It's been a little while...
Lessee... Amazon contest, first. Drained out with a workman-like pitch, not exciting enough for the pool of folks who review such things. I don't think I'll enter this contest again next year, it's too much like "American Idol for Writers". For what it's worth, none of the writers I know who entered made it past the pitch/review stage.
Okay, now to the motorcycle racing. March races at Arroyo were cold, and I was even colder. I was as bad as I ever was the start of an Amateur season, at 1:17 pace, frustrated as all-get-out, not feeling the traction, and showing it in my laptimes. DFL in every race but one. Ugh, that was harsh.
April races were only slightly better. I ran off the track in one race, just screaming in my helmet, mad that I blew braking so badly - my glove pinched my throttle, and I tried to brake with the throttle open. This is a setup issue, normally fixed by relocating the perch (mount), if there isn't lever adjustment left. I chose to sulk over it instead of fixing it... another really crappy weekend.
So, it's good to have friends. C-Bass (Sebastian), my pit-mate for the season crashed last fall, also. Both of us had a really bad start to this season, and it was entirely due to lack of confidence. The track owner in New Mexico would rather have both of us competitive and happy than not, and so we were able to rent the track (C-Bass and I) for some laps with the owner last Monday. With a little 'push' from the track owner, I made some suspension geometry adjustments that helped a lot, too. Only a few laps into it, on a warm April day, and both C-Bass and I were suddenly in the 1:15's, and I got down into the 1:13's. Hallelujah, and pass the ammo, Brother.
May races were much better. Now I can be mad at myself for mental 'race management' issues - failing to block one turn in a race I led from the green flag resulted in getting passed on the last lap without enough track left to catch up again. That got me mad, but in a different way, encouraging me to flog the bike. This had a really cool effect: I really began to feel the tires again, and the suspension action, and began seriously putting power down to drive out of corners while still leaned over - all things you HAVE to do to go fast. I haven't seen the laptimes from that last race yet, but I think I may have equaled my personal best.
This makes me look forward to next month.
I'll probably do a trackday in Pahrump, Nevada (Spring Mountain Motorsports Park) in late May, to keep the feeling current.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Monday, February 2, 2009
Feb 2nd Entry - ABNA Madness
Whew.
Seriously. Getting Specialist Sparks ready for the ABNA was a serious drag through broken glass, barbed wire, and antipersonnel mines. Okay, it was just painful.
I started three weeks ago with a MS that was 91,000 words, but only two acts of the story. I brought in some material I had from the sequel - completely unedited - for the third act (my friend Terry Mixon suggested a while back I use the traditional screenwriting three-act format. I've used the three-times rule in a lot of the subplots, but now applied it directly as the macro-plot). I added 23,000 words doing that.
Then, I added 4,000 more, for the 'pinch scenes', where I remind you, the reader, that there's a threat brewing over the horizon (in this case, in the Southern Hemisphere...) and that rust never sleeps... I won't ruin the story for you. This left me at 114,900 words.
The genre - Action/Adventure - wants less than 100,000 words, as close to 90,000 as a first-time novelist (I have no prior sales to point to to justify a longer book). This caused me to have to edit...
I lost about 2,000 words right off the bat in kicking out unneeded or too-heavy-handed-repetition-of-a-theme scenes. Yeah, we know Sandy's a great soldier, one scene's enough, not three... that sort of thing.
I then got painful, and got rid of some cherished scenes developing a relationship between Kate and Sandy, and trimmed even more from two really key monologues. That was painful, because they were strong, but the story still stands with weaker monologues.
Feeling bad, I then shifted the attack to wordcount, and started trimming descriptive clauses. Stuff that really wasn't needed - characters looking at scenery, wondering about inconsequential stuff. Figure I lost about 9 words a page that way.
Next, a purely mechanical attack on passive voice and contractions. I also broke up complex, multi-clause (run on?) sentences, making them no more than three, mostly two, clauses long. This lowered the Fleisch readability score a bit, too. I finished with 1% passive-voice: there are some phrases you cannot, especially in dialogue, make active. These include "the formation was dismissed", if you don't want to spend words on who led the formation (think a class graduation - the leader isn't part of the story), and "Sandy was shot". Oh well.
