A good friend of mine brought up a dead elephant that used to sit on every table I ate at, used to hang on every wall I stared at. He reminded me on Saturday that no matter what we'd accomplished in racing over however long we managed to, it had all been eclipsed by the huge ball of flames we went out in almost two years ago. I faced him in awe of his perspective as he described the bus we not only got thrown under, "but which also had it's tires shot out and then was set ablaze." I looked down at the floor as he put his hand on my shoulder, apologizing for even going there, and I barely heard his next question, "So, how's your weekend going so far?"
Some say you can never go home again. That no win is like your first. Hell I bet some of those same people say you can't race a KTM Superduke, or maybe they'd even call a guy once named GoGo, "NoGo."
When I left racing I set out on a quest to become a photographer instead. Somewhere along that journey I learned the most vital part of an image is actually not it's focus, or it's color. It's the story it tells. We had a friend of mine, Brian Luce, come up from Santa Barbara to shoot video for us at Buttonwillow. He called me from the road, "Hey, so what's the story we're after anyway?" I told him "Just get yourself past the gate. You'll have more stories than you can handle."
Once I finally got myself past the gate, I found more than just stories. I found home again. I found old friends, long since faded from contact, who actually hadn't left after all. I found that while some trivial things had definitely changed, other things, the best things, never could. I was greeted with a very warm and genuine...
If a picture says a thousand words, this one says a million. The subjects are four AFM racers and the setting Buttonwillow sun. The guy on the right is a man of his word. He's the fastest of the bunch, but he didn't race one lap on Sunday. The guy on the left could own half of California if he wanted, but come Sunday afternoon - not the one championship he longed for most. Not this year at least. But he'll be back, most likely stronger. If the guy left of center looks confused here, you should have seen him in turn one on Sunday. He was almost impregnated by a hypodermic needle the size, and shape, of a KTM 990 Superduke after his 1098 died mid corner. And finally, the guy drying his finger in the setting sun? Well he must have ESP. Seventeen hours after this photo is taken he falls under the unorthodox attack of a Bulldog chasing a Duc across the back of our brand new set of Vanson leathers in one of the last turns of the Open Twins race. But he comes out on top, in the end, for now...
We showed up for Friday practice with a whole world of questions facing not only us as a team, and the KTM 990 Superduke as a race bike, but very quietly I had a few personal questions of my own. To begin with, I knew I could still ride, but I didn't know if I could really ride. And I knew this bike was gonna need some motivated coaxing to set a decent pace around a track I haven't really ridden since April of 06. Derek Lafontaine pretty much runs the whole Tri Valley Moto race program. He beat me to the track, with the Superduke, which meant he'd choose our pit spot. Shit. I'm the bashful one. It's pretty typical for me to sit in the back. Derek's my polar opposite though, which actually turned out to be a great part of this weekend.
I was shocked to see the Superduke when I first pulled up. The Leo Vince system looked high and tight, Reza Gohary's hand made custom Pro Fiberglass belly pan looked like a factory piece, and the graphics were incredible. Instead of layers of vinyl all set on top of each other, Derek had Chris Conley from Rub it Enterprises actually print out all our sponsor logos, and a virtual paint job, all on ONE sheet of vinyl. In just an hour he completely brought that bike to life.
In our first runs on Friday I thought we showed promise. This Superduke is hysterical to ride fast. I don't have enough security clearance to own the data on exactly what weird science Phil has performed to this bike's suspension. Comparing my first street rides a month ago, to now, it's obvious he's got days invested into this project. Phil's Aftershocks co-pilot, Jason Hahn, helped us at Buttonwillow by interpreting my feedback to Phil over the phone, then tweeking our suspension accordingly. Every answer Phil gave us was counter intuitive. Every click he had us make went against all reason. Yet somehow we incrementally clicked our way to a front end that held up to hard breaking, and a rear end that gave us better traction. You simply can't doubt a man who's held your shim stack between his fingers.. Curiously though, Derek never mentioned lap times to me. I know Derek. He times his morning toast. I knew that meant we were off the pace, which was expected, but things felt positive enough for a Friday.
It's interesting, developing a bike so few are actually racing. Very challenging. You have no one, and no thing, to turn to for answers. It reminded me of testing Michelin tires for a sponsor of mine back in the day. "There's the bike, there's the stack of tires, there's the pad of pages. Go fill them with data. And by the way, we'll be bouncing your feedback off the french when we're over there next week." At first I used to say, "OK let's go" but inside I'd be thinking "Are you f-ing KIDDING ME??? I can't tell my ass from my elbow out there. What the hell am I gonna' tell you about seven different tires?" Eventually though, those times became the most valuable to my career. I was forced to learn how to, well, to learn how to learn.
