2017 Tsukuba ST600 Race 1 Report

 #26 Zech Dzegede選手

Team AFG MOTO

Photo by Shigeru Mukai

Race result

Qualifiers 

8th
1:02.50

Race 

8th

1:02.51

Sponsors/support:

AFG Motosports (Icon Motosports)

Chara-Rimpa 
Panolin-Japan
Oda Kaihatsu
Rapidbike Japan (JAM)
BabyFace
DID

Practice

I had been struggling with bringing back my confidence and with getting back into the groove of racing for the past few months.  I was still 2 seconds off my best time and couldn't wrap my head around what I was doing wrong.

Then while speaking to my mentor, he said something that made it all click together, and I remembered what I needed to do.

Sometimes I have the habit of overthinking things, and I need to understand the mechanism behind a motion to perform the motion.  It happened a lot in break dancing, it's just a lot harder to figure it out and slow things down at 200kph.

During practice I was able to get back into the swing of things and match up to my old best time.

Qualifiers

Qualifiers went well, considering I only returned to my 2016 prime less than 24 hours prior.  I got all decked out with my new fairing design and new hand painted helmet and put out a 1:02.50, 0.02 slower than my best ever time, so not too bad.

Just a few weeks ago I added the Jam (RapidBike Japan), BabyFace, and Icon arm patches to my suit.

Placed 8th out of 11 in qualifiers, but was really hoping to get 1:01.  Hopefully I can get it in the race!

Race

I will be having continued support for 2017 from AFG Motosports (Icon) and from Panolin Japan, so I upgraded my tent space from last year's set up to showcase those brands.  

My new fairing design is a vinyl wrapping, and during qualifiers a couple air bubbles got into the wrapping, so we had to pop a few right before the race 👀

The race started off very well for the first 100m~! I usually have good starts so I felt like I couple make a good run a gain a few places.

But then the bike to my left, as I was going to overtake, backfired and veered into my path.  At the same time the bike to my right squeezed in and I had no where to go, forcing me to let off the throttle a little.

By the end of the fist lap I was already back to 8th place, where I started but keeping a healthy distance between the two guys in front of me.

About halfway through the race, the guy in front of my runs wide and I make it up to 7th place!

I made it onto the board!

I was able to hold off the position for most of the remainder of the race, however I got passed back and sent back to 8th place.

This race was the best back-to-back 18 laps I've ever put out.

I was able to hit very close to my best time consistently and didn't feel like I was at the limit.

I'm looking forward to the next Tsukuba race in June where I can hopefully make it to the podium.

Photo by Shigeru Mukai

2016 Season End

I had been meaning to update my blog about what happened towards the end of the 2016 season but I haven't been able to get around to it until now.

Towards the end of the 2016 season I had two races consecutive races with a DNF result.

During the TT in June I overqualified with a time of 1:02.48 and disqualified myself from an official win.  However in the heat of the race I had an incident with another rider and could not finish.

Then during the ST600 Race 3, on the second turn of the first lap, a rider jackknifed his bike very close to me causing myself and another rider to go off course where we crashed.

I then soon after fixing the bike high-sided on the fastest corner at Tsukuba and this set me on a bad path of under confidence.

I finished the season with the ST600 Race 4 where I didn't perform as well as the previous races.

Now its 2017 and the new season has started, and soon I'll be posting about this new things to come!

Gotta keep moving forward, learn from my mistakes and move on :)

2016 Tsukuba ST600 Race 2 Report

Race result

Qualifiers 

19th
1:03.2
(all time best lap time)

Race 

16th

1:03.3

Sponsors/support:

AFG Motosports (Icon Motosports)

Chara-Rimpa 
Rapidbike Japan (JAM)
Panolin-Japan

Also check out my helmet review:
Airframe Pro has been official approve by MFJ for race use!

Practice

During the Friday practice I came to realise that I've reached a pace where I can only use my tires for around 2.5 hours.  I started the day off with a set of tires that had seen 2h of usage, and as the day progressed the performance greatly deteriorated.

The bike was sliding and bucking around almost uncontrollably and by the end of the day I couldn't keep my times in the 1:03 range.  Good to know for future reference.

Qualifer

After waking up early to get the bike setup for inspection, I had them put on the official race tires.  Practice was so hectic yesterday that I missed the time slot to change tires, so it was added to the list of things to do at 6am.

However! When we went to put the rotors back on three bolts snapped!  

It seems that the previous owner was not using Honda parts and I didn't really think about it until now.  So I need to order some genuine parts for the sake of...... safety.  For the time being I grabbed some old iron bolts I had lying around and put the rotor back on.

Every time Key-san starts the engine or pushes the bike around I can swear he wants to start racing again.  He's only ever raced 2 stroke machines, but rode on GP250 bikes, so more or less the same lap times as a 600cc.  It's been 10 years since he raced, but you can see a little sparkle in his eye the moment he starts the engine.