This got me down to 99,400 words.
More painful elides and minor scene/sentence edits.
98,700.
Then I got to write a bio, pitch, synopsis, anectdote, and other impedimentia for the contest.
The pitch was tough. This would cut the contest entries by a factor of 20 - from 10,000 possible entries to 500. I did my best to answer the points they asked for - and spent less on the synopsis than I might have. I also used the pronoun "I" in the pitch, something most other people avoided - but they wanted to know my motivation and qualifications for writing a novel, and who I aimed it at.
After the submission period's over, I'll post up the pitch here.
Anyway, after the game yesterday (there was a game? The Superbowl...), I hovered over my keyboard, and at 10:00 AZ time, got my entry into the 2009 ABNA contest in.
Whew.
A drag through rocky riverbeds, thornbushes, and pine forests. But I'm done... now I just get to wait until 16 March when I find out if the pitch was good enough.
More later...
Seriously. Getting Specialist Sparks ready for the ABNA was a serious drag through broken glass, barbed wire, and antipersonnel mines. Okay, it was just painful.
I started three weeks ago with a MS that was 91,000 words, but only two acts of the story. I brought in some material I had from the sequel - completely unedited - for the third act (my friend Terry Mixon suggested a while back I use the traditional screenwriting three-act format. I've used the three-times rule in a lot of the subplots, but now applied it directly as the macro-plot). I added 23,000 words doing that.
Then, I added 4,000 more, for the 'pinch scenes', where I remind you, the reader, that there's a threat brewing over the horizon (in this case, in the Southern Hemisphere...) and that rust never sleeps... I won't ruin the story for you. This left me at 114,900 words.
The genre - Action/Adventure - wants less than 100,000 words, as close to 90,000 as a first-time novelist (I have no prior sales to point to to justify a longer book). This caused me to have to edit...
I lost about 2,000 words right off the bat in kicking out unneeded or too-heavy-handed-repetition-of-a-theme scenes. Yeah, we know Sandy's a great soldier, one scene's enough, not three... that sort of thing.
I then got painful, and got rid of some cherished scenes developing a relationship between Kate and Sandy, and trimmed even more from two really key monologues. That was painful, because they were strong, but the story still stands with weaker monologues.
Feeling bad, I then shifted the attack to wordcount, and started trimming descriptive clauses. Stuff that really wasn't needed - characters looking at scenery, wondering about inconsequential stuff. Figure I lost about 9 words a page that way.
Next, a purely mechanical attack on passive voice and contractions. I also broke up complex, multi-clause (run on?) sentences, making them no more than three, mostly two, clauses long. This lowered the Fleisch readability score a bit, too. I finished with 1% passive-voice: there are some phrases you cannot, especially in dialogue, make active. These include "the formation was dismissed", if you don't want to spend words on who led the formation (think a class graduation - the leader isn't part of the story), and "Sandy was shot". Oh well.
This got me down to 99,400 words.
More painful elides and minor scene/sentence edits.
98,700.
Then I got to write a bio, pitch, synopsis, anectdote, and other impedimentia for the contest.
The pitch was tough. This would cut the contest entries by a factor of 20 - from 10,000 possible entries to 500. I did my best to answer the points they asked for - and spent less on the synopsis than I might have. I also used the pronoun "I" in the pitch, something most other people avoided - but they wanted to know my motivation and qualifications for writing a novel, and who I aimed it at.
After the submission period's over, I'll post up the pitch here.
Anyway, after the game yesterday (there was a game? The Superbowl...), I hovered over my keyboard, and at 10:00 AZ time, got my entry into the 2009 ABNA contest in.
Whew.
A drag through rocky riverbeds, thornbushes, and pine forests. But I'm done... now I just get to wait until 16 March when I find out if the pitch was good enough.
More later...
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Where did December go?