I'm used to the slider on a fork leg hovering somewhere near a quarter inch from bottomed out. On this 990 Superduke we had 1.5 inches Phil never planned on using. As odd as that seemed, he's the pro. I never said a word. We were down on power but eventually that bike began jumping through hoops in the turns. Proper KTM rear-sets kept our pegs off the ground and those wide bars really gave us a lot of control through Riverside. But as is typical of development, each time we solved a wallowing challenge, or a hop through Cotton Corners, we'd go out faster and create another set of problems. It was an exciting process to be a part of, and our young Tri Valley Moto team handily solved every task Buttonwillow threw at them that Friday. But you know racing. And you know Buttonwillow. For sure all the cards had yet to be dealt..
In what would be our last practice Friday we suddenly lost all power coming onto the front straight. With no noises, and no warning, came our first real challenge. All the diagnostic tools were back at Tri Valley Moto, earning a living, so with no easy fixes on the horizon we welcomed the very generous assistance of our friendly twisted neighbor from Mr. Roger's neighborhood - Zip Showket.
Keep in mind I said our friendly "Twisted" neighbor...
Zip used raw safety wire to bridge the gap between his KTM adventure fuel pump, and our Superduke wiring harness. With one turn of the key the verdict was in. Fuel pump, DOA. This discovery set Tri Valley tech Keith Rodrigues heading south on I-5 to Buttonwillow, to save the day. By Saturday morning we were back at full tilt.
It was somewhere near the AFM turn on our last lap of Saturday practice though, that I began noticing the motor show signs of wanting to end practice a little early. I've been on big twins for a decade now. Mostly at redline. I've learned respect. With all the laps we still faced I made the call to error on the side of caution. We pulled off on the exit of turn two.
Once back at our pit we all pondered the ever defining statement born among the battlegrounds of victory and defeat, "Go big, or go home.." It wasn't twenty minutes later that Tri Valley Moto Service manager - suddenly turned weekend race tuner - Danny Boyd, had headquarters on the phone. True to Tri Valley form, Michael Meissner gave the nod to Tri Valley's master tech Scott Roberts. Within an hour and a half Scott had an LC8 motor strapped to the bed of his truck, and well on it's way to a entering the world of racing.
I don't know what to say other than these guys are the real deal.
Scott was gone just as quickly as he appeared, and what once was wrong, now suddenly had been righted.
Some say you can never go home again. That no win is like your first. Hell I bet some of those same people say you can't race a KTM Superduke, or maybe they'd even call a guy once named GoGo, "NoGo."
When I left racing I set out on a quest to become a photographer instead. Somewhere along that journey I learned the most vital part of an image is actually not it's focus, or it's color. It's the story it tells. We had a friend of mine, Brian Luce, come up from Santa Barbara to shoot video for us at Buttonwillow. He called me from the road, "Hey, so what's the story we're after anyway?" I told him "Just get yourself past the gate. You'll have more stories than you can handle."
Once I finally got myself past the gate, I found more than just stories. I found home again. I found old friends, long since faded from contact, who actually hadn't left after all. I found that while some trivial things had definitely changed, other things, the best things, never could. I was greeted with a very warm and genuine...
Well OK maybe it wasn't so warm, but it was definitely a genuine, "Welcome back."
If a picture says a thousand words, this one says a million. The subjects are four AFM racers and the setting Buttonwillow sun. The guy on the right is a man of his word. He's the fastest of the bunch, but he didn't race one lap on Sunday. The guy on the left could own half of California if he wanted, but come Sunday afternoon - not the one championship he longed for most. Not this year at least. But he'll be back, most likely stronger. If the guy left of center looks confused here, you should have seen him in turn one on Sunday. He was almost impregnated by a hypodermic needle the size, and shape, of a KTM 990 Superduke after his 1098 died mid corner. And finally, the guy drying his finger in the setting sun? Well he must have ESP. Seventeen hours after this photo is taken he falls under the unorthodox attack of a Bulldog chasing a Duc across the back of our brand new set of Vanson leathers in one of the last turns of the Open Twins race. But he comes out on top, in the end, for now...
We showed up for Friday practice with a whole world of questions facing not only us as a team, and the KTM 990 Superduke as a race bike, but very quietly I had a few personal questions of my own. To begin with, I knew I could still ride, but I didn't know if I could really ride. And I knew this bike was gonna need some motivated coaxing to set a decent pace around a track I haven't really ridden since April of 06. Derek Lafontaine pretty much runs the whole Tri Valley Moto race program. He beat me to the track, with the Superduke, which meant he'd choose our pit spot. Shit. I'm the bashful one. It's pretty typical for me to sit in the back. Derek's my polar opposite though, which actually turned out to be a great part of this weekend.
