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How much cheaper is racing a small bike really?

Discussion in 'General' started by aftriathlete, Apr 10, 2020.

  1. kman0066

    kman0066 Well-Known Member

    I switched to R3 racing a couple years ago, after racing a 1000 and 600. Yes, tires are cheaper and last longer. Starting off, tires last half a season. Getting to the pointy end, they seem to fall off after 2-3 weekends. Set of DOTs for R3 is cheaper than big bike slicks as well. I think it's like $320 a set, but I forget. Bike is cheaper, uses less gas, needs less parts as long as you don't crash, and replacement parts are super cheap. You can buy a whole engine for a few hundred or a whole bike (salvage) for like $1500-$2000, if somehow you managed to detonate one or wrap it around a tree

    As for fun, I have a lot more fun on it than my 600 now. Sure, it doesn't want to rip your arms off down the straight, but you'll be going just as fast (if not much faster) in the turns. As with all racing, you have to push to the limit of the bike, so it's not like you're out for a Sunday cruise. The big difference is that flying into the turn on the brakes isn't a big deal anymore, so you focusing on corner speed is easy, and some turns you don't even brake where you would have on another bike.

    Also, unlike some of the SV/LWT crowd, the R3s/400s are almost all running stock motors, so they're super reliable and pretty close racing. Just don't expect to keep up with the 80lb kids :)

    The short of it all, dollars per smile has been a LOT better on the R3. I spend less time working on the bike in a weekend and I have a better time overall.
     
  2. track wagon

    track wagon MCAS MIRAMAR

    Truth!
     
    DmanSlam likes this.
  3. DmanSlam

    DmanSlam Well-Known Member

    +1 to what spitz wrote. Was reading through the thread, looking for someone to post this.

    The suggestions for renting a 'big track' bike, racing an R3 and/or doing minimoto are all good ideas, imho. Minimoto provides a big bang for the buck. The kart/moto track near me is open 4 days a week. That's 4 days of all day riding/practicing for $40.00 per day.

    Still, I enjoy doing both, actually (g-i-x-x-e-r 600 and ttr125).
     
    Ra.Ge. Raptor and turbulence like this.
  4. Johnny B

    Johnny B Cone Rights Activist

    I'm not sure I know what you mean about horns on the starting grid. Barry Sanel had a bicycle bell on his handlebars that he rang when passing the scorers.
    There are stories from the old days about Dale Quarterley. They say he used a horn one weekend and also would turn on the left turn signal when entering a right hander to confuse those behind him. He was told to remove them.

    [​IMG]
     
  5. joec

    joec brace yourself

    I recall horn honking on the grid at times. Especially during those times when everyone had an mb5.
     
  6. Johnny B

    Johnny B Cone Rights Activist

    That's probably from when Betty Bluenose used to do the "pace car" thing with her golf cart. We'd have to wait until she was off the track before we could throw the green flag. One time I was so impatient that I inadvertently started the race while she was still on track. No biggie, since they were all fiddys, but I told her no more pace car after that.
     
  7. khill

    khill Well-Known Member

    I'm a huge fan of the new small bikes. (R3/N400) They make just enough power to be ridden much closer to a bigger bike and there is so much you can do with them and have a blast. I did a trackday this March (right as all hell was breaking loose) and had some clients fly into Laguna Seca and we all rented Feel Like A Pro - FLAP N400s. Even with the basic stock bikes, we were able to get with 7 seconds of the Jr Cup pole time.

    We also train with Yamaha R3s at various go-kart tracks on stock bikes with just a set of Dunlop Q3s....no warmers and tires last forever. And....we set up an R3 with full data acquisition to use it to train riders on how data works.

    Can they bit a bit boring? Maybe on the straights, but I think riding them is great and there is a HUGE bonus they provide (besides the low $ per lap cost) - having time in your headspace to work on your riding.