December, the holidays, flew by. November ended, with me not having a lot of words written on my NaNoWriMo project (Ilse). I shelved it for December, since work got busy.
Along with work, I had a lot of social engagements in the month (it's the holidays...), and I had a bike to repair for the races in Fontana, which were very early in January this year. My gym closed with only one week's notice, and I had to find a new one. I'm not sure I like the new place that much - it's about seven miles from my house, six miles further than the old one. My oldest daughter had dance performances all month long, which kept us running from place to place most evenings.
I haven't even had enough time to update my website!
What's new? Well, it's a new racing season. Please see my schedule page if you're curious about my plans. Also, Amazon has a new ABNA contest, and I'm rearranging SP4 Sparks to enter into the contest - I have only a few days' free time this month to get that done in.
Should I fail to get my entry into the ABNA in time, I'll post the story online.
What else? Races at Fontana! It was a hectic, and tragic weekend. See the Results page for the laborious details.
The Kids go back to school next week - can't quite come soon enough (sorry, Kids) for Mom and Dad. It's a good thing they like school - all three are A students - and a return to normalcy will be much appreciated.
Along with work, I had a lot of social engagements in the month (it's the holidays...), and I had a bike to repair for the races in Fontana, which were very early in January this year. My gym closed with only one week's notice, and I had to find a new one. I'm not sure I like the new place that much - it's about seven miles from my house, six miles further than the old one. My oldest daughter had dance performances all month long, which kept us running from place to place most evenings.
I haven't even had enough time to update my website!
What's new? Well, it's a new racing season. Please see my schedule page if you're curious about my plans. Also, Amazon has a new ABNA contest, and I'm rearranging SP4 Sparks to enter into the contest - I have only a few days' free time this month to get that done in.
Should I fail to get my entry into the ABNA in time, I'll post the story online.
What else? Races at Fontana! It was a hectic, and tragic weekend. See the Results page for the laborious details.
The Kids go back to school next week - can't quite come soon enough (sorry, Kids) for Mom and Dad. It's a good thing they like school - all three are A students - and a return to normalcy will be much appreciated.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Wow, it's November, and...
It's National Novel Write Month (NaNoWriMo).
It's been a really tough month for me at work, and I really worry about the viability of my employer. Others in the industry aren't doing real well. This is distracting me quite a bit, and I'm afraid I'm not going to get 50,000 words of the proto-novel Ilse done in November. I do have 13,000 and a few thousand of another novel underway, though. I'll work on it when I can.
SP4 Sparks will be my entry into the new Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest, coming up on Feb 2nd. I'll have made it into a three-act plotline, and I'll have to cut a bunch of words in order to fit some words from the sequel in. It won't be super-hard to do - I have enough time. I think this (the new ABNA) was what I was holding out for (subconsciously) with this story. Wish me luck!
It's November, and at least one of the organizations I race with has promoted me to Expert (I expect a letter in the mail from the other sometime this week). This is really cool, since all my writing needs is another distraction ;). Seriously, I need to have the bike repaired and painted by Jan 3rd, my first race as an Expert, at Fontana, California (AutoClub Speedway).
All the parts are ordered for the bike, I need to get some mechanical repair done (a broken frame slider bolt extracted, and a broken swingarm spool lug ground off and a new one TiG welded on).
Then I need to get busy with fiberglass, filler, and, ultimately, new paint.
And I get to order a new helmet and leathers - the leathers not due to crash damage, but to me losing over 80 lbs since January last. This is the scary thing for me - I have the cash, but I'd rather KEEP the cash in this environment. See what I said above about employment...
Buy a novel, ye Agents who lurk. Sparks is a good one.
It's been a really tough month for me at work, and I really worry about the viability of my employer. Others in the industry aren't doing real well. This is distracting me quite a bit, and I'm afraid I'm not going to get 50,000 words of the proto-novel Ilse done in November. I do have 13,000 and a few thousand of another novel underway, though. I'll work on it when I can.
