I headed to Thunderhill last weekend not with any chance to fight for a championship this year, but with the determination to find confidence and speed again before the long winter. Next year my intention to retake my Lightweight Superbike crown and blitz the field in Formula 40 Lightweight.

Needing as much seat time as I could get, I began the weekend with AFM Friday by Carters at the Track. I spent the early morning hemming and hawing over how to manage my tires for the weekend. Wanting to make the most of this last chance to find speed before the winter, I chose to go all in and put on fresh rubber to start the day Friday. That allowed me to practice at full pace, so much as I could handle it, and then put on another fresh set to race on Sunday.

After the typical throwaway first session, I quickly dropped down to 2:04, just 2 seconds off my PR. Typically I can drop about 5 seconds between Friday and Sunday, so 2:04 on Friday was a welcome number. At my current proximity to the pointy end of times and also considering I was running brand new rubber, shaving a full five seconds in two days seemed potentially doubtful, but great either way to be in the position to try.

Saturday followed script and I dropped into the 2:02s, actually beating my previous best by a couple tenths. With fresh tires mounted, I headed back to the hotel Saturday night with my laptop in hand ready to study the data from my newly minted PR and find opportunities for even more speed. In the mean time, I discovered my new go-to pre-race food source – La Taqueria Mexican. Despite the name, the feature that caught my eye is they have asian food in addition to their namesake mexican. It’s basically a Panda Express mixed with a Chipotle with a healthy dollop of American fast-foodism on top. Their Mexican fries and lo mein eeach provide excellent helpings of complex carbs the night before a race.

The point of the food, though, was to get ready to go racing. I woke up Sunday with a plan to go faster having found a couple spots in the data where I was still running slower than 2023. Morning practice was well off the pace which freaked me out a little bit since my last Saturday practice was also quite slow stuck behind some hard-to-pass traffic, but I resolved to relax and focus for the races to bring the pace back.

And come back it did. More 2:02s in 700 Superbike, down to consistent 2:01s in Lightweight Superbike, and then down to consistent 2:00s in Formula IV – two seconds better than my best from last year! The racing itself ended up being a touch boring. In each race I got a good launch but couldn’t get by Jose Flores in pole position, and then in each race Jorge Gonzalez passed me on the outside in turn 1. I finally made adjustment after the first time he did that and altered my line to drop that last second. I was even catching Jorge after that and felt like I could have taken second place with another lap.

Jose and Jorge brought serious speed with their Aprilias, but the Formula IV race convinced me that I can bring the fight to them and win next year. Jose has a second on me, but I know where to find that second and maybe more…

See you next year!