AHRMA Race at Laguna Seca, CA on July 16-18, 2021

davidd

Well Known and Active Forum User
VOC Member
The AHRMA race in Laguna Seca was held this past weekend, and the hardcore racers from the east coast were in attendance. This race was never on the AHRMA schedule when Carleton Palmer won his championships or when I was racing. However, the track’s reputation in the history of motorsports appeals to the hardcore.

David Tompkins made his way to the track, Rob McKeever and Alex McLean with the overhead cam Norton. Not being aware of the weather conditions, David went out in the first practice on Friday without knowing that the early practices are sometimes foggy. It is hard to drive in fog and much harder to race in fog. Dave managed the fastest time in the practice session (71.363 mph average), a good average speed for the conditions.

Unfortunately, Laguna Seca has a dedicated sound shack on the course. The track must aggressively enforce the sound limits due to the pressure from local communities developed over the years because the county owns the land. The limit at the track is 105 dB. Dave came in at 105.9 dB. Fortunately, he had a spare exhaust system. The system was more restrictive, but it turned out to work reasonably well. It pulled his top end down, but the low-end torque was improved.

For those that do not know the track, there is a very long uphill segment of the track that terminates at the top of the hill in a turn that leads into the famous downhill “corkscrew.”

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The 2.5-mile track has many long uphill drives mixed with some steep (short) downhill drives. Due to the elevation changes, the higher torque lower top end pipe was not a bad option.

Due to many “red flags” in earlier events, the Saturday Class C race was shortened from six laps to four laps. At the start, Dave shot into the lead to catch up with the first waver of racers. The first wave of racers was the 200 GP bikes. These bikes are given a two-turn lead before the start of the second wave bikes to keep the traffic interactions to a minimum. If you can pick your way through the bikes in front of you before clashing with the competitors in your own class, things seem to work better.

If you are in first place, you can’t easily keep track of the guy catching up to you, but Alex was closer to Dave on the Norton than he anticipated. Dave crossed the line with a two-second lead, so it was not a “photo finish,” but it demonstrates the point that you can rarely feel at ease in a race.

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Alex McLean (left), David Tompkins (center), and Gary Swan (right, I think that’s him).

Hot Tech (scrutineers checking your bike at the end of a race) told Dave he had a leaky fork seal:

Tech (2).jpg


Few fixes are easier.

The Sunday race was the full six laps. Dave lowered his lap time from 2.01 minutes per lap down to 1.59, which was just a bit faster than Alex. Dave got the win by averaging 75.597 mph per lap.

Congratulations to David for winning the weekend on a Vincent at the prestigious Laguna Seca race track!

David
 
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