AFM / Sears Point Raceway
05/23 - 05/24/98

Event Baseline Tech Info

Race Times / Results:

Saturday AFM Practice - Notes:

Steve called Michael at GMD Computrack LA for suspension guidelines and Curt Jordan at Jordan Engineering for gearing suggestions. Michael recommended setting the front sag to 35mm, rear sag to 30mm and take out 1 to 2 clicks on the rear high speed compression and front rebound. We adjusted the front to 25mm, and took out 1 click each for the compression and rebound.  These changes are reflected in the baseline settings above.

We started out with our normal gearing for Willow Springs, knowing that it was way too tall for Sears Point. Our goal for this weekend was to learn the track and settle on a suspension setup. I wanted to get comfortable on the track before screwing with the gearing. Curt recommended a 4% increase in the overall gearing ratio from our Willow set up, which we'll use for our baseline at our next Sears Point meet in July.

Practice time is pretty short when the AFM runs a New Rider's school on Saturday. The day starts at about 9:00a and is over by 12:00 noon. The newbies get the track for the rest of the day. Steve and I got in three sessions and spent the time improving our lines and nailing down reference points. We took times on the last two sessions:

For our first time out at the track, we were told these were respectable times. The fast 600cc locals run around in the upper 1.4x's, while Miguel DuHamel set the place on fire with a 1.44ish time a few weeks back during the AMA Honda Pro Oils 600 Super Stock race.

Sunday AFM Races - Notes:

The AFM is famous for HUGE grids, and Sunday lived up to that reputation. There were 56 entries for Formula I and 78 entries for the 600 Super Bike race! We knew we'd be in for some hairy starts.

The AFM Formula I class pits up to 500cc two-strokes, 750cc four-stroke multies and 1000cc twins together. I was a bit worried about traction on the start, since we gridded on the greasy drag strip that makes up the front straight. Steve and I both got decent starts, though, and ran a good race. I made most of my time and passes by late breaking in T4 and T7 . There were a lot of 750s out there that held me off in my other favorite passing zone - the straight coming out of T6 into T7. A harder drive down the Carousel of T6 would have helped my speed, but I developed a front-end chatter in the morning's practice that I couldn't resolve before the race.

Steve took an expeditionary trip out into the dirt outside of T7, but kept it on two wheels and didn't lose too many places.

The 600 Super Bike race was awesome! Although I bogged it a bit on the start, I drove up the outside of T1 and stuck it under a bunch of riders going into T2. I hooked up with another F2 rider and chased his butt for the rest of the race. We were pretty evenly matched - he'd pull a little here, I'd pull a little there. I had a couple of pucker moments when I ran over the curbing on the outside of T3 and another when I overcooked the chicane of T12 and almost nailed the hay bales. My F2 rival and I ran a good race, continuously passing other riders up to and through the last lap.

In hindsight, I still think the decision not to change the gearing was the right thing to do. Our bikes had decent drives off the corners, though lower gearing would have given us even better drives and more acceleration for passing. I also monitored the air density and temperatures closely throughout the weekend and found about a 2% difference (at race time) between Sears Point and Willow Springs (it isn't that hot out at Willow yet), so we'll play with jetting next time out as well.

All-in-all, I'm very pleased with our results. We have have quite a few seconds to 'find' out on the track, but I'm confident that we'll get closer at our next meet.

Next round - AFM action at Sears Point July 11 - 12.

Bob.

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