It’s Go Time
(Written) May 5, 2022 by Adam Miller
[EDIT: Belated publishing of this entry due to the time crunch. Round 1 is in the books. I’ll be getting an entry about that out soon.]
Winter is over and race season is upon us. I depart to Round 1 Friday practice, will camp there Friday night and wake up, relieved of logistical stresses, ready to race on Saturday. It has been a long winter with a heavy focus on physical training, riding as much as possible, and preparing the bike where needed with a mind-body-machine approach to preparation.
Mentally I feel good. I’m just as hungry to compete as ever and have been riding hard and often to ensure that I don’t show up to Round 1 with a bunch of cobwebs to dust off. My final mental check happened with the AHRMA trackday I attended at HPR a few weeks ago. I was able to turn the fastest lap time I’ve ever recorded during non-race conditions during that event by a fair margin. Given that I normally push to about 90-95% pace during trackdays rather than the full 100% I give during races, I feel good about being able to fight at the front given the Round 1 lap times from last year as a comparison point.
AHRMA Trackday, HPR Full, April 2022
I was also able to take some valuable data to critique my weak points on the track and get some final input on some setup changes needed for HPR.
I have hit nearly all physical targets I set for myself at the beginning of winter and, as evidenced by my trackday with AHRMA recently, I can ride with 100% effort for full race distance with margin session after session, all day long, without experiencing fatigue or muscle weakness. I worked my ass off to achieve this, and I’m very happy with my my current physical state.
Body is Ready to Race, Miller Garage, April 2022
The tertiary benefit of all the exercise is that I really had to break through some mental barriers to get my cardio where it needed to be for the endurance races. This will help me tremendously during races; if I find myself behind someone who has pace on me, last year I’d have resigned myself to finishing behind said opponent. This year, in the same situation, that opponent will be a reference for me to chase down and pass before the checkered flag comes out.
Finally, the machine. I’ve ridden the bike enough over the winter to be very happy with what it’s capable of. It stops pretty well, it turns remarkably well, and it accelerates better than any Supersport I’ve ever ridden. At Tally GP over the winter, I had to change to taller gearing because the front end wouldn’t stay down; never had that experience on the Honda or even my previous 848. Now that the gearing should be theoretically right for HPR full, there are no excuses whatsoever about the machine. It’s a properly prepared full race bike with a really good base setting currently dialed in. Duc Prime is ready to frustrate some people.
Duc Prime, Final Preseason Trackday, HPR, April 2022
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Cheers,
Adam Miller
