Last weekend marked a milestone in that Carlo completed all the requirements to remove the “Provisional” designation of his Novice Race Licence with the Central Motorcycle Roadracing Association (CMRA). He started the process in late March and it has been just a little over a year since he purchased his Ducati 748 to being ‘ready to race’. The weekend began with an open practice day with Lone Star Track Days where he was running consistent 1:31 by the end of the day, just a second off his best time that he did last time he ran the counter-clockwise 1.7 course in May. He was especially conservative this weekend since the new bodywork on the blue bike was not completed and he really only had the red bike available for him for the weekend.
On Sunday, the pressure was on to just complete the races without incident so he ended up skipping the first of 3 practice sessions and just focused on doing the 2 practice sessions. His first race was Race #9 right after the lunch break, which was the Superbike D race where he finished 11th. He then ran the Superstock D race where he finished 7th. He ran very conservative times, running 1:34 as his fastest lap during the races…4 sec/lap slower than his best times.
Some lessons to work on before the next race at the end of September at a track where we have no experience:
1. We need to simulate a race day mentality during our test sessions at the track. Race days typically have 3 practice sessions, where the first one is used for sighting and getting up to speed. The next 2 sessions are done at race pace, followed by at least 4-5 sprint races. We have the amp up the level of intensity of the testing sessions so that it doesn’t take 4-5 laps before we are comfortable at pace. We will do a sighting lap, pit in, then simulate a 15-20 minute race pace at every session.
2. We need to get some practice with race starts. We will be using the end of pit out during every session to get 2-3 practice starts as we need to learn the best way to launch the bike at the starts.
In addition, we will need to learn a new track at Oak Hill so we will see how fast we can get up to speed. The goal is to run 1:41 or faster by the end of the first day so we can keep up with sight of the main pack.
Some pictures during the day (by Jake McKee – www.jakemckee.com):
Our garage at MSR-Cresson set up with our red tent:
The blue bike wasn’t quite race ready for this weekend due to the new body work – need to install new frame sliders and cut the bodywork before getting it painted. Factory brackets and new engine bolt ordered so it should be ready for Oak Hill.
Coming down the front straight
M2TX 