Here we all are again, the start of another AFM season and the start of another adventure. After last seasons’ highs and lows, I was left feeling I needed to come out strong in 2010 with really competitive equipment and a new game plan on how I was going to approach the formula pacific class. I’ve been lucky enough to be surrounded by great friends and supporters and for 2010, we’ve stepped it up to a whole new level.

As many of you know, I’m riding the Ducati 1098R this year. When we first started throwing around the idea of riding these bikes, I was a bit skeptical if they could be competitive against the Japanese brands, especially the always fast GSXRs. We did our homework and felt that the 1098R would work, and with the right people behind, the right tires, and the right rider…..we could win.

I was able to get a little bit of testing in before the end of 2009 on one of our 1098R’s, but with the weather being so cool in November and December, it wasn’t quality track time. Our bikes stayed out in Colorado at Boulder Motor Sports and we ended up getting our bike a few weeks before the first round which allowed us to get a little bit of testing in down at Buttonwillow and Thunderhill. Being a new bike for me, I knew I needed some time to adjust; V-twins are so different than the inlines that I’ve been riding since 2002. It took a few days on the track to figure it out but now I’m confident we are ready for the race weekend and won’t be chasing our tails. Our times were decent at Buttonwillow during testing and we didn’t have any major issues.

Friday, March 19th:

Arrived at Buttonwillow on Friday morning with my mechanic, Alex Torres of Fastline in Fremont. Weather was awesome and I had all the right people there. Brian Sharp and JP Wallace from Boulder Motor Sports flew out from Colorado to help out for the weekend and experience their first AFM race. Once we were setup and checked in, we put the bikes on warmers and got ready to hit the track. We had a few things to focus on with the bike in terms of setup. Spent the day trying a few different things and by the end of the day the bike was great and we had something we could race on. I had dipped into the high 47’s and consistent on the 48’s. We found the Pirelli tire compounds we wanted to use for the races thanks to Chris over at CT Racing. We ran both bikes that day and found that I could match the times on either bike which is always good in case something goes wrong with one.

Saturday, March 20th:

Since we found what we really liked on Friday, our plan was to work on small things like new lines and trying race starts on the Ducati. Ducatis run the dry clutch setup which is so much different than starting on a Japanese bike, so I really had to practice. Times were great but not as fast as Friday, low 48’s, more than likely because we were running tires that had already 30+ laps on them, but it gave me a great idea of what running tires that are going off would feel like. A lot of the FP guys were turning it up and I was impressed by how quick a lot of the guys were going. The hype about FP this year looked to be true and I was excited to see what lay ahead for Sunday.