As the anticipation grows for AFM Round 1 belatedly in May this year, I’m enjoying looking back at some photos from the May 2025 round, courtesy of Oxymoron Photography. That was my best weekend as an AFM expert, running the board with 4 wins out of 4 races, including a win in a tight back-and-forth battle with AFM #4 plate holder Alex Ricci – I especially enjoy the shots that capture how we messed with each other’s lines through the 10, 11, 12, 13 sequence at Thunderhill.
Ok, maybe this isn’t so random. I’ve been drooling over the Aprilia RS660 since it was introduced at EICMA 2019 just months after I ordered my AP MotoArts FZ-07R. After 5 seasons of racing the FZ, I was gonna try to go one or two more, but I needed an engine rebuild. I could see from the data I was losing power on the high end and that was evident visually in my fight with Jeff Rose to end the AFM season. Unfortunately, after the engine was taken apart, I got word from the BPR mechanics at Kern County Powersports that there was damage on the inside of the engine cases. Something had certainly gotten in there that wasn’s supposed to, and the consequence for me was that the cost to repair the engine was going to be more than the bike was worth. I didn’t hesitate to stick a fork in the FZ. It was time to finally go after the bike that had beaten me down so many straight aways.
So, let me introduce Apollonia Aprilia, as she looked when I acquired her and raced her at the January 2026 round of CVMA.
And naturally redone in Random Racing purple in time for the 2026 AFM season.
After living through a tough time at CRA’s christening of Buttonwillow’s new Circuit Track, I got a chance to come back and race again at the final round of the 2025 AFM season. While I spent most of the weekend a bit tentative after my dual crashes from that first weekend, I was feeling ready to rock and roll by the last race. Ended up having a battle to remember with the great Jeff Rose and Dave Moss. Sadly, I wasn’t able to capture my normal dash video for this race, but Oxymoron Photography did a heroic job of capturing the race live on YouTube. That broadcast is preserved for posterity viewing here.
For anyone who paid attention between 2020 and 2025, the wait for “the new track” at Buttonwillow was often painful, and sometimes felt cursed. I’d almost given up. I was almost surprised when it actually opened with the first bikes hitting the track in February with Track Daz. I was pretty sad I couldn’t join them, actually. I was signed up, but due to some air fence drama, the first weekend got pushed back two weeks and then I had a conflict. So, I didn’t get to actually see the track until I was able to stop by for one day in July, which proved fun and fruitful:
Come the first weekend in September, CRA brought the world the very first motorcycle races at what became officially titled The Circuit at Buttonwillow. I had been looking forward to the idea of this race for years: it was a chance to test myself against the best racers in California (boy did everyone show up) on a totally level playing field – nobody knew the track better than anyone else, so just time to rip and see what we got.
Things would not go smoothly for me. Friday I was pushing in the mid afternoon for a qualifying simulation lap, and found a seam in the middle of turn 4:
I spent Friday evening putting the bike back together, though, so I met my dream Saturday morning of gridding up for literally the first motorcycle race ever at The Circuit. Twins bikes were Race 1. This was it. Whoever won this race would be the first race winner ever. The fastest lap would be however temporarily the lap record. I loved it. I was in. Thanks to an ok qualifying and a bit of luck, I even got to land a bit of trivia, as I launched from pole position in the first race start ever at The Circuit. The race got a bit weird after that, though. This was our first attempt:
This was just the first of what became three red flags in the attempt to run this first race. After the third, the race director shook his head and declared the race over. This was a bummer for me because in that last run I was in second when the red flag came out, but eating chunks out of the the leader and feeling confident I was ultimately going to beat him to the checkered flag. Still, a podium for the official first race ever is a memory not to be dismissed.
Later that day, the weirdness came back, though. my bike was black flagged in my next race for plumes of black smoke coming out the exhaust. Turned out I’d sprung a radiator leak and after all the coolant was gone and my engine over-heated, there was nothing left to do but burn oil. Luckily, I had a spare radiator in my van, so I installed it and convinced a skeptical race director to let me run again Sunday.
