Plan of Attack
Jan 21, 2022 by Adam Miller
Racing is the sum of some critical moving parts both on and off the track. How well all these parts mesh together will determine success or failure. However, when you’re on the track going full tilt, it pretty much boils down to three things: mind, body, and machine. In addition to making sure that things leading up to each race are in order, my main focus this year is to maximize my on track performance by mastering my head space, my physical condition, and my bike. Vincit qui se vincit or, as my friend Micah used to say, “never lift”.
Mind
For me, the right mentality to go fast on a motorcycle requires managing my fear. I’m fiercely competitive, my hunger to win is huge, and sometimes I feel almost possessed by the sport which adds a lot to being in the right head space to fight for a championship. But fear is the thing that keeps me from taking that critical next step. Many times during a race I found myself grabbing a fist full of brake lever and comfortably getting the back tire in the air, dancing around as I transitioned from corner entry to the apex. This means I can brake at the limit of my machine. Equally as many times, however, I found myself letting go of that same lever far too long before the apex. If you’re not trailing nearly all the way to the apex, you’re leaving time on the table. Since you can decelerate on a bike faster than you can corner and far faster than you can drive onto a straight, corner entry is the worst place to leave time on the table. Further still, corner entry sets up the entire execution of a turn. If you don’t enter correctly, you won’t apex or exit correctly, either. I have to push back my braking markers and, to do that, I have to get comfortable with being afraid. In the words of Kevin Schwantz, “I wait ‘til I see God, then I brake”. Spoken like a true Texan. I’ll be on the track as often as possible over the winter, pushing back those braking markers so that I can combine my ability to drop an anchor on the brakes with a need to trail the brakes to the apex properly.
In between those times, I’ve been doing some interesting reading. Worth a look if you want to read how truly great athletes put themselves in the right frame of mind:
Relentless, Alistair Brownlee
Body
Too many times have I been bested on the track by competitors who simply had more stamina than I did, including my first time on the podium in 2019 when I punched myself out and dropped 2 seconds per lap and watched that first win disappear into the distance in the sweltering heat of August in Alabama. Critically again, at Pike’s Peak International Raceway, I was denied my first MRA podium when Evan Weidner overtook me at turn 5 on the last lap and I simply did not have the energy to retaliate. Well done, Evan, that was a great race. Looking at my notes from last year, I also have some critical muscle groups that need both strength and flexibility in order to maintain the ability to push at 100% for full race distance.
Strength and flexibility are easy enough with the right discipline, but stamina can be a little tricky for a full time engineer, father, and husband in the middle of a Colorado winter. Not to mention the fact that running with the distance and frequency I require to be fit is a punishing job for my 35 year old knees to withstand. Luckily, they make these great machines called exercise bikes. I was able to find a used Schwinn IC4, which has been fantastic so far. Ever the engineer, I have very specific targets to hit for heart rate and energy consumption over time, as well as an ability to finish with a sprint to help with the inevitable last lap battles. I’m working my ass off to hit those targets so that I show up fit to race on day 1 of round 1. This grueling routine also has the tertiary benefit of stoking the flames within as I visualize that first race win every time my muscles start burning, my breathing gets heavy, and I feel like stopping. I close my eyes and suddenly I’m in my gear, on the bike, fighting for that win with someone who wants it almost as badly as I do, but not quite… Any yes, of course I’m a Rossi fan (#46):
The Miller Garage, Winter Training, 2022
Machine
The vast majority of this task has been handled. I’ll be riding a fully prepped Ducati 848 EVO Corse SE that handles like a CBR600RR or even nearly as good as an R6, so I’ve been told. Now, worth a word of caution to other potential Ducati racers: this is not the bike for everyone. On paper, if one is familiar with something called the “circle of traction”, which is essentially what your tires can give you as you navigate a turn, an 848 should be the fastest bike in the Supersport class. You can outbrake anything save for other Ducati’s and the thing jumps out of turns like a scorned cat. But man, oh man, is it a dog at the apex, and yellow plate club racers like me need to rely on cornering speed sometimes because it helps mask the fact that we’re not all Valentino Rossi and can’t enter a turn like a proper professional racer 105 times per race. The 5-10 times you hit your markers make you feel like a hero, but the other 100 times, you’re just losing ground to the Yamahas (sounds a lot like the MotoGP dynamic, eh?)
The fastest riders will be a marriage of person and machine. It is a very common malady among club racers to overestimate their abilities, especially me. I did not appreciate how much I relied on cornering speed because it was something that my old Honda would just give to me without any fuss. Fully realizing this after 3 rounds on a mostly stock 848, I knew that I needed to get some cornering speed back on the flowing home circuit of the MRA, High Plains Raceway. Back to the word of caution for other potential Ducati racers: to do this on an 848, you have to make serious changes to the front end of the bike. There’s no other way. I have the multiple memories of nasty front end chatter while trying to pace the other Supersports to prove it. Not sure how this will all compare to the newer Duc’s, like the Panigale V2, when they eventually become legal at the club level in the Supersport class, but for the 848, it’s a must do mod. These changes are quite expensive, and you give up a little on the brakes to achieve them, which somewhat dilutes some of the advantages of the 848. However, in my analytical mind that keeps on tracing the circle of traction in pursuit of theoretical mastery of it, I think I now have the best bike for who I am as a rider which is a very different thing than “having the best bike”.
“Duc Prime”, Miller Garage, 2022
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Cheers,
Adam Miller
