Greetings everyone The next two - yes... two - posts are my write up from Fontana..... Yes... I write a lot... but it is sectioned in to various paragraphs... The mega short version: I got my very first podium - a WIN! - on old ass tires... then I won the chick class WERA West Round #1 Auto Club Speedway, Fontana, Calif. Jan 9-10, 2010 In the Beginning… December 2008 was the first track day on my beautiful 2006 R1 as an official race machine. January 2009 marked my first race and first time to ride it at ACS in Fontana… what a RUSH! I'll never forget how amazing it felt to be at the throttle stop grabbing gears as we rocketed down the front straight…. O……M…….G…… Fast forward to October 2009, and the WERA West Finale in Las Vegas on Halloween weekend. My poor big boy was almost on his last leg! After my horrific attempt at repairing an oil leak on the stator cover gasket, I had spent meticulous hours cleaning metal shavings out of my oil pan and crank case, just hoping I would not lose my engine – or my bike – at the Vegas races. A nagging oil leak, in the form of minute weeping, got me pulled from the Formula I grid, and I found out later it was a tell tale to warn of mechanical seal failure at the water pump! In the end, I completed all of my races without incident, and was awarded with a tie for 2nd place in the Superstock Championship, and 4th in Superbike! For 1000cc (A) Novices. I finally received my bump up letter – the letter WERA sends you to say you're finally good enough to be an Expert! Well, I protested that bump up… sighting my ordinarily poor lap times relative to what real experts run at those tracks. It's TRUE! I'm no sandbagger! I still have not broke 2 minutes at Buttonwillow (experts routinely run below 1:50!), and Vegas…. Oh geez, don't even get me started on Vegas! I can't seem to go fast there to save my life! A one-off 1:25 is the best of my "career" and that was on my 600! At least I progressed over the course of 2009 to running steady 1:26s on my R1…. Experts run low 20s, and sub-20s! WERA accepted my argument that I would make a poor expert. The Championship results were purely because I did not crash, made all the races, and had decent finishes…. And yes, a Championship is all about who does the best for the longest! WERA sent me an acceptance letter to remain Novice, and said they reserve the right to boot my ass out at any time if I have too many Top 3 finishes. Honestly, I kinda laughed because I knew that was not likely to happen! Unless some miracle occurred. I had ONE good run at ACS back in August, where I hit 1:36s on my lap times, otherwise, my lap times are nothing to brag about…. R1 TLC I dropped off my beautiful machine at M Racing & Performance in Glendora, for an engine rebuild. After my gross mechanical screw up, I knew that the rebuild I had planned was going to happen a lot sooner than expected! Good thing too! When Dean Mizdal got the engine torn apart, it turns out the con-rod bearings didn’t have much life left on them, and the valves had started receding into the cylinder head. Both things that resulted in lowered compression, and both of which had absolutely *nothing* to do with MY screw up! Dean was so sweet and saved me all my used up parts so I can check them out! My engine had just over 26k miles on it at this point, and I had put over 3k track miles just in 2009! The boys at M Racing did an absolutely fabulous job of refreshing my engine and refreshing my suspension! It was, for all intensive purposes, a brand new motorcycle! Dean treated it just like all the other race bikes he’s built, and fixed a few little things. My big boy is now a pure race machine. There is no going back to the street now! January in Fontana M Racing performed the engine break in on their dyno, at their shop, so when I picked up my big boy on Friday afternoon, I knew it was going to be ready to rock the track come Saturday morning! I was mildly nervous about the first ride after it had been all put back together, but I knew Dean and the boys do a stellar job! Let’s put it this way, I’m more nervous after I’ve been the one working on it! LOL With the weather so warm, I went to my notebook, and set my suspension to where it was during the August track day. With the suspension being fresh, I figured this was a good place to start. The Fastrack Riders Track Day at Auto Club was split into a fast racer group, slower racer group, and street riders. I signed myself up for the slower racer group so as not to have any pressure. The first session out was a dream! My bike felt like it was on rails, and I even hooked