Sunday, I got in a last lap battle and I felt like it was time to take out all the struggles of the weekend into winning that battle. I’d already identified turn 5 as a “balls corner” – that is, you just have to have the balls to throw it in there faster than you think you can, so in order to win my battle I threw it in there faster than I thought I could and tried for an outside pass. Being off the normal line didn’t sit well with the bike, and nobody was happy with the result:
That wrapped it for an honestly way-too-eventful first race weekend at The Circuit. The story really wasn’t over for me, though, because this beginning also served as prelude to the AFM season finale, and I had championships on the line.
Back soon with that story.
Last weekend an opportunity popped up in my schedule to get out of the house for a bit and I got a timely email from Race Pace Trackdays early in the week advertising open spots for their no-sessions track time at Chuckwalla for Saturday and Sunday. Normally Race Pace caters specifically to veterans of the Chuckwalla track, but I reached out and they were very accommodating to pre-verify me as an AFM racer and welcome me to learn this fun little California desert track. I really enjoyed getting to know the track – it has quite a number of interesting elements. I’ve never spent so much time on the right edge of my tire, and with my peg mounted a little low I ended up burning clean through the toe slider on my new boots. Thanks to Tony at Ryder Gear for promptly mailing me a couple sets of replacement sliders. I might have to just get another pair of boots, and to be honest I’m already thinking about just getting a second suit because I like it so much…
While I was coming up to speed Saturday I noticed Jason Pridmore at the riders meeting which prompted me to look around until I saw the unmistable JP43 Training garage. Knowing how many fast people Jason has trained, I couldn’t waste the opportunity, so I walked over and asked if I could hire him for Sunday. Turned out somebody’s van had broken down and their loss was my gain, with two-time MotoAmerica champion Andrew Lee available to spend the day on track with me. Spending all day Sunday working with Andrew and Jason dragged me down to a 1:56 on four day old tires, which is just about a second off a race-winning pace in Formula 40 LW. Those guys are awesome!
With AFM’s schedule noticeably shrinking I’ve been thinking harder and harder about the logistics of racing in CVMA . Quickly coming up to speed for very encouraging and the track is a blast. I’m thinking hard about trying to come down for round 7 and celebrate my 40th birthday with an inaugural Formula 40 victory. And, of course, there’s next winter’s seasons to consider…
Here’s a video of Andrew chasing me around Sunday afternoon – it’s fun to actually have a third person view of myself for once! And below some pics for ya’ll.
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!
After getting myself riding again this summer, time came to accept delivery of my new custom race suit from Ryder Gear. I worked with owner Tony to match the unique (and awesome) color scheme of Random Racing while also sizing to match my body measurements. The result is the most comfortable (thank you, kangaroo leather), best fitting, and most beautiful race suit I have owned. We even did matching gloves and boots.
Besides the suit itself I’m also excited about the integrated Helite airbag. I’ve now raced integrated airbags from Dainese, Alpinestars, and Helite, and crashed in both the first two. I wanted to try something other than Alpinestars after feeling like my airbag did not inflate in either of the crashes that led to shoulder surgeries. I appreciate that like Alpinestars, the Helite bag includes an integrated back protector, so I don’t have to wear anything extra. The Alpinestars bag turned itself on with a velcro/magnetic closure which I occasionally had issues with forgetting to close properly. By contrast, the Helite bag just needs to be turned on once in the morning with a button on the hump and then no extra switch is needed when you put on the suit. This is good as long as you remember to turn it on in the morning (and off at the end of the day) but does have a liability if you forget either of those steps. The Dainese system has the best switch system where the button closure on the front of the suit turns it on – impossible to forget to button up when you put it on, and nothing to forget at the end of the day either.
The Helite bag is also end-user serviceable simply by replacing the CO2 canister which is a feature that should be quite valuable in the event of crash. Both Dainese and Alpinestars require sending the system back to the manufacturer for service.
After the inauspicious start to 2024, my dreams of repeating as AFM Lightweight Superbike champion may have been over before they began, but they were not the only dreams or plans I had for the year. In fact, even before the breaking of my dreams and collarbone, I had made my vacation plans and put my money down to head to Italy with Leod Escapes to ride the greatest race track in all the land – Mugello.
The first step was getting physically healed. Opting to have a plate surgically installed on my collarbone put me in the best place to heal the bone quickly. By the time the July trip rolled around I was feeling plenty strong and ready to ride. I spent the last couple weeks of June making long test rides on my stock MT-07 to test my endurance and came away with shining colors. Check on physical health.
