Robert Tinagero Race Report AFM Round 4
The following is from Robert Tinagero...
Photos courtesy 4theriders.com
Thunderhill Raceway
June, 15th 2009
It’s been almost 8 months since I have raced at Thunderhill, so once I found out my next race was there I was really excited! Thunderhill is one the first tracks I'd ever ridden it was a good to get back to the basics. I arrived at the track early on Friday night before, so I decided to take a late night jog around the track to check it out and make sure there was nothing that was going to surprise me out there.
Saturday practice was a rocky start to the weekend. We decided to use my AMA Supersport-spec bike, so we had no quick shifter, plus a few other go fast goodies. I could only run a 1' 57" in the morning practice session so we decided to make a big gearing change hoping that it would work. I went out after practice for my first session and right off the bike felt better out of the turns. I knew we made the change in the right direction, so we had Dave Moss of Catalyst Reaction Suspension Tuning do a little suspension adjustment to counter for the wheelbase change. It worked, my last practice I ran my fastest lap time of a 1' 55" which was right there with the front runners.
Sunday came and I was excited to race, I hadn’t been this excited to race in a few weekends. We went out for morning practice and the bike had an electrical issue. I was like, “Great, this means I'm not going to have any practice before the race.” When I came in to the pits, my dad and I began to look at all the plugs trying to find what went wrong. Once we found it we fixed it, and I took the bike out for a hot lap in one of the other races to make sure everything was right. I came in and everything worked, my mood changed back to the happy ready to race mood!
The first race I was on the outside of the front row, I could see where I wanted to go with my start and line. I didn't get off the line as good as I wanted and a few bikes passed me. As I battled my way back there was a red flag because of a crash exiting turn 15. So we went back to the pits, got gassed up and went out to retry it. We gridded up again and I had better start going into the first turn. I went from 3rd to 6th at one point and I decided that I couldn't beat them down the straight anyways so I would have to beat them on the brakes. I noticed I was better on the brakes entering turn one then the lead pack, my plan was to slowly work my way up to the rider in front of me tuck in tight to his rear tire and try to be as close as possible to draft down the straight and to make sure I would get the pass done on the brakes into turn one.
I passed Berto on the last lap going into turn one, made sure I didn't leave any room for him to pass me back on the last lap. Once I hit the straightaway I knew Berto was there on my tire and I kept my head down and hoped he wouldn't get back by me. I ended up beating him to the line for a 3rd place and a podium!
The second race I was ready for. I knew I was going to have to fight hard to stay up in the top group. I was starting from outside the second row so I wasn't in bad shape. The flag dropped and we all launched of the line. My start wasn't the greatest, a few riders got past me and I had to work my way back past them. I tucked in behind Gabe Santa Coloma and we went into turn 11 splitting Billy Scott. As he went through the turn 3 wide Gabe and I quickly got past him and worked on the next few people pretty quickly. I ended up getting past Berto going up the inside of turn five; I also ended up passing Liko Miles in the same turn the next lap. That pass on Liko was for 4th place in 600 Superbike, which wasn't too bad My weekend was a successful weekend. I ended up running a 1' 52" flat and I got a podium in race one and just missed the podium in race two.
I would like to thank my sponsors; G&B Cyclepro, CRS Tuning, West Coast GP Cycles, CT Racing, Joe Rocket, Attackperformance.com, and Joe with 4theriders.com. Special thanks to 2wheeltimes.com.
Robert Tinagero
AMA #34, AFM #134 and WERA #234