up with my three other girl friends for the last several laps of the session! Christie Cooley, Nadine Lajoie, and Joy Higa and I all had a blast rolling around! Christie led us all, and had no idea we were there Joy and Nadine had passed me earlier on, then I passed Joy, only for her to re-pass me… I could tell she was ready to bring it when she shoved up underneath me as we approached the tight T3 left hander! I was like, “Oh, so it’s like that huh? LOL” I tailed her and Nadine around for the lap, then absolutely flew passed the both of them on the approach to ultra fast T1! Nadine left a huge hole between herself and the wall, and that was my first time to ever pass anyone like that at Calif Speedway! What a FRIGGIN RUSH! We all enjoyed sharing certain fingers with each other as we exited the track ;-) Thumbs up mostly! LOL Later in the day, I tried that same move on Nadine again, but this time she was way closer to the wall! I scared the CRAP out of myself because the hole was NOT big enough! Thank GOD she held steady, and I was able to get my bike slowed in time! As long as our handle bars didn’t get close, there was room, but that was scary!!! I scared myself one other time trying to carry more speed into the decreasing radius, and in my attempt to trail brake and turn in, the front had a pretty good slide… I thought I was going down for sure! Practice went pretty well, although it was so crowded it was difficult to get some clean laps. I did have one single marvelous session in which I trailed Larry Pointer as he rode a beautiful 2009 R1! OMG that bike sounded beautiful! We had some super clean laps! It was some kind of miracle! LOL I was feeling really confident after practice on Saturday, my bike felt like it was on rails, and the tires were still holding up ok. I was unable to purchase new tires for this weekend, so I was running on the same tires I raced on in Las Vegas back in October! I wasn’t as aggressive in practice as I would like to have been as I wanted to save my tires for the races. I had the CT Racing - Pirelli guys flip my rear, as Fontana is left hand heavy. I left Saturday knowing the places I needed to be aggressive. RACE DAY First round of practice went really well! The track had an amazing amount of grip for being 8am, and many sections still in the shadows of the grandstands. I was the first bike out on track, and I led practice for about 4 laps! It was great!!! I remember thinking, wow, that’d be rad if I could do this in a race! LOL My awesome super sexy shirtless pit Daddy pal Chris Sarbora was at hot pit wall for ALL of us the WHOLE weekend, and he’d check and set our hot tire pressures, make suspension adjustments, anything we needed at pit wall. There was almost a tie in my own personal Pit Daddy contest between Chris and sexy soldier boy Corey Baum but Chris won because he left his shirt off all day! ;-) At least there were several other girl racers that got a kick out of BOTH of them being Pit Daddy’s for the weekend! ;-) Thanks you guys!!!! Kidding aside, you guys were absolutely wonderful all weekend! Second round of practice went great, and I was ready for the races! When I saw my lap times were only 1:42, I was sorely disappointed! =( I was running 1:36 back in August! Ok, well, I ran 2 laps at 36, 2 laps at a 37 and the remainder of the day was at 38/39s. I knew where I had to get aggressive during the races. A SUPERBIKE NOVICE I was such a bundle of nerves!!! I tried to chill out by riding my bicycle around the parking lot outside the facility and just get loose and warmed up. It helped a bit, but I was still nervous! Heading out on the warm up lap I was the first bike out! Boogity Boogity Boogity!!!! My start was terrible! I did make up for it by passing a guy, but he passed me back as we approached the infield. Oh well… I’m pretty sure I was in last by this time but I made a killer move on a guy approaching T1!!! Shot between him and the wall and sailed through T1,2, and into 3 like nobody’s business! By now the nerves were wearing off, and I started to see what I could make up. As the race wore on, I dropped down into the 39s for the last two laps, and was quickly gaining on another rider. I could see he was getting tired, and I used my T1 speed to eat his shit up. I almost stuffed him into T3, but decided that was too risky, and was going to try to make it up another way. It was not to be, and I brought it home in 4th… out of 5 people =( I remember being disappointed, but quickly realized I still had Superstock, and I had finally readjusted all my markers for my more aggressive riding.