SP4 Sparks will be my entry into the new Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest, coming up on Feb 2nd. I'll have made it into a three-act plotline, and I'll have to cut a bunch of words in order to fit some words from the sequel in. It won't be super-hard to do - I have enough time. I think this (the new ABNA) was what I was holding out for (subconsciously) with this story. Wish me luck!
It's November, and at least one of the organizations I race with has promoted me to Expert (I expect a letter in the mail from the other sometime this week). This is really cool, since all my writing needs is another distraction ;). Seriously, I need to have the bike repaired and painted by Jan 3rd, my first race as an Expert, at Fontana, California (AutoClub Speedway).
All the parts are ordered for the bike, I need to get some mechanical repair done (a broken frame slider bolt extracted, and a broken swingarm spool lug ground off and a new one TiG welded on).
Then I need to get busy with fiberglass, filler, and, ultimately, new paint.
And I get to order a new helmet and leathers - the leathers not due to crash damage, but to me losing over 80 lbs since January last. This is the scary thing for me - I have the cash, but I'd rather KEEP the cash in this environment. See what I said above about employment...
Buy a novel, ye Agents who lurk. Sparks is a good one.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Well, I was riding my motorcycle... until I wasn't
What an expensive weekend.
First, let me apologize for not posting in a month... I did fairly well in my September races, and my weightloss has been proceeding apace into October.
First lap in practice last weekend for racing, I highsided at 15 MPH. A highside is a low-speed crash where the wheels of the bike become out of line, then the slide of the rear wheel is arrested - usually by regaining traction - and the torque vectors produced by the wheels try to precess (turn around each other). Violently. This typically throws the rider some distance forward, while the bike flips over.
My apex was about 12 feet.
I now have a 'permanent injury', a type-III separation of my left shoulder, which translates to a bump on my shoulder where the collarbone ends, and practically not much else. A whole lot of pain this week and next while the blood from the internal bleeding goes somewhere (goes necrotic inside tissue and then is ultimately cannibalized, but you probably didn't want to think about that...).
I have about $700 in damage to the bike, more if I want to repaint it. Plus a $600 helmet to replace.
It's a season-ender for sure. My next races are likely to be in 2009 as an Expert, with WERA, at Fontana, the 25th of January. We'll see what the blown shoulder feels like then - it'll likely be my first time back on the racebike (it's not street-legal...). If I can't ride or stand to brake from 165 MPH on that track, it'll be a REALLY expensive way to find out; maybe I'll try a trackday in Phoenix in early Jan.
The economy sucks, you don't need me to tell you. I promised my wife a new washer/dryer, and I have no pile of cash to do both - appliances and bike. She wins on this one, so I may not make Fontana. Such is life.
The way out, of course, is to supplement my income. I've been trying to do that (you may recall :)) by selling novels.
Hell's Own has been roundly ignored by the latest agency - you try to be a nice guy and wait out the 16 weeks they ask for before hounding them - and before you know it, four months have gone. I may try to put it on Amazon's Kindle list, or something else, I don't have a firm plan for it now.
I signed up for National Novel Write Month (NaNoWriMo), and will try to complete 100,000 words of Ilse in the 30 days. This is the story of a Wendish/Saxon girl and her brother, on the eve of the Northern Crusades. Ilse commits suicide with a family heirloom (a black dagger), and immediately comes to regret it. With her brother's best friend, Ilse and her brother agree to return the heirloom to it's rightful place - in it's original world. Opening a tale of vast panorama, the novel shows how the fugitives from a harsh culture find a place in the sweep of history rushing toward war and revolt against the established order of an old, old world.
Sounds like fun to write. It'll be in my usual style, with elements of sex, tragedy, comedy, humanity, betrayal, trust, redemption, death, life, and all kinds of good stuff to keep pages turning.
Darned thing better sell.
That's it for now,
dave the one-shouldered (I jest)
First, let me apologize for not posting in a month... I did fairly well in my September races, and my weightloss has been proceeding apace into October.
First lap in practice last weekend for racing, I highsided at 15 MPH. A highside is a low-speed crash where the wheels of the bike become out of line, then the slide of the rear wheel is arrested - usually by regaining traction - and the torque vectors produced by the wheels try to precess (turn around each other). Violently. This typically throws the rider some distance forward, while the bike flips over.
