Round 6: Franklin
September 3, 2022 Adam Miller
I had a whole spiel worked up about a special dedication for Round 6 that’s going to have to wait because something else very unexpected happened that goes far beyond racing. In my borrowed Hitchcock fashion sometimes I like to tease with a conclusion photo, as below, but there is more to the story than just this picture.
Franklin Cary Miller and Tired Parents, Rose Medical Center, August 28, 2022
Round 6 was a bit of an event for multiple reasons. Not only did Kori end up going into labor over the weekend, we were hosting a visit from my father and brother, who flew up from Texas to pop in for some face time. It had been awhile since we’d seen each other and my dad, being a racing enthusiast himself, was keen to line up a trip to visit his Grandson and, if possible, watch a race. My brother was mainly interested in meeting his nephew but seemed ok with watching some racing as well, so we planned accordingly. In preparation for the weekend, after 5 Rounds of arriving late and tired (or not at all, see Round 4), I left the bike completely alone this time. Maintenance was good to go, nothing was broken, I needed to swap out the front springs at some point, but I also needed to work a full time job, be a primary caregiver to Emerson when work hours were over and, when I’m racing, I needed to be well rested. Considering all of this, I just left the bike on the stands in the garage after Round 5 and merely packed up the trailer on the eve of Friday practice. Thus, for once, I arrived on Friday well rested, which was a nice change. Also a nice change was splitting a carport with other riders. Ben, Rick, and I all pitted together this round. Now, although you do risk showing your competition a thing or two when you do this, I still think it’s worth it. Every NovU race winner this season was in the same carport and we really fed off each other. I credit my ability to find my target lap time so quickly by simply being around other fast riders. It was a really good vibe. Anyway, I had my riding objectives laid out for the day and, within 4 practice sessions, I had beaten my target lap time needed to compete for victory by 0.5s. I even had time to mess around with the suspension geometry a bit to find something that felt good for the HPR West layout.
High Plains West Layout, August 2022
To feel good about challenging for a victory, I needed to close my vulnerability at turn 6 and figure out a fast way to link turns 8-15. By close of practice, I had done both to my satisfaction with time to spare. I swapped on a new rear slick for Saturday and called it good with two sessions left, which I skipped to help preserve my body a bit.
On the family front, there was other news on the horizon. Kori had called me early Friday to let me know about labor pains she was having, which we assumed were just Braxton Hicks contractions; basically the body’s way of practicing for real labor. The pains had started early in the day but had subsided a bit, and we were also weeks and weeks ahead of being full term, so we assumed there was nothing to worry about. I left Friday evening a little early to go check on Kori; Rick and Ben took care of getting my bike teched for me. Just damn fine folks, those two! Seriously, there has to be some sort of sportsmanship award they ought to be fighting for in addition to the championship.
When I got home, Kori seemed to think that things were settling down. In hindsight, our perspective about this was off the mark due, in part, to Kori’s extremely high pain tolerance. Gentlemen, if you think you can put up with a lot of pain, fun fact: on average, women have higher pain tolerances than men. I’m not joking, this is literally a scientifically proven fact. Anyway, from Friday night to Saturday morning, the labor pains were still present, but hadn’t reached any sort of critical mass that would lead us to believe it was genuine labor, so we carried on cautiously but normally. She even drove up on Saturday morning to watch the race of her own volition… again. Wow!
Saturday morning felt good. In my first practice session I was within reaching distance of my fastest lap from Friday. According to the posted laps in Speedhive I was the second fastest NovU rider behind Jesse and still had a bit in reserve for the race, which was more or less by design. The second session was a bit of a wash in all the lap traffic, but is was a healthy reminder that the key to victory was to break free from the pack. The West layout doesn’t have a whole lot of passing opportunities compared to the full layout. Turn 8 was high risk due to the proximity to 13s, which effectively locks out passing between 14 and 15. Turns 1, 4, and 6 were all decent passing opportunities, but people are getting really fast at this point in the season, so passing can often send you too deep and open up a double pass. I think Rick probably has the best racecraft and is definitely onto something by finding excellent moments to overtake when people put a wheel just a few feet wrong. It’s proven a pretty fruitful strategy for him. However, if I let Rick, Ben, Steven, or Jesse lead, I was sure they’d check out on me, and I didn’t really want to get tangled up with anyone in the top 10, to be honest. So if only I could get out front and not make any mistakes…
