AFM R6 Sonoma Race Report: the battle of the brands

[Rexbo]

AFM #250R / CVMA #250
AFM Round 6 Sonoma Raceway Race Report


The weekend opened much as last round had: cold, foggy and quiet. Saturday morning, temperatures were in the low fifties and all the racers were huddled in their warmest clothing, hoping for the cloud cover to burn off. I had discovered that one of my front fork seals had sprung a leak during transportation, and as the saturday morning practices went on, the front end began to dive more and more under braking, until eventually every time I touched the brakes the front dove straight onto the bumpstops and bounced the rear tire like a basketball. During the final practice, the sun came out and warmed up the track just enough for me to run a 1:59:3, which would put me in contention with the front-runners. Over the lunch break, I dropped off the fork to get re-worked, and set my mind to the first race coming up in the afternoon.

The first race up was the 250 Challenge, sponsored by Feel Like a Pro, and after the warmup lap, slotted into my 2nd row spot in 8th place. The checkered flag dropped, and I managed to worm my way into 4th place during the stampede up the hill into turn 2, passing by Ari Henning of Motorcyclist magazine on his CBR 250 as he rooster tailed through the dirt back onto the track. Ahead of me, Logan Hanks and Eric Kondo, two local fast AFM racers battled with each other, and let me hang in their slipstream out of turn 6 onto the drag strip and motor by them under the brakes into second place at the top of the hill into turn 7. The rest of the race I never looked back, and never got passed, ultimately taking second place with a best time of 1:57:88, a new personal best lap time, and within a second of the winner’s best lap. Coming out of that race at the end of the day, I was feeling confident that I could place well in the two races sunday morning, but would have more work to do since I would be starting on the 4th row, in 14th place.



The first race of Sunday was 250 superbike, and after a prolonged race start delay due to thick pea soup fog, we were finally called out and as I took up the familiar position of staring at the backs of the entire grid of riders ahead of me, I knew this race would be much more challenging than the previous day. Parts of the track were still damp from the night, other parts were dry and warming up, and nearly all of the painted berms were ice-slick. The checkered flag flew, and I immediately got sandwiched up against the inside wall and only managed to gain two places off the start. The rest of the race went poorly as I wasn’t able to get the front tire up to full temperature due to the damp conditions as well as the cold and stiff front forks chattering the front tire away nearly every corner, and in my attempts to make up time under late braking, I began to suffer from mild arm pump towards the end of the race, on a 250. Yeah it's about time to get serious about hitting the gym, time to take the fap challenge to train for the FLAP challenge! I crossed the start-finish line in 9th place, only managing a 1:58:08 best lap, and definitely re-thinking my strategy for the last race of the day: 250 production, which was race 3 of the schedule.



I dropped the pressure in the front tire 1 psi, and set off to grid up for the last, and to me, most important, race of the day. Lining up again into 14th and last place, the flag flies and I got a good start and jumped up a few places into 9th, then managed to sneak by a few more bikes up into 6th, where I proceeded to dice with Ari and Eric for the entire rest of the race. Every few corners Ari would catch up to me, pass under braking and hold onto his position until the next straightaway, where the few horsepower that the honda was missing would punish him and I’d motor right on by. This went on for the entire length of the race, with bumping and pushing happening nearly every time either of us tried to pass, and with Logan just barely ahead of us like a rabbit in front of the greyhounds. Eric made a good pass on corner entry into T6, but I immediately slotted into his draft and passed him hard on the brakes into T7 to chase Ari down again. When all was said and done, I managed to take a 6th place finish just behind Logan and Ari, and had the most fun race of my life and also set my new personal best at Sonoma with a 1:56:73 lap time, within a second of the the winning times in the class. Starting from last place and finishing 6th was an acceptable end to the weekend.

Compliments of Logan, the 250 Prod race from his perspective!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=amD1RnzN-2w

Thanks again to all my sponsors who have supported the my racing so far: Slim at Nexx Helmets, Max at Cycle Gear for posting my bio up on Gear-Garage.com, Matt at Hotbodies Racing for the new bodywork that’s getting painted right now for the next CVMA season coming up, and Poly Moto Engineering for the transport & logistics of getting to and from every race event. Also thanks to Brian Bartlow and all the other 250 racers who keep making this incredibly fun event worth coming back to, and to the AFM staff who make it all run so smoothly!

[dino74]

Awesome write up! See you in a couple of weeks!

[Nemesis]

I'm gonna give you a big good job hug, then reach around for a happy ending when I see you @ CVMA!

[KazMan]

Steve,
From my special perspective, it was awesome to watch you and Ari go at it and was fun to be there to capitalize when either of you made room for me.

Starting from Saturday, you were riding very well and on Sunday your braking efforts had me amazed each and every time you wiggled around and then pulled off yet another corner!

Ari was amazing as you broke late and ate up the inside of the track, he would brake and then get on the gas and ride around the outside somehow keeping that little Honda on the track!

For me, my biggest disappointment was not having my GoPro's available for this race as I believe the Steve/Ari show was one of the best races to watch and be a part of this entire 2012 season for me!

Great write-up and looking forward to bringing you guys a little competition down a CVMA sometime this fall!

Congrats!
KazMan

[RaceBikeRentals]

Nice job! Way to represent!

[abhijitz]

Great Job Steve .... you rocked ! Thanks for the long haul trip you guys make to turn the AFM 250 race classes more competitive. I am eagerly waiting to join you guys at the upcoming CVMA rounds in Oct & Nov.

[flippn]

Nice job Steve, both on the write up and the race.