My apex was about 12 feet.
I now have a 'permanent injury', a type-III separation of my left shoulder, which translates to a bump on my shoulder where the collarbone ends, and practically not much else. A whole lot of pain this week and next while the blood from the internal bleeding goes somewhere (goes necrotic inside tissue and then is ultimately cannibalized, but you probably didn't want to think about that...).
I have about $700 in damage to the bike, more if I want to repaint it. Plus a $600 helmet to replace.
It's a season-ender for sure. My next races are likely to be in 2009 as an Expert, with WERA, at Fontana, the 25th of January. We'll see what the blown shoulder feels like then - it'll likely be my first time back on the racebike (it's not street-legal...). If I can't ride or stand to brake from 165 MPH on that track, it'll be a REALLY expensive way to find out; maybe I'll try a trackday in Phoenix in early Jan.
The economy sucks, you don't need me to tell you. I promised my wife a new washer/dryer, and I have no pile of cash to do both - appliances and bike. She wins on this one, so I may not make Fontana. Such is life.
The way out, of course, is to supplement my income. I've been trying to do that (you may recall :)) by selling novels.
Hell's Own has been roundly ignored by the latest agency - you try to be a nice guy and wait out the 16 weeks they ask for before hounding them - and before you know it, four months have gone. I may try to put it on Amazon's Kindle list, or something else, I don't have a firm plan for it now.
I signed up for National Novel Write Month (NaNoWriMo), and will try to complete 100,000 words of Ilse in the 30 days. This is the story of a Wendish/Saxon girl and her brother, on the eve of the Northern Crusades. Ilse commits suicide with a family heirloom (a black dagger), and immediately comes to regret it. With her brother's best friend, Ilse and her brother agree to return the heirloom to it's rightful place - in it's original world. Opening a tale of vast panorama, the novel shows how the fugitives from a harsh culture find a place in the sweep of history rushing toward war and revolt against the established order of an old, old world.
Sounds like fun to write. It'll be in my usual style, with elements of sex, tragedy, comedy, humanity, betrayal, trust, redemption, death, life, and all kinds of good stuff to keep pages turning.
Darned thing better sell.
That's it for now,
dave the one-shouldered (I jest)
Monday, September 1, 2008
One month later...
August was something of a quiet month. I had the races at Fontana (just saying the name brings a smile to my face...), and some dirt riding.
Ach, dirt riding. I have this big YZ426 motocrosser I tried to convert into a motard, but the darn thing is a bike-shaped money pit. It's not ready to race this weekend...
Whihc brings me to this weekend. Back to racing at ASMA after the summer break, and the Unlimited Superbike (ULSB) Amateur Class Championship is mine to win - Jim Wolkens and I are tied at 130 points apeice. Whichever of us finishes ahead of the other two out of the next three races will be the class champion - to me this is about as exciting as it gets.
Doing what I can to improve my chances, I've been in the gym doing cardio a lot this month, over 45 minutes a day, with light weight training, a lot of core-muscle stuff. I lost a whopping four pounds in August, which isn't getting me to my overall goal - but - I converted 9 lbs to muscle, improved my oxygen-transport (cardio) score, and lowered my body-fat percentage another two and a half percent. I'm running on a pretty high level of resistance on the elliptical for 45 min, and have a LOT of energy. This really looks good for me racing - I should have a lot of reserve and able to push hard (harder than my fellow racers, I hope) in the last few laps. It'll still be over 100 degrees in southern New Mexico (and it'll still be at 4100 feet) this weekend.
Back to the literary front - the last agency I sent Hell's Own to revised their response time to 12-15 weeks. Mid Sept will be 12 weeks, when I expect further rejection :)
SP4 Sparks will have to be my Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest entry this year, and if so, I need to get on my horse and alter the story some, bring it more in line with the Action-Adventure genre. Yeah, I slacked all summer, kinda starting a bunch of projects (novels) but not really doing much on them. So - get busy, Dave...
