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 :)

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!

Tsukuba TT March 2015!

I decided to concentrate on only racing at Tsukuba this year, so I signed up for all 4 championship races and the Tsukuba TT in March.  Lately I've been crashing too much so it was a little rough getting back into the flow of things and I couldn't put out a good time during practice on Friday.  Was still 3 seconds away from my best time and struggling with the stiffness from resting my collarbone for so long.

Every time my pit neighbor Chihiro passed me on the track I tried to keep up to pick up pointers from her line and turn in point but it's always hard to keep up.  These kids are really amazing out here...

ちひろちゃんお疲れさまでした。ちひろちゃんとめいちゃんの二人の走り方をみていろいろ勉強になりました。ながく追いつけなかったが、頑張ってみた。

I came here today to practice mainly one thing, body positioning.  I have trouble turning properly because of poor line of sight and poor upper body movement, leaving too much pressure on my hands.  Made some notes and stuck them to the bike to remember what I need to do.

Come Saturday, time for qualifiers.  I got a lot of comments about my new bike design and it seems like everyone thinks its cool.

Glad it wasn't just me... かっこいいデザインだねと言われた、僕だけがそれ思うじゃなくてよかった　(汗

My first hairpin speed is painstakingly slow and the timing where I open the acceleration is a good 5m too late.  I tried to keep that in mind during the race and was able to shave a little bit of time here.  Still a long way to go.　Video is from qualifiers.  ビデオは予選から〜

五百部さんいつもいろいろ説明してくれたありがとうございます！いろんなアドバイスを受けてこれからも頭にいれて、意識して頑張って練習します。

Just before the race! 　いつもドキドキしてるね

As always I got a good start, passing several people fairly easily moving up from 21st to around 14th.  I was able to hold onto 17th place until the final lap, but finished 18th total and 16th in my class.  I've come a long way from my riding last year, no longer at the tail end of the race, moving up to the front!

This race was a good experience and I think really helped me get back into the groove of things after my recent crashes.  I came very close to my best time during the race, and I know I can push harder next practice!

Resultの写真とるのを忘れて、日比さんのFacebookからこの写真頂きましたw。

Tsukuba Race 4 and AFG Motosports sponsorship for 2015 !

The final race of the season for the Tsukuba Championship!

I was only able to participate in the last two CBR Enjoy Cup races this year but next year I'll be moving up to the CBR Dream Cup and Tourist Trophy NS2.

I was/am still healing from my injury back on 9/17 and hadn't ridden since the crash so I took work off on Friday and got back into the groove with some special practice sessions.  Spent the morning fixing up the bike, new exhaust and rear set, and made sure everything was in place.

However the front wheel felt really sluggish and my handling was terrible in the morning session so I reassembled the wheel and forks and gave it another go.

It felt a little better but I decided to work with the current setup during qualifiers and then decide what to do for the race depending on how that went.

The bike inspection at Tsukuba is quite hectic so this time we made sure to get the bottom fairing off before getting to the inspection area to save us some sweat, but carrying all that crap across the paddock is a pain in the butt.

Qualifiers went alright but the bike was still feeling sluggish on entry.  Every time I went for the apex the bike would go wide and just pushing the handles harder wasn't exactly getting me closer to the apex in a safe manner but causing my rear to push out every time I touched the throttle.

So last minute we took a chance and dropped the front another 2mm on top of the 7mm I did when upgrading my suspension at iFactory and added a half turn to the pre-load.  It was a bit of a gamble and would potentially cause the rear to get light on exit, but my current fear was going wide on every single turn.

Luckily it all worked out and the new settings felt great, and put me back in the lower 14 sec, upper 13 sec range from before the crash.  Riding faster always feels good, but I still have several seconds I can shave off with my current setup.

Key brought his bicycle-shop apron for the race :-D I'm guessing he dirtied his clothes last time around.  I'm glad he had the idea to drop the front of the bike down, even though I was nervous for the first lap of the race, not knowing exactly what setting I was riding since I had never tested it out.

I had a great start in the race!  I started 16th out of 17 on the grid but by the first corner was up to around 11th place.  Once I hit the first hairpin a couple people got under me and then at the chicane and 2nd hairpin a couple more putting me back at 15th place.

The whole race I fought with the guy in 14th, who had a Motobum decal bike.  I would get close to overtaking him, especially in the final corner which I was much faster in, but he would creep away in the chicane.

But just then! 3 laps before the end of the race I pass him on the front straight in front of everyone, but my whole team was busy recording lap times and putting the sign board up that they didn't get any pictures until then next lap when I had already been overtaken T_T

I kept on his tail for the remainder of the race and if there had been 1 more lap could've passed him again.

 Finished 15th out of 17 and had such an exciting race trying to get into 14th!

 

After my race I stayed to watch Fuji in his CBR Dream Cup debut, something I'm looking forward to for myself.

After the race I got good news from my sponsor AFG Motosports!
My sponsorship is going to be extended to 2015!  I'm looking forward to a good year racing in the CBR Dream Cup and TT NS2!

Post by AFG Motosports.