Laguna Seca / AMA - WSB
07/08 - 07/11/99

Event Final Tech Info

Race Times / Results:

Notes:

One week after returning from our eastern journey to Road Atlanta, Road America and Loudon, we packed the gear and headed out for the World Superbike round at Laguna Seca. This is a unique event in the AMA schedule as only the 600 Supersport series runs as an AMA points-paying championship race. The World guys are there to run their Supersport and Superbike events. The AMA 600 guys were squeezed in, along with the second round of the Aprillia Cup Challenge, between the World sessions and allowed very minimal track time.

While it was exciting to be involved and rub elbows with the World organization, it was also a let-down to not be a part of the main attractions. We were allowed one practice session on Friday morning, qualified for our race Friday afternoon, one more practice Saturday morning, then raced Saturday at noon. It was a good thing that the full AMA round at Laguna was held this past April - trying to learn the track in one practice session is not an easy task. There were a few privateers in this situation and it made their weekend pretty tough going.

Friday morning practice was lousy for me. It took forever to put together a decent few laps and I was off my April pace by two seconds. Carrying corner speed is vital to a good lap of Laguna, especially out of T3 and T11. I concentrated on this a lot during the weekend. It started coming together during the qualifying session on Friday evening and I ran only .10 seconds off my April pace to put me 28th on the grid. I wasn't happy about the lap time, but that was my best AMA grid. I needed a better match between corner speed in T3 & T11 and my gearing, so a I added a tooth to the rear and waited until Saturday morning's practice to try it out.

Saturday's practice felt good. The sprocket change helped, but I should have gone one or two more for the race. I pulled a really good start on the first start of the 600 race. Coming down into T2 I was in 20th place or so, when three riders went off-track and the red flag came out. The restart went OK, though I was late off the line by about one second. By the end of the first lap I was in 22nd place, running consistent 1.38's.

T3 and T11 proved my undoing in the race. I tried to keep the bike in the powerband going through those two corners, but the gearing wasn't right so I had problems running wide and bogging the motor. Two racers got by me during the race, relegating me to 24th place as the checkers flew. Hindsight, as always, is 20/20. If I'd changed to a larger rear, I might have finished closer to the top 20. I held my own through all sections of the track except coming out of T3 and T11. The guys in front of me gradually pulled away as we ran through these two sections of the track. I maintained and sometimes gained time in the other sections. I'm very pleased with my results, though. A qualifying position of 28th, a 24th finish marks my best AMA performance to date.

Steve's heel bone seems to be healing well - at least it's not keeping him awake nights anymore. Since the Vegas round of the AMA schedule has been cancelled, we will probably run out at Willow Springs in October and perhaps November. We've been invited to participate in the last two rounds of the Mexican Supersport Championship in October. I'll know more on that next month.

Next round, the AMA season finale at Pike's Peak in Colorado, September 17 - 19, 1999.

Bob.

Copyright 1996 - 2003, Aramel Racing, All Rights Reserved