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!

2015 Tsukuba Championship Race 1

Day before the race:

During practice on the day before the race I was able to get two consistent laps of my new best time.  I tested A LOT of new suspension settings and collected data on what feels right for me and what helps me put out a good time. I rode 5 sessions so by the end of the day was pretty beat and couldn't get consitent laps in the last session.

              

Then just before my last session I realise my brake line has air in it and attempt to bleed the line.  When putting back on the reservoir cap it seems like there has been a gap letting air in and fluid out! So at the end of the day I try changing my master cylinder and hose to a new one.

....and  I end up braking both the old brake hose and new the one, when trying to tighten the hose to the banjo.... T_T

I talked to Iobe-san from I-factory and he told me that the aluminum banjo I was using are weak and can easily break when you try to torque them... 

Luckily for me Iobe-san was generous enough to let me work on my bike at the I-factory shop, and went out of his way to bring me a stainless steel hose/banjo from his garage.

Thank you for always looking out for me Iobe-san! いつもお世話になります。本当に助かりました。 m( _ _)m

Race day:

It looks like qualifiers are going to be in the wet so we put rain tires on my spare wheels, and prepped the bike for wet conditions.

Checking out the session before mine, and see that the ground is almost dry.... what should we do!

By the time qualifiers came up, the ground was about 98% dry, but everyone was already on their rain tires, except one guy.  So... at least the playing field was level to some extent.  By the end of qualifiers almost everyone burned through the right side of their rear tire, including myself... there goes 2万円 ($200).... (泣

Sadly, I dropped out in qualifiers by about 0.8 seconds.  The qualifiers were split into two groups and since the first group had different conditions than us, the grid was chosen in an alternating pattern (group 2 then group 1) rather than absolute time. 

It was my first time using rain tires in a dry condition like that, so I feel it was a good experience.  You cannot have success without failure and this experience will help give me more motivation to move forward!  Can't wait until next race!

My riding over the past two years

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。

Optimised Nissan Caravan

I finally upgraded my Kei-van to a Nissan caravan and then while resting my collarbone decked it out with a wood floor and shelving.  I guess you could say I didn't rest as much as I should've been?  Anyway, it's space saving, optimised, and awesome!

2015 Race Bike

For a while I've been thinking about what bike design I should do, one that won't be too expensive but couldn't decide on anything.  So I decided to just paint the whole bike black, before it was black and white.

Once it was all black it somehow struck me, that putting the Ghana flag on the bike could be a cool idea.  The black star would serve as a good contrast connecting with the all black theme and the colors are vibrant and catch your eye.

I also figured that I can flaunt my heritage a little bit.  Being an American, child of a black African and white American, living in Tokyo Japan racing motorcycles is a pretty niche category so why not show it off a little :-D

I can't say it was good that I crashed an dislocated my collarbone, but it did free up a few weekends to finish this project.  I guess it wasn't as bad a recovery as I envisioned :).