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AMA Grand Championships Recap – Day 2

Friday:

Morning practice went well. We made a gearing change and were in the groove, ready to go for qualifying. Eric lent us his EZ-Up which we put down on hot-pit lane. My dad and Doug moved everything we needed down there for the remainder of the day. Among the five qualifying sessions, four of them were part of back to back sessions; with each session lasting 15 minutes.

600 Superbike was first up for us. Mid-Ohio was using the big digital scoreboard for the first ten riders who went out (it didn't capture all the riders for some reason), so my dad, Doug, Eric, Gina and Dave could all see where Nik and I were sitting throughout the sessions. I went out on new tires and started to put in some laps. It was a bit difficult at first with the varying speeds of all the riders out on the track to get a clean lap, but I got down to a 1:33.1 which was the fastest I had gone yet around Mid-O, and good enough for 7th on the grid.

Among the top riders were Dane Westby (a very up and coming CMRA rider who did 1:20's his first time to Grattan) and Zac Chapman (another fast CMRA rider). There were a host of other fast riders, but these two were the guys to beat. Both were already into the 1:31 range, which was crazy fast. Last year here, 1:32's were winning times and now 1:31's were already being thrown down in qualifying. 1:31's are top-20 AMA Supersport times around Mid-Ohio, which needless to say, is pretty quick.

Some big names we had qualified ahead of included Chase Vivion (AMA 600 Shootout winner from last year), Chris Fillmore (AMA Supermoto Pro/relatively new but really fast roadracer), Sam Gaige and Matt Lapham (younger kid who has really made a name for himself this year with the help of Garry Hayes and Chris Knight).

750 Superbike was our next qualifier. I got down to a 1:32.8, qualifying again in 7th position out of 25 bikes. Chapman led the way on his 750, while Danny Kelsey (RPS guy who Marcus McBain was helping throughout the week) and Westby closed out the top three. Chapman was the first guy to crack into the 1:30's with a 1:30.6 on his 750.

Pro/Am 600 was the third qualifying session. To stay consistent, we qualified 7th again with a 1:32.5. Westby was now into the 1:30's with a 1:30.9. Zac was right on his heels and after the two of them, the rest was wide open. A little over a half a second faster and we would have qualified 3rd. The field was tight.

600 Superstock was next. By now I was starting to get tired and it showed in my times. I dropped back to a 1:32.8, qualifying 8th out of 29 riders. Westby led the way with another 1:30.9, but everyone else between he and ourselves were in the 1:32 range. Behind us, the next fastest guys were down in the 1:34's. Going just a touch faster would have yielded some big results in this group.

For 750 Superstock, we went back to the gearing we had come to the track with. While I couldn't definitively decide which gearing was better, I thought it was worth going back and trying it in this last session. The taller gearing seemed to work well in several areas, but it affected the wheelbase/geometry of the bike, which I didn't like. With the tires going and I about ready to call it a day, I was able to do a 1:32.3, confirming that this gearing was the better of the two. Now if we had only stayed with that setup in the earlier qualifying sessions, maybe we would have been several spots further up in the field. Regardless, our time put us yet again 7th on the grid, out of 24 riders. Among the riders ahead of us were Chapman, Dustin Dominguez (another extremely fast CMRA guy), Westby, Kelsey, Cory Burleson (last year's AMA Horizon Award winner) and Derek Wagnon.

Afterwards I was happy to be on the brink of 31's, but I still couldn't believe how much the pace had picked up from last year. 1:34's were good for 7th/8th in qualifying back then (which is what we did), and this year we were two seconds faster and in nearly the identical spot across the board. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. The weather conditions were great and riders aren't generally going to get slower. Tires improve, bikes get faster, but still. Two seconds is a significant amount of time. And however I tried to justify it, these CMRA guys were throwing the hammer down. The 7th and 8th positions on the grid were good enough for the 3rd row. I was hoping for the 2nd row, but the grids were in a 3/2/3/2 format.

We packed up and all headed out to dinner. We had two races on Saturday – 750 Superbike and 600 Superbike. It was our first set of races and we needed a couple good starts and fast laps ..

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 | POSTED AT: 8:00 AM
FILED UNDER: Race Reports