The next step to riding Mugello like a badass was mental confidence. I was full of confidence riding around the winding roads of the alps with the Leod Escapes gang, but confidence climbing on an S1000RR and going 180 MPH at Mugello was an entirely different proposition. I thought the confidence was there, but actually climbing on the bike and letting loose on the track betrayed my feelings. A Leod Escapes guide and YCRS instructor commented that I appeared to be riding “like a kicked dog” – never great. For sure one of the lessons I learned from the journey was the chasm between riding an 80 hp motorcycle and a 210 hp one is vast. Being fast on my little twin does not make me fast on a 1000cc superbike.
So Mugello was a learning event. Learning how to be comfortable on a race bike after my injury. Learning some different approaches to riding courtesy of Racing School Europe. Learning that if I even want to drop forty or fifty grand on one of these, I might have to learn to ride all over again. In any case, I also learned Mugello is fucking grand old time and I’ve got the pictures to remember it by.
So, it’s clearly been a while since I’ve posted. This year did not exactly go as I planned. January was all smiles as I attended the AFM Banquet with my wife, where I was honored to be crowned 2023 Lightweight Superbike Expert Champion in my first year racing as an expert. That was an achievement I could not have imagined at the start of 2023! At the same time I was welcoming home an upgraded race bike after turning my FZ-07 over to the hands of Bryce Prince and his shop at Kern County Power Powersports.
I debuted the impressive 92 horsepower twin cylinder engine at Buttonwillow in March for the second round of CRA. In my very first practice session I glanced down at my lap timer and saw I was running 1:59s which put my jaw on the floor. My previous best at Buttonwillow was 2:02, and to be shattering that time by 3 seconds in my VERY FIRST PRACTICE SESSION was almost incomprehensible. When I saw that number, I decided I had to push a little for my last hot lap to do a 1:58, and I did just that! My new engine (along with probably some rider improvement as well) had seemingly handed me 4 seconds like a gift from the gods. And, realistically, it had to be more than that, because if I was running 1:58 in my very first Friday practice session, it seemed like hitting 1:55 by the time I got down to race pace would be a breeze.
Sadly, I never got a chance to find out. Saturday morning found an unexpectedly wet track after some surprise overnight rain. By the time the track dried, there was no time for practice and we went straight into qualifying. I wasn’t sure how much grip to expect but was riding high on the confidence from Friday practice. I made a bit of an error in arriving last to the pit-out for the start of qualifying and quickly realized it would hold me back to be stuck riding through the pack when I had pace on just about everyone. I made a strategic call to ride through the hot pit at the end of the first lap to try and leave myself a gap for a decent qualifying lap. It was hard to leave myself enough of a gap, though, and I was catching the back markers by Riverside. This time I put my head down and figured all I could do was start working my way through the field and hope for a decent lap time.
The quest didn’t last long, though. I made a pass around the outside of Riverside, and before I could even make the next turn my bike spontaneously and inexplicably hit the ground. From the video, the only thing that’s clear is I didn’t make any mistakes. I have found no hint of a wet or oily patch on the ground. I did, however, find after the wreck that my steering was stuck due to a broken steering damper that wedged itself into a position that became a steering stop. This damper has actually broken before, and I thought I fixed it. My suspicion is the damper broke before the crash and actually caused it by locking the steering.
In any case, I came away with a modest concussion and a broken collarbone. The ER initially told me to do nothing about the collarbone. My ortho doc disagreed and recommended surgery, but the initial ER diagnosis caused a three week delay before I finally got surgery in April. That delay was the difference between making and missing the AFM double round in May that effectively torpedo’d my whole season.
Onward!
My friend Oli Kho generously organized a private track day for Apple employees. Oli is about as fast a rider and nice a guy as you’ll ever meet, so it was super great to hang out with him and everyone else at this event.
I got a chance to mix things up for a couple laps with another good friend and AFM racer 147 Ian Mondragon, as well as meet a couple riders doing their first track day who’ve already got the hunger. That’s super great to see as I did my very first track day 7 years ago at another event for Apple employees. Can’t wait to see these guys turn into new racers!
Here are a whole bunch of photos courtesy of Max at Oxymoron Photography.
Random Racing 