Race

While waiting for the race to start we decided to test out BONX which is a product my friend created, coming to Kickstarter soon it seems.  It's a bluetooth/app based walkie-talkie, that can be used as a normal earpiece as well. The Android app had a few hiccups, but I know they're working hard to get things sorted out before the kickstarter.

In the past year I have missed two race briefings for different reasons, so this time around Key-san got us all Pebble watches and ran a script on his server to remind us when it was time to get ready for inspection, qualifiers, briefing, and the race.  Today was a day to test lots of new technology.... sometimes we get carried away, but as long as it doesn't interfere with my lap times it's all good!

On the grid in 19th position, qualifying 200 milliseconds shy of the 1:02 mark, which would've allowed me to practice in the special R sessions on normal track days.  I felt I could get a good start and follow a faster guy to help me push.

 I had an awesome start!

Gaining 3 positions from the get go.

After the first lap the head pack was already getting away.  The top 2 guys are running at a pace of national racers, 4 seconds faster than my fastest time.  

I was able to hold these three guys off for half of the race, but two of the guys behind me were about 0.5 seconds faster than me on average so it was only a matter of time before they got past me.

I was able to hold this one ZX6R for most of the race, but unfortunately lost the position on the last lap.  I had misunderstood my pit board, since it said 2 laps left.  During the last few laps the two top riders lapped the last 4 people in the race, and I didn't realise my pit board was showing remaining laps+1 T_T

This was my third race on the 600, and every bit as exciting as the last two.  Its a bit sad to come in last place, not including those who crashed out, but I can only move up from here!

2015 Tsukuba CBR Dream Cup Race 3 Report

Race result

Qualifiers 

33rd
1:12.891

Race 

28th

1:12.305

Practice

Practice on Friday was a bit hectic.  5 minutes before my first session it started raining, but I still had my dry tires on.  So I tried a couple laps and gave up after my front started slipping.

Then the second session was only partially wet so I went out on dry tires again and just as it started to seem dry and I was picking up the pace a MASSIVE downpour came for about 5 minutes.  They restarted the session but I didn't have enough energy or time to put on my rain tires.  

All in all a bad day.

Qualifer

I've been going over some of my issues with Iobe-san from i-factory and he has been recommending a tank pad to help me use my lower body better.  I gave it a try during the qualifiers but the new position it put me in made it harder to ride forward on the bike, so I decided to take it off for the race.  I'll give it a try during practice some other time.

Was 33rd in qualifiers and was worried for a second that I might not pass qualifiers.  I knew my time wasn't good and I had a bad feeling on the bike.  The last time I seriously rode was the TT race 3 weeks ago and I couldn't get back into the grove well.

Race

 I was able to get a good start!

Starting from last position I gained a couple spots right off the bat and was able to hold most of them off for the rest of the race!

It was a great battle experience and I constantly put out low 1:12s so I'm happy with the race overall.

During the race I kept understeering in the first hairpin and I think I might be riding too far back on the bike.  I'm going to try a new spring setting later, but I have another track day event tomorrow.  So for now I'll just try riding more forward

Thank you to Mako and Key for always being there for me!

2015 Tsukuba Dream Cup Race 2 Report

Race result

Qualifiers 

34th 

1:12.311

Race 

31st 

1:12.656

Practice

I've been pretty nervous about this race since a couple weeks ago I did not qualify for race 1 and had to watch the whole race from the stands.  That shock gave me the motivation to push harder and try new things to get my time up.

It was pretty difficult to get to this point but on Friday I had a breakthrough!  I fixed my body positioning and my riding line and jumped into 1:12 zone!  Only going up from here.

Race day: Qualifers

A little nervous but excited for qualifiers.  Just yesterday I put out my best time of 12.76 and was able to consistently get under 13 seconds, so I felt confident that everything would be alright.

I pushed and pushed slowly working my way up in time until I got a 12.3! Looked down at my lap timer and thought, now I can get a 11 second lap time "let's do this!". 

Approached the first hairpin with more confidence, let go of the brake early and..... lowside!

I have a feeling my suspension bottomed out and I carried too much speed at the apex.  Need to work on my suspension settings now that I can ride at this new pace.

So I had to replace some parts and build a new windscreen. 

Mako and Key -> お疲れさまです Thank you for your hard work.

Key hard at work to fix things.  We concentrating too much on fixing the bike that I forgot about the race briefing...... which came with a $50/¥5000 fine.  Need to be careful next time because it is a pretty serious offence to miss the race briefing.  In some cases they can disqualify you from the race....

Race day: Race

The race went well in my mind.  I was able to maintain a good pace, have a close battle with another rider, and I finished safely.  I know that my racing career is only moving up from here, and I learned a lot this weekend.

Thank you to my sponsors and to everyone who encouraged me and helped me get through this!