I'll post next weekend after the races.
dave
Ach, dirt riding. I have this big YZ426 motocrosser I tried to convert into a motard, but the darn thing is a bike-shaped money pit. It's not ready to race this weekend...
Whihc brings me to this weekend. Back to racing at ASMA after the summer break, and the Unlimited Superbike (ULSB) Amateur Class Championship is mine to win - Jim Wolkens and I are tied at 130 points apeice. Whichever of us finishes ahead of the other two out of the next three races will be the class champion - to me this is about as exciting as it gets.
Doing what I can to improve my chances, I've been in the gym doing cardio a lot this month, over 45 minutes a day, with light weight training, a lot of core-muscle stuff. I lost a whopping four pounds in August, which isn't getting me to my overall goal - but - I converted 9 lbs to muscle, improved my oxygen-transport (cardio) score, and lowered my body-fat percentage another two and a half percent. I'm running on a pretty high level of resistance on the elliptical for 45 min, and have a LOT of energy. This really looks good for me racing - I should have a lot of reserve and able to push hard (harder than my fellow racers, I hope) in the last few laps. It'll still be over 100 degrees in southern New Mexico (and it'll still be at 4100 feet) this weekend.
Back to the literary front - the last agency I sent Hell's Own to revised their response time to 12-15 weeks. Mid Sept will be 12 weeks, when I expect further rejection :)
SP4 Sparks will have to be my Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest entry this year, and if so, I need to get on my horse and alter the story some, bring it more in line with the Action-Adventure genre. Yeah, I slacked all summer, kinda starting a bunch of projects (novels) but not really doing much on them. So - get busy, Dave...
I'll post next weekend after the races.
dave
Monday, August 4, 2008
Well, it's been a little while. July was a slow month...
Not really. It only seemed that way.
First, on the literary front: I've sent Hell's Own Ride to another agency (one declined as too busy). I expect a rejection in two more weeks :)
I've started another novel, called Ilse, about a Wendish girl and her brother, whose father and uncle are trying to get them to blend into Saxon Germany on the eve of the Northern Crusades... but historical fiction it's not. Ilse makes a bad decision and kills herself with a family heirloom - that won't let her die. It's the beginning of a fantasy epic novel, about 190,000 words. You know how bad I am at early estimates of size, so... we'll see.
Okay, on the personal front, I'm down about 55 lbs on this weight-loss adventure. That's translated into some direct performance on the race track.
July races at Vegas were hot, hot, hot. My boss from Chicago and his nephew were visiting Vegas, and they came out to watch and offer moral support... very cool. I took fourth, ninth, and first in A-Superbike, A-Superstock, and HW Senior Superbike.
The bike had started making a rhythmic chunking sound - usually a sign of chain stretch. But what caused the chain to stretch? I changed the bearings in both wheels and the chain and sprockets - noise fixed. The bearings weren't terribly worn-feeling to my hand (but we're talking about 160 HP to a 10mm-wide by 20-mm outer bearing), but I tossed them. The bike feels way more stiff - and paradoxically feels like it's sliding more (because it is stiffer). That's a neat feeling, and yeah, I guess riding in the dirt helps me feel more comfortable when it happens on the racetrack.
So, the bike's nice and tight again, and I go off to Fontana - 50 lbs lighter than when I sucked wind there back in January and decided I HAD to lose weight. Wow, what a difference...
I couldn't afford practice time there this weekend. As it was, it was a $670 weekend between diesel & gas, room, and entries. If I'd practiced one day, it would have cost me another $270 for trackday fee, plus $410 for tires... two days, and I'd have been around $1500 total. Not really in my budget right now, because of the 426 motocrosser/motard project I committed to in June.
So... no practice. Sunday morning, there was water on the track from a leaky sprinkler, and we didn't have the first practice session. Only one practice session (made slightly longer, thanks WERA), and I was running 1:43 laptimes - two seconds faster than in January.
