Allie Warfel Blog

Finally-A New PR!

So It’s been over two months since I have been on the race bike and the season has consisted of very little practice, and very little racing.  Just one race to be exact!  Believe me folks, no one is professional at anything without practice and it’s hard to improve my race times if  were not at the track.

I wish I had a dollar from everyone who seems to believe I can do this… If so I believe we actually could!!! But as great as great faith is an innate ability, it does not change the fact that money is a large part of motorsports and no one can race without a whole lot of it.

The few times I have been at the track this year the team has been trying to “Do it right”…  Fresh tires, fresh bike, crew chief/mechanic, AC, and hot showers.  I started this project on my own and “Doing it the hard way”  not to say that the hard way is the wrong way but frankly it rarely gets anyone much past the Novice level.  I have paid my dues learning to changing my own tires, chain, gears, cutting costs in my personal life and sleeping under the stars.  I also know what it feels like to race on bent forks and bent frames.  The hope has always been that I could continue to drop a couple seconds every time on the track and get fast enough, quick enough, before blowing up into the abys of the ecnomic black hole.

Alas, 90% of this season has been forfeit and the solid race times I was after seemed a loss as well.  Last week I met with the board (the great minds)  to discuses the future of the AWracing project and the possibility of moving all of the time, money and energy over to our the non-profit arm Women’s Motorsports Foundation.  The “Mind” agreed that the project has simply come to far and holds to much potential to end here, so Dr. Vonn and I headed to the track alone.  No coach, no crew, no new tires, and no pressure!

After the first track session of the morning Dr. Vonn stated that I was running “pretty good times”.  To which I responded that it just looked that way because everyone else was slower, but by round 2 things started feeling really good and I was beginning to think she might be right.  Things were really clicking and I was beginning to think we might have just hit a Personal Record.  I was backing the bike into turns and feeling good.  Maybe the time spent on the 85 dirt bike was paying off or maybe it was the lack of information overload from the crew, but sure enough I was beginning to run some really good times!  First look at the lap times showed a 1:35!  and a handful of 1:36.  2 seconds better than my best times before, and 3-5 seconds faster than my first race back in June.

Somehow, I think the best is yet to come!  I can taste a 1:34, and believe that next year will hold better than that.

Allie

So after an early morning late night work week to collect the necessary credit for gas $ to drive to Road Atlanta Raceway… we drove to Road Atlanta. Pushed off at 7:00 pm on Thursday night after Dr. K got off work.   Mechanic Travis Walker had got the bike from Jamie James earlier in the day and started packing us up for the journey. We arrived in at 10:00 but 11:00 PM still found us organizing the race site and preparing for the heat of the day on Friday. ( F.Y.I., Road Atlanta does not have an adequate filing station for Toy Haulers and RV so bring your own water! The goal for Friday was an ambitious 1:36 for lap times and contingent upon that I would stay to race Saturday and Sunday Expert races with WERA. After rushing the first two practice sessions on Friday I felt that I had nearly toasted my forearm for the whole weekend. To much muscling and not enough finesse. Wow I had some arm-pump!!! I backed off the pace a tad and miraculously began to drop the lap times. Funning how forcing it never seems to work!   Although easier said than done to not rush it when food and rent $ are one the line!!!  I began to get into the grove by the later practice sessions Friday and figured I would be good for some mid pack finishes.  However… mid-pack finishes in the Expert field are not my goal. Despite some strong sessions and constant improvement I opted toward putting the money towards this coming weekend with Sport Bike Track Time and the chance to ride on the wheel of a slightly faster racer. It is the end result that matters and as hard as it was to opt out on the weekend races, we made good progress and will be one leg up for late season… and hopefully one dollar ahead!

Good Morning Race Fans!!

Somehow I got to work today!  We rolled in from Virginia at 1:00 this morning and back to the office by 8:00.  Ouch!!!!

Big props to those also rocking on just a few wee hours of sleep to help make this whole thing work.  I need to send a super big thanks to Dr K.  of HAVS/Humane Alliance who was my right hand runner all weekend and is now in white coat doing surgery to help fund the vision of this project.

