AFM Rounds 5 & 6... Season Recap

As a couple friends have pointed out lately, I've not been rambling themelessly much.  In my defense, it's been a busy month!  I returned from Rome, had a motorcycle race the following weekend, had another motorcycle race three weeks later, and as I type find myself back in Europe - this time in London for work.  Despite being here for work - I am going to steal out time today to try chasing down a couple Banksy graffiti spots and see if I can find anything still up and not defaced.  More on that later this week if indeed I am successful in following the Tube mashup I've created this morning overlaid with Banksy locations.

My AFM season had two good race weekends - both at Infineon Raceway aka Sears Point in Sonoma, California.  I'm picking up my times at this track a little - both race weekends found me accomplishing my personal best laptimes.  Regardless of where you finish, it's always a great weekend when I make progress, have fun, don't wreck and make some improvement.

Last weekend was a great Clubman Heavyweight race.  I am beating some of my competition for the year by out financing them and out lasting them.  I'm a little older than some of the guys at the track - and probably a little more aware of the frailty of the human condition.  I would say I take fewer risks than others on the track, and would rather give up a position and live to tell about it, than try an unsafe pass.  This has produced a situation where I'm slowly-but-surely gathering more season points than some others who are not making all the races.  THIS produces a situation where I'm gridding up at the front of the pack - well in front of some guys who are clearly faster than me.  On one hand it feels rather unsuccessful to slowly lose positions the entire race, but it also pushes me to try and keep up when they get around me (which for some of these fast guys seems entirely effortless... ha!)  I'm reasonably good at starts.  For the first time this last weekend I took the lead in the race and held the 1st position for three laps.  I often dart out in front, but now I'm getting hard enough to pass that I was able to keep the lead for a bit.  My entire race strategy?  Get in front and try to make my bike 10 feet wide!  Ha, ha, ha.  After 8 laps I finished a respectable 5th place, logging 1:48's which was two seconds faster than a month ago... great progress!

I'm at an interesting point in the race season on a couple levels.  There is one race left, and I'm not decided if I will participate.  A good friend is having a wedding reception that same weekend out of town, if I attend I'm precluded from racing.  This is the final race of the AFM season, and I'm in contention in one of my race categories.  Season standings so far include:

Open Production (1000cc bikes/ not modified):  19th of 40
Open GP (1000cc bikes/ modifications allowed/ one of the fastest race in AFM): 34th of 70
Open Superbike (1000cc bikes/ modifications allowed):  39th of 69
Clubman Heavyweight (1000cc bikes/ only Novices):  4th of 42

... I have an honest chance at a top three spot in Clubman Heavyweight - depending on who makes it out for round seven.  There are a couple guys faster than me - and some I should expect to beat.  Also I feel I'm on the cusp of dropping some time at that track...  All the 30 days of track practice I've put in this year and last, all the race preparation, stringing together a race season so far... all leads up to this one final race of the season. 

Anyway... enough rambling.  Here's some pictures from last weekend!

My Patented Flying Start...