Ugh. Not much hope... the track felt strange, slick to me, no grip. My pitmate Tiras threw a digital pressure gauge on my tires, and suggested I add a pound to each. Thanks, Ti, that was the ticket...
First race, A-Superbike. I suddenly had the sensation of speed drop away from me, and I got a good launch - up into the first grid (it was a 'gap start, meaning there was a gap in the grid between the two classes on the track), and from there, it was an exercise in getting used to sliding leaving corners on my old tires. Something clicked for me, and I began to drag knee around the track - a good sign that my head is extended and shoulders out. Once again, the bike became alive under me, and the sliding predictable... by the third lap, I think I have figured out I'm braking too early for the turn 12 - and get passed on the brakes as I started to move my braking marker up (brake later). Yep, I was braking too early.
I couldn't recover the grid spot - made a run for it in two laps, and some debris (cones) on the track let me close right up under a waving yellow (no passing allowed if it's waving), but just couldn't steal the spot back.
Back in the pits, I see I ran a 1:39 in this race, then see I had four very consistent 1:39's. I'm a bit happier.
One race to rest before my next start, then I'm out again. This was A-Superstock, and I'm pumped up, excited by the improvement in laptimes last race. The flag goes up, and I'm WAY deep in the front by the turn-3 chicane. Third gear through the chicane, and I'm into fifth by the turn 5/6 carusel, and I slot in nose-to-tail, dragging knee hard, gassing hard in third, sliding the bike on the exit. By turn 12, I'm braking WAY deep, and THIS TIME I have the turn one chicane on the banking Figured Out.
Turn One. You're doing 160 MPH, looking at it... the secret is downshift early, point the bike to the bottom artificial curb, and bury the throttle while you dive down the banking, then muscle the bike through the chicane. I had the rear spinning all the way to turn three... wow. No sensation of speed, just accomplishment, and I finish this race in third, ahead of a few Experts (they're not in my race but in their own). Very consistent 1:38's - low 1:38's.
Immediately, I grid back up for my last race - HW SSB (over 40, over 749cc). When the flag goes up, I ran away with the race, and nearly caught the back of the Expert pack (this was a two-wave start, we started about 30 seconds behind the first wave) by the end of the race. I'm 14 seconds ahead of the next guy to cross the finish line. Consistent high 1:37's, and not at all bad - I'd like to be in the 1:36's, but that would have taken more practice and fresh tires.
But what it really means is, I am the points leader, with an insurmountable lead, for HW Sr Superbike, and an honest-to-goodness class champion. I will be promoted to Expert next season.
Back at Arroyo (ASMA), I am a threat in every class I'm in - but I lead the Unlimited Superbike class by one point. It's between me and Jim Wolkens - as long as we both finish fourth or better, whichever of us finishes in front of the other two of the next three weekends in that race wins the championship.
I WANT that championship - it'll have been one I really earned against very equal competition - three other racers as fast/faster as I am, and one pretty darned close.
I'll try to update again in two weeks.
Not really. It only seemed that way.
First, on the literary front: I've sent Hell's Own Ride to another agency (one declined as too busy). I expect a rejection in two more weeks :)
I've started another novel, called Ilse, about a Wendish girl and her brother, whose father and uncle are trying to get them to blend into Saxon Germany on the eve of the Northern Crusades... but historical fiction it's not. Ilse makes a bad decision and kills herself with a family heirloom - that won't let her die. It's the beginning of a fantasy epic novel, about 190,000 words. You know how bad I am at early estimates of size, so... we'll see.
Okay, on the personal front, I'm down about 55 lbs on this weight-loss adventure. That's translated into some direct performance on the race track.
July races at Vegas were hot, hot, hot. My boss from Chicago and his nephew were visiting Vegas, and they came out to watch and offer moral support... very cool. I took fourth, ninth, and first in A-Superbike, A-Superstock, and HW Senior Superbike.