Also big thanks to Crew Chief /head mechanic/ master man with a plan/AKA Travis Walker who worked all weekend on the bike and is now off to Jamie James Productions with the race bike to tune and tweak things for next weekend.  Go super Travis!!!

My first race weekend saw me finish two solid mid pack finishes and two totally toasted hanging on for dear life!  Friday practice brought my fastest times of  1:36.02 and some amazing blood blisters on my throttle hand… (which you can now find on Flicker!).  If I was cooked on Saturday, I was toast on Sunday, and feel like regurgitated charcoal and VP race fuel today.  Late June is a painfully tough time to start a race season, especially ones first season as an Expert.

Thursday is the tentative day to push off for Road Atlanta for Friday practice and another Saturday and Sunday of races.  I guess this might depend on how many massages I can give between now and then and if I can drop the time I need in Friday practice for Saturday races.

I’m a bit torn between doing practice or saving myself to use races as practice. I feel in desperate need of some track time with a coach, in desperate need of speed and in desperate need of some much needed sleep.

Rocking on, one step closer to the moon!

Allie

Welcome Race Fans!

26 months ago I did my first track day and today I was lined up with some guys who have been racing for the past 26 years.  Somehow in the past two summers I have learned how to handle a high powered race bike and drag knee, foot pegs and elbows through corners.  Novice racing went quite well and as to steer clear of the sketch fest of the rookie ranks I took the plunge into the Expert pack.

Friday practice felt good and saw me many lap times of 1:36 to which I felt certain there were two or more seconds that I could shave down in the races.  This was not only my first Expert race weekend but my first CCS race, my first race of the season, and my first ride on my Jamie James race preped engine.  Needless to say there was not a first place finish.  In fact I found myself grided dead last on the start line behind 17 other much more experienced racers.

The green flag dropped and I began the process of weaseling my way through white plate traffic.  I worked  my way up to 8th place position for a few laps before being passed to 10th place for the checkered flag lap.  All in all, not a bad race!…  Just a hot one, as 25 minutes in 95degree weather with wool socks, long underwear, long braided hair and 30 pounds of leather, helmet, body armor and boots can get quite toasty!!!!

Race two went better and was not as long.  Dr K. packed my body armor with ice to stay cool and pit hand Kurtis Roberts kept me a ready stash of electrolyte drinks.  Protective gear can be a two edged sword as it is great for a crash but getting over heated because of it might cause a crash!

I felt like my lines were cleaner in race two and that I held better focus but the full day of Friday practice was catching up with me as lap times seemed to be going in the wrong direction.  I finished 11th in the Heavyweight race class and was quite glad for day #1 to be finished!

One step closer to the goal!

Allie

Welcome Race Fans!!!

Well here we are in June and my first race weekend is right around the corner!! I feel like its been the forever sweeping late late a-pex corner to the straight away at VIR. Just around the corner has been a painfully long wait to get to full speed! With the trials of last year…Triumph issues a season long, blown engine, stolen bike in FL, fraudulent credit card charges, shady “marketing” boy, payees unable to pay, and race debt so deep I’ve inherently become the dream customer of Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover! With good success also comes good challenge as the passion of a visionary is never short of black eyes!

The AWrace project launched this spring for 3 days of testing at VIR. New toy hauler with AC, TV AND a toilet… pit hands a hotdog grill! Darn what more would a racer need than a fast bike tires and track time! We registered for more track time and sent the Yamaha R-6 to Jamie James Productions, an hour north of Asheville in the foot hills of the Appalachians. To score a competitive bike we went for an engine tune-up but medical emergency at the company kept our engine on the operating table as well. Legendary wild man Jamie James assures me “well… you don’t really need track time anyhow.” Guess that makes sense as round these parts moonshine runs happen on 2 wheels… not 4!

Good Lord willing and the creeks don’t rise, we will be back to try and drop 3 more seconds at Virginia next weekend. if CCS will let me in we will be testing the wild mans theory! Huge thanks to Dr Vonn, HAVS, Women’s Motorsport’s Foundation, Carters Computers, OnDemand Printing, Jamie James Productions and everyone who has helped with sponsorship marketing for 2011!

Lets go RACING!!!
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Allie Warfel