No shit. I didn't realize anyone got hurt in that race. The camera lost laps 2 & 3 I think. One of those laps a guy right in front of me ran it off the outside of the bus stop over the burm. I wonder if it's the same guy. I had come up to them, I think 5, 6, & 7 nose to tail and pulled up alongside 7th coming out of club corner but he wasn't having any of it, closed the door and then overcooked it onto the bus stop. I thought to myself, "Yep, there it is. The male ego. Wasn't gonna have that p_ssy pink take away 7th place from him." Stupid. It's the first round, and you're riding in f_cking Clubman. Who gives a sh_t about collecting Clubman trophies? Just score some points so next time you're not back there with all the FasterThanYou's who think they're gonna win it in T1.
Like Roytman, that dude should have won this race going away. All he had to do was look at the practice times and he'd see he's a second a lap faster than anyone else out there. I think he spanked everyone in T1 around the outside, but when he saw he was in 6th or 5th or somewhere up there where he knows the leader's not getting away he should've just taken some off and cruised for a lap or two, size people up and don't force anything. Now's he gotta do it all over again at the next round. And he packs his shit up and goes home after half a lap. Stupid.
Ernie really said it best, just chillax and be cool. AFM's all about points and finishing races. I saw where you were gridded, up at the front in most of your races. Ahead of Chris F_cking Siglin in one race I think. Well there it is, if you're a novice the formula's very simple - score solid points at every round, make incremental improvements, and your second or third year you're a Neil Atterbury or a Michael Boardman. It's like, do people not look at past years' race results? Alot of these guys who we would look at today and think, "That f_cker's fast," if you go back 3 years, they're not running at the front. I don't know why I always use Neil as an example, he's just a guy that if you look at him today, sure, he's not in the Sarros/Siglin/Call/Earnest/etc realm, but he's a fast motherf_cker. But if you look at his lap times over the years you just see steady improvement, and if you go back 3 years he's 10 seconds off the pace. Go back 4 years and Berto's not in the top 10 a lot of times. But you look at him today and you think, "That's a fast motherf_cker." Well, how did they get to be that way? It wasn't by crashing out of Clubman races.
That's a very good assesment. I'm usually the careful passer and I'm all about safety first. I've been working on more aggressive passing lately and have been reaping great benefits. In practice I got placed in group 2 because it was my first time with the AFM. I bumped up to 3 and should've been in 4 but they said it was full. All day I'd pass people on the inside and scrub speed towards the outside of the track. Earlier that day in practice I actually practiced alternate lines through that corner and hit those nasty bumps on the outside and knew they weren't a good line.
During the race though, my plan was to pick through traffic then just ride my ride (I hit 57s in practice but I was down in the 53s last weekend and the weekend before, it's just in group 3 people were running 2:05s and there was a lot of traffic in critical areas like the s curves, killing my laptimes). I was gridded towards the back because AFM doesn't grid by practice laptimes (like WSMC does), so I wanted to get a good start. I should've been more patient, knowing I have 6 laps to pick through slower traffic. I got a great start and passed like 5 people on the outside of 1. I was in 4th place at that point. Passed another guy on the brakes into turn 3 and was in 3rd. The two guys in front of me were running very slowly through cotton corners, more than 50% off my normal pace there, and their lines were sketchy (especially the guy in the lead, he looked confused, while the guy behind him was trying too hard). I decided to pass them both after the grapevine before truck stop. I usually only pass one person there, if the delta is significant (they're way slower) but in this case I figured they were both way slower. Then the guy in 2nd went for the pass too, so I took an even more inside line and got on the gas a bit more so that they wouldn't take me out diving for the apex of truck stop. I was planning on scrubbing that speed midcorner and using more track on the exit. Unfortunately I was at max lean when I hit those giant bumps on the edge of the exit. They tucked my front and I tried to save it. It caught traction for a second but then I was in the dirt still leaned over so it slid out again.
Obviously in hindsight, I should've just waited to pass going into bus stop or even waited til riverside, where I'm really strong. I had so much time and should've gone for the easy pass. I challenged myself and I didn't mis-calculate or make a critical error, I simply used real estate that wasn't usable at lean angle on stock suspension. I beat myself in that race, it was all me.
My first WSMC weekend, I also started in 3rd place and took 2 laps to pick apart the two guys upfront but they were much faster than these two guys were. That's the ironic thing, if the 1st and 2nd place guys were going well through cotton corners, I'd have never went for the pass where I did.
I learned to take different notes on my track map going forward, assesing passing viability and taking into account delta and number of riders passed. I also learned to be a bit more patient, especially in a race that has people of varying pace and talent, no need to go gung ho from the beginning. If this was a race with folks running 51s to 53s, then I'd have had the right game plane to not wait and pass whenever possible.
Thank goodness I'm completely unscathed, just a bit sore. The bike's actually ok too, just needs plastics, rebuilt brembo mc and a clipon that was bent. The gear took a beating though, since the bike was on top of me most of the slide, my leathers look like they went through a giant cheeze grinder.
I really wanted to race Open GP and Open Superbike, that's where you learn, running with the fast guys. This race was just supposed to be like a regular track session, go out and ride your ride. I'll start at the back of the pack at Infineon and I'll be patient about picking folks apart for the whole 6 laps.
still at work and cant watch 