Onto the race. Morning practice, opening ceremony, pre-grid, warmup lap, and park the bike on the back of the second row for the race start. After the terrible stalling experience of Round 5, I nearly pegged the engine in the red zone and showed no mercy for my clutch assembly when the lights went out. The results were predictable: the bike left the line with fury at the expense of some clutch material. I was rewarded with an unchallenged holeshot into turn 1 and took immediate advantage of the space by running a fast line through turns 1, 2, and 3, driving hard onto the straight with that fresh rear slick. I’m sure my drag-racing dad was proud to see such a start. According to my spectating crew, I’d opened a pretty sizeable gap by the time we all entered the main straight. I felt good, strong, ready to sprint at the front of the pack. I led the first 2 laps of the race with essentially nothing between the top 5 riders’ lap times and no one showing me a wheel. In turn 8 of lap 2, Steven went pretty deep for a pass and I lined him back up for a double on the entry of 13s. The fighting was about to begin. Unfortunately, he went down around the outside of 13s. All I could tell for sure was that it was a low side, any guess as to the root cause would be speculative. I immediately thought two things: 1) “I hope he’s ok, because crashing sucks”, 2) “we must be pretty damn close to the limit because he and I were not taking that turn at terribly different speeds”. I think the latter of the two thoughts began to unravel my charge. After turning my fastest lap of the race the second time around, I stopped feeling the bike, started thinking too much, my pace dropped, and the mistakes started rolling in. Ben got through nice and clean halfway through lap 3. I was able to keep pace with him for about a lap, but then had an off-track excursion on the exit of 6. Unable to hold my line or keep the throttle pinned in the dirt, Rick zipped on by and both he and Ben gapped me as I got the bike back on the asphalt. I did my best to close the gap but, at this point, I had a major problem between the ears and finding my early pace was proving difficult. Too deep at turn 1, too early on the brakes at turn 4, too slow through the corkscrew, target fixating in turn 8; I just kept making mistakes in a self reinforcing cycle as I watched the gap in front of me slowly build. Finally, I had a huge rear end moment on the exit of turn 6 that nearly threw me from the bike. I pushed hard into turn 7 to see whether it was rider error or tire wear. The initiation of a long, slow slide up the hill confirmed that my rear grip was dropping. As it turned out, Jesse had been riding a nice, consistent pace behind me and closing the gap while I piled on the mistakes. His race craft proved excellent as he caught me sleeping and overtook me for P3 on the entry of 8 during the second to last lap. I wanted to finish on the box and tried to respond, but didn’t have much for him. My drive on corner exit was cooked.
Defending P3 Into Turn 1, MRA Round 6 Nov U, August 2022
The race ended in a lonely P4. So, in round 6, in spite of some good early pace, I just wasn’t fast enough over race distance. It was a result of too many mistakes, a problem between the ears that I couldn’t null out, a little bit of excessive tire wear on the right side, and some damn fast competitors I couldn’t keep up with given all the mistakes I was making. So for the final round, assuming I can make it, I need to be a bit more tactful in my approach. Yes it’s necessary to be very fast to win in this competitive class, but I also need to be consistent, patient, focused, and minimize my mistakes.
I had fun in Round 6, which is something that’s been missing from my program for a little while. The vibe in the paddock was great, I got to lead the race for a little while, my family got to come up and watch and, even though I didn’t win the race, I got to fight for it. I doubt I’ll ever be satisfied with a P4, but it’s not a terrible result. After the race, I rejoined my family in the paddock and mulled over whether or not I would stay for the NovO race which, at this point, is purely for fun. When lunch rolled around I was leaning toward yes until Kori stopped in her tracks on our way to the lunch truck and grimaced in pain. That sure as hell didn’t look like a Braxton Hicks contraction to me, but in spite of my own anxiety she still didn’t seem overly concerned. In my mind, the NovO race was completely out of the question. After a quick lunch, Kori lead us home to try and relax on the outer chance that there was nothing serious going on. Apparently the rest was helpful because by the time I arrived with the tow rig, she seemed confident that things were settling down. Recalling her muted response to a appendicitis, I wasn’t so sure and insisted that we go get it checked out. A few hours, and a completely different storyline later, and we were holding our second son. Unfortunately, he arrived 5 weeks early and is therefore, as of this writing, still in the NICU unit. We have high hopes that everything will be fine (otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this entry at all right now). It’s a little funny how large both of our sons have been at birth. Our first was positively enormous and is still quite a big kid, and our second was so big that, even at 5 weeks early, he’s still bigger than I was at birth as a full term baby.
Franklin Improving Day by Day, Rose Medical Center, September 2022
I’m hopeful that I’ll make it to Round 7 so that I can finish out a full season of racing as well as I possibly can. If I win the race, mathematically, I could finish as high as 3rd in the championship. More realistically, I think finishing in the top 5 is within reach. In the championship, it’s down to Ben or Rick. If either man grabs P1or P2 in front of the other, the championship is won. This means I can fight for a race win with a good conscience about leaving the championship alone. However, if I were to lead the race at any point and see either Ben or Rick pass me, I’d probably roll off a bit to allow the two of them a fair heads-up battle. I’m a firm believer in allowing those two a clean fight for the championship. I’m looking at you Marquez… Beyond that, I think all is fair in love and war and will more or less ride my race. However, making it to round 7 at all is not a foregone conclusion. There are, after all, some big things going on at the Miller house so Round 7 is tentative. However, if I do make it, the objective remains the same: “Never Lift”.
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Adam Miller
