I had a pretty crazy race at Pike’s Peak in 2004. I really liked the track and had qualified pretty good so I guess I was a little anxious for the race to start. I jumped the start by about a mile and was given the meatball flag. After coming in for the stop and go penalty I took off riding like a mad man trying to catch the field and ended up running off the track twice. Despite all of my bonehead moves I had my first top 20 finish in AMA Superstock and even won a little money. I would definitely be trying to redeem myself this year.

The track in Colorado is really pretty simple and it feels like you are riding a big oval, some people refer to it as a mini-Daytona because you go up the banking twice and then down into a kind of Mickey Mouse infield section. Top speed is nowhere near Daytona however with the Superstock bikes only reaching about 145mph.

Saturday morning we got to the track early to set up our pits and get the bikes ready, Superstock was second practice on the schedule. I went and spoke with the Bridgestone guys to see about tire compounds and they said it had been close to 100 degrees during promoter practice on Friday and the tires were going to be hot and greasy. Because you spend so much time on the left side at Pike’s the track can be really hard on tires, especially in extreme heat.

I spent most of the practice session getting reacquainted with the circuit, finding my braking markers and getting my confidence built up in turn one. This is the most important turn on the track because it’s pretty high speed and you have to carry a lot of speed through there because it also sets you up for the drive back onto the other side of the banking. I hadn’t been paying close attention to my temperature so when I came in from practice I was surprised to see everyone on pit lane with their bikes overheating. I guess the high temperature along with altitude makes the bikes pretty susceptible to overheating. My bike was running hot but luckily I wasn’t one of the guys to have a problem with overheating during the weekend.

The tires were feeling fine in these greasy conditions but the bike felt dog slow with the high altitude affecting the horsepower. In Sonoma the bike’s front end was pawing for the sky out of every corner but with the reduced horsepower at the high altitude it felt like I was riding a middleweight bike!

With the shortened race weekend we only had the one practice before qualifying. The bike was feeling pretty good so we didn’t make any changes for qualifying other than tires. Normally you run a really soft tire for qualifying but because of track temperatures we decided to fit up a medium front and a medium-hard rear to try to set our best lap. I did 16 laps in qualifying with my best lap coming on lap 14 with a 59.581. Slightly slower than last year but it turns out a lot of the riders were going slower this year because of the extremely hot conditions.

For Sunday morning practice we shortened the gearing trying to get a little better drive out of the tight corners. It felt pretty good and the larger rear sprocket was helping me pick up the revs on the bike quicker. The temperature was much cooler on Sunday so it was looking pretty good for the race.

After last years fiasco I was sure not to make a jump start and didn’t get off the line that great. I made up a few positions and started battling with fellow Bridgestone rider Jeremy Haiduk and Johnny Rock Page. I was leading Page until lap 4 when he went by in turn 2. I stayed on him and was able to close up big on the brakes in turn 3. I kept shadowing him trying to see if he would start to fade when the leaders came by on lap 13. I moved over to let them by and Page and Haiduk got a huge gap on me. They must have gained close to 6 seconds on me. I just went back to work, put my head down and tried to hunt them back down. After a few near highsides coming out of turn 3 I caught Page on lap 26 and made a pass in the turn 5 & 6 area which is not really a passing area but I was able to make it stick.

On the last lap I went into turn 3 a little cautious because I had been getting in there pretty hot the last few laps and the brakes were fading. This is the corner where I had been catching Page all race so you can imagine my surprise when he goes inside me on the brakes. I couldn’t believe it, I worked so hard all race to catch him only to give the position right back. I stayed on him all the way until the final corner leading onto the banking but just couldn’t get the drive and lost out by .8 seconds, finishing 25th. I managed to turn my fastest time of the race on the second last lap and felt like I could have gone another 28 laps.

This was the most fun I’ve had racing all year and it was good to have a race long battle with a few riders who had been much further ahead of me at previous races. I’ll be taking a few weeks off to replenish the bank account (Can someone help out this lad? Ed) and get ready for Laguna Seca in July. I’m already getting excited for the MotoGP weekend and it should be pretty amazing racing on the same weekend as the likes of Rossi and company. Until then I’ll be doing some work to the bike as well as a little WSMC and WERA racing to sharpen my skills. I could use a few good finishes at the club level to give the confidence a little boost as well!

See you at Laguna, I’ll be in the Dainese tent bench racing with Rossi . . . ya right.

Thanks to all my sponsors who helped me this weekend, Bridgestone, Dainese, Opencheck.com, OC Powersports, Motorex and Technotreff.com.

Brad Puetz
AMA #85