WERA West Rd1 p2 (The Races) A SUPERSTOCK NOVICE Again there were only 5 of us in my class, with a pretty heavy Expert class. Since our grid was so small, we all started under one green flag, but they put a good size gap between the classes. I was sitting on the 2nd row of my class, of our two rows! As soon as the flaggers shoulder twitched, I launched, and got the start of my life!!! I GOT THE HOLESHOT!!!!!!! My first holeshot EVER!!!!! I remember flying between the two guys in the front row thinking…. Dude! Green flag!! Then I was thinking “I got the F*G HOLESHOT!!! OMG!!! SUCK IT!!!!” LOL Then I remembered I best keep my ass on the gas or they were gonna pass me right back! I stuffed myself up into the experts, and actually passed one! I shoved myself up in there as we all piled through tight T3 into the infield and found myself directly on Bob Pilgreen’s tail. F*g BOB. I chased his Honda ass ALL last year! Here I am behind him again!!! And he STILL had his damn yellow plates on!!! I just chased him around and around, and kept expecting someone to pass me very soon. I was hoping to pass Bob and finally be able to stick it to him, but I was never close enough. I just watched him blow corners and do wheelies…. I was paying so much attention to Bob, and that I couldn’t catch him – AGAIN – that the half way sticks were out, and it all of a sudden dawned on me that I might be in the lead! I might be winning this race!!!! For the novice class! I kept staring at Bob’s yellow plates, and reminding myself he is no longer in my class! On the approach to T1, I reflected on how I most likely am leading the Novice race, and I better not f* this up! Then flew through T1! About the 4th lap, my old tires were starting to really give it up. The rear was dancing around under protest from the new found horsepower, and the front end was squirming under the hard braking and pushing through the corner entries. I just kept hitting my marks, and quickly realized I was finally braking hard enough to hover the rear end off the ground coming down the back straight. I grab three quick downshifts, then feather the clutch out (STAR style), but the rear end was not giving the tail wag it normally does… in fact it was barely wagging…. I also realized, very quickly, that my new found top end horsepower also moved my brake markers further back by about 100+ feet! Back in August, I was staying ON the throttle till about the 3 cone down the back straight… now I was having to start braking about 100 feet before the 3 cone! I kept trying to move my brake marker up there, but it was just not possible! As Bob and I took the white flag, I also realized I had gained almost another 10 mph through the T1 section!!! Once safely on the apron, I’ll take a glance at the speedo and reference the changes in readings. In January 2009 it started out reading in the hight 90s… then the 120s… By August it was up to reading in the low 140s… During A Superstock… it was reading in the 150s!!! Hell yeah I scared myself a few times! Almost couldn’t get it flipped over in time to get around the T3 curbing! Thanks to Cross Fit, my strength has improved a hundred times over! That allowed me to carry so much more speed through the uber fast T1 chicane… it was unreal! My big boy stuck like glue and loved every second! Chasing Bob back into the infield… I talked out loud to myself not to relax, as I swept through the double apex horseshoe… careful as I applied the throttle for the quick squirt into the next chicane. I was a little more careful as I drove it deep into the decreasing radius as my front was warning me to be careful on the braking as I approached the deep apex. Picked up the throttle and drove it hard down the back straight, flipped it through the next chicane, and as I approached the final series of left handers I was reminded of how a miss shift right here likely cost me my third place back in August. I was methodical, focused, and smooth as I grabbed my shift, picked up the throttle and grabbed gears as I rocketed towards the checkered flag. It was upon taking the checkered that it came to my attention that I had just won my race!!!! I couldn’t believe it! I was screaming in my helmet!!! OH MY GOD!!! I THINK I JUST WON!!!! After I turned into the infield, the guy in second place caught up to me, and gave me a congratulatory fist bump. That was pretty awesome. As I traversed the course, the corner workers were clapping, and as I went down the back straight, all the people watching along the fence were clapping, pumping their fists and giving the thumbs up! It was amazing! If I didn’t just win, then I did something pretty damn cool, because they sure didn’t do that for me during the last race! LOL As I coasted down hot pit, I was looking up in the stands for my friends, but found instead, a large group of Harley riders – the vests gave it away – they were pointing at me, pumping their fists, and clapping! It felt like the movies!!! When all these random people are cheering for you… it was absolutely unreal. I was in complete and utter shock. I was waiting for someone to come tell me that I didn’t win… that there was some mistake. I pulled up to my garage, and they all told me later they thought I was injured or something because