn’t the problem, and the noise seemed to be getting louder as the morning went by. By lunchtime I decided there was definitely a problem, and concluded that I had a main bearing going bad. Seeing as it wasn’t terrible, and I didn’t really want to risk our fancy 998 unless I had to, I decided to practice on the 998 and just use the 999 for my two actual races.

Nick outcorners Tiger Steve in Turn 10

Later that afternoon, the Formula 40 race got postponed until Sunday end-of-day because of some gnarly crashes in the preceding Clubman races, and I went home feeling frustrated at not being able to race. I like racing in F40 on Saturday afternoon… it’s a popular race with a large entry – this time 58 entries - and lots of spectators and racers stay after practice and watch it.

Sunday was another beautiful warm and clear morning and the 998 felt awesome in the short morning warm-up practice. My 999 was ready for Open Twins race number three, with a new rear tire with one scrub-in lap, and a fresh front replaced at Saturday lunchtime, my now-normal tire strategy. I got real excited just before the start of the race because I was gridded in pole position thanks to my second place standings in the championship, and Matt Green not showing up because he’d already won the class at the last race weekend. My first pole!!

Race Notes: I get a solid launch at the green flag and lead the pack of howling twins through turn one, Going up the hill into turn two Pat Blackburn eases past me on my inside and I follow him through the apex. One of these days I’m gonna lead a race for more than a couple hundred yards! I try and follow behind Pat, but he’s riding well on his 1098R and I’m slowly losing touch. On the second lap, Tiger Steve passes me on the brakes into seven, and I work hard to stick to his rear wheel for the next lap, with visions of an heroic last-lap pass and a second place result. I’m mere yards behind Steve as we flip-flop thru the turn nine chicane on lap three, I roll the throttle on to accelerate away, but the rear end slides out from underneath me, and the bike takes a lazy spiral spin on its side into the dirt. I jump up, I’m fine, the bike is barely damaged – but my race is over.
But the next minute, the race get red flagged! I jump on the bike and shoot back to the pit intent on a quick repair and to restart the race. “It’s over” someone says, and sure enough the race is called complete. Kind of a shame I don’t get any points because of my crash, but the two-bike crash in turn three that caused the red flag had happened half a lap before I crashed. Oh well, my fault: I should have stayed on two wheels.

So I sit around all afternoon waiting for the F40 race, which was last on the schedule, and because all of Saturdays races had gotten postponed to Sunday it wound up being race 15, and half the paddock had packed up and gone home by the time they called us up to the grid. It was almost dark! I like F40 because there are some good characters in it and some pretty close good racing. But I really didn’t feel like risking crashing for the second time in the day, so my strategy was to ride steady and smooth and bring my body and my 999 home in one piece. At the start, the usual suspects of Peter O’Sully, Rocket Ron Bunten and nouveau fast guy Gavin Botha quickly moved ahead of me, but I concentrated on my riding and hitting my marks, and worried less about what position I was in. Pat Blackburner, too, slipped past me after a little while, and he set about passing everyone and winning the race – good job Pat!

Front straight, on the throttle - Nick Hayman AFM #753

Well that was an enjoyable final weekend of AFM racing in 2009… I felt happy but without having done anything special. Then I realized that I had, in fact, achieved my pre-race goal for Open Twins - beat Steve or crash trying… great! Next time my goal will be to beat Steve.

There was something a little odd gnawing at me - maybe because both my 999 and myself were not only in one piece, but in halfway decent shape. And I’d completed an entire season of AFM racing without taking a trip to the emergency room! The engine was growling quite loudly by the end of the day, but my gamble had paid off and it hadn’t blown up. A later check revealed flakes of steel in my oil – pretty much confirming the expiring main bearing theory – I’ll tear the engine down in the off-season and get her sorted.

Thanks for a great season to: the crew at Munroe Motors especially Todd; Linda from Jungls Catering; Terry, Wes, Dennis and the boys at Dunlop; Dave, Jim 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.