The bike had started making a rhythmic chunking sound - usually a sign of chain stretch. But what caused the chain to stretch? I changed the bearings in both wheels and the chain and sprockets - noise fixed. The bearings weren't terribly worn-feeling to my hand (but we're talking about 160 HP to a 10mm-wide by 20-mm outer bearing), but I tossed them. The bike feels way more stiff - and paradoxically feels like it's sliding more (because it is stiffer). That's a neat feeling, and yeah, I guess riding in the dirt helps me feel more comfortable when it happens on the racetrack.
So, the bike's nice and tight again, and I go off to Fontana - 50 lbs lighter than when I sucked wind there back in January and decided I HAD to lose weight. Wow, what a difference...
I couldn't afford practice time there this weekend. As it was, it was a $670 weekend between diesel & gas, room, and entries. If I'd practiced one day, it would have cost me another $270 for trackday fee, plus $410 for tires... two days, and I'd have been around $1500 total. Not really in my budget right now, because of the 426 motocrosser/motard project I committed to in June.
So... no practice. Sunday morning, there was water on the track from a leaky sprinkler, and we didn't have the first practice session. Only one practice session (made slightly longer, thanks WERA), and I was running 1:43 laptimes - two seconds faster than in January.
Ugh. Not much hope... the track felt strange, slick to me, no grip. My pitmate Tiras threw a digital pressure gauge on my tires, and suggested I add a pound to each. Thanks, Ti, that was the ticket...
First race, A-Superbike. I suddenly had the sensation of speed drop away from me, and I got a good launch - up into the first grid (it was a 'gap start, meaning there was a gap in the grid between the two classes on the track), and from there, it was an exercise in getting used to sliding leaving corners on my old tires. Something clicked for me, and I began to drag knee around the track - a good sign that my head is extended and shoulders out. Once again, the bike became alive under me, and the sliding predictable... by the third lap, I think I have figured out I'm braking too early for the turn 12 - and get passed on the brakes as I started to move my braking marker up (brake later). Yep, I was braking too early.
I couldn't recover the grid spot - made a run for it in two laps, and some debris (cones) on the track let me close right up under a waving yellow (no passing allowed if it's waving), but just couldn't steal the spot back.
Back in the pits, I see I ran a 1:39 in this race, then see I had four very consistent 1:39's. I'm a bit happier.
One race to rest before my next start, then I'm out again. This was A-Superstock, and I'm pumped up, excited by the improvement in laptimes last race. The flag goes up, and I'm WAY deep in the front by the turn-3 chicane. Third gear through the chicane, and I'm into fifth by the turn 5/6 carusel, and I slot in nose-to-tail, dragging knee hard, gassing hard in third, sliding the bike on the exit. By turn 12, I'm braking WAY deep, and THIS TIME I have the turn one chicane on the banking Figured Out.
Turn One. You're doing 160 MPH, looking at it... the secret is downshift early, point the bike to the bottom artificial curb, and bury the throttle while you dive down the banking, then muscle the bike through the chicane. I had the rear spinning all the way to turn three... wow. No sensation of speed, just accomplishment, and I finish this race in third, ahead of a few Experts (they're not in my race but in their own). Very consistent 1:38's - low 1:38's.
Immediately, I grid back up for my last race - HW SSB (over 40, over 749cc). When the flag goes up, I ran away with the race, and nearly caught the back of the Expert pack (this was a two-wave start, we started about 30 seconds behind the first wave) by the end of the race. I'm 14 seconds ahead of the next guy to cross the finish line. Consistent high 1:37's, and not at all bad - I'd like to be in the 1:36's, but that would have taken more practice and fresh tires.
But what it really means is, I am the points leader, with an insurmountable lead, for HW Sr Superbike, and an honest-to-goodness class champion. I will be promoted to Expert next season.
Back at Arroyo (ASMA), I am a threat in every class I'm in - but I lead the Unlimited Superbike class by one point. It's between me and Jim Wolkens - as long as we both finish fourth or better, whichever of us finishes in front of the other two of the next three weekends in that race wins the championship.
I WANT that championship - it'll have been one I really earned against very equal competition - three other racers as fast/faster as I am, and one pretty darned close.
I'll try to update again in two weeks.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)