I was trying to yell with my helmet on! LOL I told them I thought I had just won my race!!!! My Trackdaz.com pals DangerDog and Gil Ramos came up to grab my bike from me, to park it for me… they laughed because I didn’t want to give him up! LOL They watched the race, they told me I really did win! I was like, “are you sure?” I was still waiting to find out that I didn’t win…. My awesome brothers Jeff Kubran and Jon Kubran made their way back to my garage with huge smiles and so pumped up! They were so stoked! It was unbelievably awesome to have my brothers there for my first win! I didn’t have much time, as the Women’s Superstock race was next – only a one race break! Thank God for Katherine Perry and for her watching out for me! She did a phenomenal job taking care of me all weekend as well, pulling tire warmers, stands, and keeping her eyes and ears open for final call Thanks Katie!!! <3 Katie gave me the heads up, and my pals Danny and Gil put the very last of my fuel in my bike, and off I went for Women’s Superstock. In the end, I think this was my most perfect race! I took the holeshot, won by 4.5 seconds, and my lap time spread over the 6 laps was 0.808 seconds. I am extraordinarily proud of my performance. WOMEN’S SUPERSTOCK NOVICE WERA opened up Women’s Superstock (WSS) to 750 Superbikes, and 1000 Superstock bikes! I was so stoked to be able to run with my girls!!! As I went out for the warm up lap, it felt like I had just been out there….circling the track in utter disbelief! I had to refocus! There was another race! Myself, Nadine, and Jenny Besaw made up the grid for the Novice class, while Christie, Wendy Leber and Marisol Lacour made up the Expert class. Christie was having her very first weekend on a 600 after years on a SV650 and she was doing a phenomenal job!!! It’s a good thing it was the Women’s race, because my head was still back in A Superstock, and still in disbelief I actually won! When the green flag dropped, this time I was the one looking at the butterflies on the grid! I was slow off the line, and found myself behind Wendy, Christie, Nadine, and Marisol as we entered the infield. I got around Marisol pretty easily as we bended around T4, as my R1 made short work of her SV, but she was riding the wheels off that thing! I caught up to Christie and Nadine, and almost made a move on them under the brakes coming off the back straight, but they were so close together, I opted to just ride it out and take them on the front straight. My drive was weak onto the front straight, and I was inadvertently short shifting my bike, so it felt like it took forever to get around their skinny asses on their wide open 600s! I made my signature move, and it was an unreal sensation as I flew past Christie and Nadine between them and the wall to rocket through the T1 chicane. I love making that pass! I decided to try to hunt down Wendy, although by now she had a pretty good gap on me. I laid down a few solid laps, hot after Wendy and her R6, but on the start of lap 4, as I picked up the throttle to exit T3, in the infield, the rear had a big slide – the kind of slide where you hear your engine rev up, but you’re not going anywhere! LOL After that I knew my old Vegas tires were absolutely toast…. “Enjoy it Wendy! See you at the finish line!” I backed it off a bit, and brought it home with a 10 second lead over second place. My lap times started off as 1:39s and went into the low 40s towards the end of the race. I’m very grateful my tires lasted long enough to take that win in A Superstock! Special Thanks A big thank you to my friends who’ve helped all weekend…Corey Baum, Chris Sarbora, Katie Perry, Jacob Brown and the awesome Washington/Oregon crew!!! Joy Higa… I hope you heal up quickly and you get another race bike rolling soon sweetie!!! Much love my friend! <3 My sponsors, who helped support me! M Racing Central Coast Mechanics Ponyrific.com Pirelli Race Tech Catalyst Reaction – Dave Moss!!! MDG Racing (gotmotoparts.com) Cambria Bicycle Outfitters STAR School Moonstone Cellars – Todd Clift Sacred Tattoo of Oakland – Pato Vigil Cross Fit – Inferno – for making me strong enough to kick ass! And thank you WERA!!!!
congrats on your first win.. I too had my first win that weekend so I know how you felt. Once again congrats..
Sweet! Go represent for the both of us!! I can't make it *maybe* in April, but likely not until May GET SOME!:up:
Photo Op! Here's a picture from that day I'm seen here with my pals from Trackdaz.com (Danny & Gil) They're my most credible witnesses - besides the all knowing... always watching Mongo ;-) Photo credit to Janice Debotts
Now your putting pressure on me to win one because i have to represent for you and dont want to make you look bad because of my poor performance. lol jk..
Well, I know how to talk to boys... they call me the "male whisperer" Best of luck this weekend!!!!!!!
well i am a horrible representitive for us sry.. First race i got 4th and second race when fighting for the lead i dumped the bike(last lap) for the second time in the day sry maybe next time ill represent for us..
You showed up. You rode hard. You got a top 5. I call that representing! Besides! I couldn't even go. And looking at the results, I would've had my ass handed to me.