I was shocked to see the Superduke when I first pulled up. The Leo Vince system looked high and tight, Reza Gohary's hand made custom Pro Fiberglass belly pan looked like a factory piece, and the graphics were incredible. Instead of layers of vinyl all set on top of each other, Derek had Chris Conley from Rub it Enterprises actually print out all our sponsor logos, and a virtual paint job, all on ONE sheet of vinyl. In just an hour he completely brought that bike to life.
In our first runs on Friday I thought we showed promise. This Superduke is hysterical to ride fast. I don't have enough security clearance to own the data on exactly what weird science Phil has performed to this bike's suspension. Comparing my first street rides a month ago, to now, it's obvious he's got days invested into this project. Phil's Aftershocks co-pilot, Jason Hahn, helped us at Buttonwillow by interpreting my feedback to Phil over the phone, then tweeking our suspension accordingly. Every answer Phil gave us was counter intuitive. Every click he had us make went against all reason. Yet somehow we incrementally clicked our way to a front end that held up to hard breaking, and a rear end that gave us better traction. You simply can't doubt a man who's held your shim stack between his fingers.. Curiously though, Derek never mentioned lap times to me. I know Derek. He times his morning toast. I knew that meant we were off the pace, which was expected, but things felt positive enough for a Friday.
It's interesting, developing a bike so few are actually racing. Very challenging. You have no one, and no thing, to turn to for answers. It reminded me of testing Michelin tires for a sponsor of mine back in the day. "There's the bike, there's the stack of tires, there's the pad of pages. Go fill them with data. And by the way, we'll be bouncing your feedback off the french when we're over there next week." At first I used to say, "OK let's go" but inside I'd be thinking "Are you f-ing KIDDING ME??? I can't tell my ass from my elbow out there. What the hell am I gonna' tell you about seven different tires?" Eventually though, those times became the most valuable to my career. I was forced to learn how to, well, to learn how to learn.
I'm used to the slider on a fork leg hovering somewhere near a quarter inch from bottomed out. On this 990 Superduke we had 1.5 inches Phil never planned on using. As odd as that seemed, he's the pro. I never said a word. We were down on power but eventually that bike began jumping through hoops in the turns. Proper KTM rear-sets kept our pegs off the ground and those wide bars really gave us a lot of control through Riverside. But as is typical of development, each time we solved a wallowing challenge, or a hop through Cotton Corners, we'd go out faster and create another set of problems. It was an exciting process to be a part of, and our young Tri Valley Moto team handily solved every task Buttonwillow threw at them that Friday. But you know racing. And you know Buttonwillow. For sure all the cards had yet to be dealt..
In what would be our last practice Friday we suddenly lost all power coming onto the front straight. With no noises, and no warning, came our first real challenge. All the diagnostic tools were back at Tri Valley Moto, earning a living, so with no easy fixes on the horizon we welcomed the very generous assistance of our friendly twisted neighbor from Mr. Roger's neighborhood - Zip Showket.
Keep in mind I said our friendly "Twisted" neighbor...
Zip used raw safety wire to bridge the gap between his KTM adventure fuel pump, and our Superduke wiring harness. With one turn of the key the verdict was in. Fuel pump, DOA. This discovery set Tri Valley tech Keith Rodrigues heading south on I-5 to Buttonwillow, to save the day. By Saturday morning we were back at full tilt.
It was somewhere near the AFM turn on our last lap of Saturday practice though, that I began noticing the motor show signs of wanting to end practice a little early. I've been on big twins for a decade now. Mostly at redline. I've learned respect. With all the laps we still faced I made the call to error on the side of caution. We pulled off on the exit of turn two.
Once back at our pit we all pondered the ever defining statement born among the battlegrounds of victory and defeat, "Go big, or go home.." It wasn't twenty minutes later that Tri Valley Moto Service manager - suddenly turned weekend race tuner - Danny Boyd, had headquarters on the phone. True to Tri Valley form, Michael Meissner gave the nod to Tri Valley's master tech Scott Roberts. Within an hour and a half Scott had an LC8 motor strapped to the bed of his truck, and well on it's way to a entering the world of racing.
I don't know what to say other than these guys are the real deal.
Scott was gone just as quickly as he appeared, and what once was wrong, now suddenly had been righted.
Last edited:
timing belt broke...
twofinger) a few things... 
