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August
21-22 WSMC The overheating problems I had at Portland were my leading concern during the few days I had to work on the bike before Willow Springs. I straightened all the radiator and oil cooler fins and bled the radiator, and hoped that it would make a small difference. I guess you could say I was cautiously hopeful. By heading up early Friday and running the trackday before WSMC practice, we were hoping to get a little extra time in to figure out if all the corners were still in the same place. There was a lot more track time than I had tires, so by the afternoon I just relaxed and contemplated my naval and Britt's derriere. I do that quite a bit, but try to limit it on race weekends. The bike seemed to be running a bit cooler, but it was hard to tell, as it wasn't as warm and it always had plenty of time to cool between sessions. Saturday I practiced a bit more with a newer tire, and Britt got hosed in her Solo race by a very silly rule that we didn't follow unintentionally. You can read about that in her August race report. We felt pretty good by the end of the day and very ready for race day festivities. |
) We stay at park plaza, and drink coca cola, hmmmmmm. ) The monthly WSMC fashion show |
| Sunday
dawned a nice day, but quickly became quite warm. California
Race Services spooned on a gummy new set of Pirelli Supercorsa Slicks
and I warmed up, staying out only a three laps in each session to limit
the wear on the tires. Race One was BOTT Heavy, and I lined up on the
pole and saw that I was going to have to deal with Kenny Kopecky again,
only this time on his new 999R. Clearly, I was going to have to work
for it. My start was pretty bad, and I ended up having to pass a couple people on the first two corners before I could properly chase Kenny. I put my head down and ran the fastest laps I've turned so far, which resulted in my narrowing the gap to the lead. I was feeling good and thought I had a chance to at least fight for the win. Then, as my bike pushed wide out of turn two, I ran off the track with a fair amount of lean angle and went dirt biking at the top of fourth gear. I kept the thing upright and jumped back onto the track, but spent two corners scrubbing the dirt off before I went back to full attack mode. At that point there were two laps left, and I was quite a ways out in front of third, and Kenny was another four seconds up the road, so I decided to sit back and be content with second place and a larger points lead. During the race the bike ran hot but consistant, staying around 210 degrees. Not good. There were two races and then I was back up for Formula Twins. I managed a better start and slotted in behind Claudio and Kenny. I was feeling pretty racy and was confident that I could stay with them and at least increase my laptimes, if not work on a win. Alas, it was not to be. At the end of the first lap, my bike was running at 212 and started misfiring. I was worried about continuing and just pulled into the pits after circulating around slowly. My first DNF of the year, how nice. Here's where the dumb part comes in. Further inspection after the races indicated that my bike was running super lean and just cooked the sparkplugs, resulting in a misfire. Luckily, the priller is very stout, and testing revealed that the leakdown and compression were unaffected. I should never have installed a Powercommander with someone elses custom map, as it wasn't close enough and ran Waaay too lean with the fuel I was using. Lesson learned. I'd like to thank PB, California Race Services and Jerry, and the gang at GP motorcycles for helping me diagnose the problem. |
) Not sure why this looks like I'm going 7 MPH, unless... ) Britt tell mes what she thinks of my turn one performance |