    Ken
     
  8. aftriathlete

    aftriathlete Well-Known Member

    Lots of good replies, and at least one not so informed one. That's ok guy, you're new. If I had to classify how close to the pointy end I am, I'm a 50th-70th percentile club racing expert kind of guy on a big bike. Solidly mid-pack, maybe the front of the back half. Think 1:52s at Chuckwalla or 1:10s at Arroyo. One time I raced at Barber I got out there for one day without any practice before the morning of, did a couple races and got down to 1:37. Not lighting anyone's hair on fire, but that's my pace as it relates to tire consumption. A 3 race weekend at Chuckwalla for me on a 1000 I could just probably stretch a front to last all 3, but I could not get 3 races safely on a single rear even after flipping. A 4 race weekend was a 2 front and 2 rear weekend. Chuckwalla is fairly hard on tires for the banking and the high average speed.

    I haven't thought real hard about LWT because I figured they went through tires nearly as much as Middleweights, but maybe they don't quite as much. I could probably be happy on a LWT too, but I know where I was primarily racing the last few years at Chuckwalla and Arroyo the LWTs grids were the smallest of all of them, sometimes so much that it wouldn't have been fun to race those classes. I know LWT is getting more popular nation-wide though, especially among guys of my...ahem... demographic. They can be bought for cheap pretty well set up, they definitely have that going for them.
     
    Gino230 likes this.
  9. aftriathlete

    aftriathlete Well-Known Member

    I have a Grom as well, I know a few people mentioned that mini-motor racing has been scratching the itch for them. I brought a Grom out here to Okinawa hoping I could keep up with some parking lot "track days" but I haven't been able to make it happen yet, just too busy with small kids and my current job. Wherever I land when I get back I'm sure I'll look up the local mini track to see if there is racing there. That idea is definitely appealing to me too, just dumb fun on a little kart track. I'd love to get my daughter into it, but she's just under 4 yo now, so I think it will still be a few years. I'll probably start her on a little PW50 for a while just to share the love with her. I don't care if she gets into it or not, but I would certainly feel better about the selfish racing hobby if my family could participate in it at least a little bit.

    Even apart from all the other benefits of cheaper racing, lower speeds, I'm sure I could benefit a lot as a rider from racing a small displacement bike. My first track bike was a Ducati 999, which in hindsight was not the best idea. Even the Daytona 675 I shortly thereafter "downsized" to was a lot of bike, and I crashed it a lot more than I should have.
     
  10. JBowen33

    JBowen33 Only fast on Facebook


    Racing is as expensive or as cheap as you want to make it.

    Decide what you want to get out of it and go from there.

    If you DONT care about winning races you could pick up a cheap ex amount of years old 1000 track bike for 3 grand and throw a set of endurance geared tires on there and go. Same goes for LW bike. Ether way you won’t be competitive with the top guys.

    If you want to win races you better plan on spending the money. There’s guys out there spending money on a brand new bike every year with thousands in motor builds, race fuel, new sets of tires every race etc and on top of the money/bike/ equipment they also have the talent.

    Side note on little bikes it’s about power to weight ratio I think more so then bike bikes. There’s racers who are 12-13 years old probably less the 100 pounds with a top tier bike, the talent and on a bike more so then you said you would be.

    I’m assuming your a full grown man so even if you spend 20k on a 400 build your behind the game.

    My .2 cents
     
    track wagon and Gorilla George like this.
  11. You have no f ing say in anything budget related. ;-)
     
    Gino230 likes this.
  12. To my knowledge that’s correct. The tires are the best for the bikes dynamics, so therefore carcass stiffness and compounds are pretty different. I’d actually be curious to see the tire load data throughout the weekend in the 3 classes.
     
  13. Venom51

    Venom51 John Deere Equipment Expert - Not really

    Yep...
     
  14. gixxerboy55

    gixxerboy55 Well-Known Member

    What about a supermoto,do they still have races for them.
     
  15. noles19

    noles19 Well-Known Member

    Depends where you're located, but normally you can find supermoto races and classes for them in road racing also.
    Tires are about $400, and the rears are softer so they don't last a really long time unless you run a medium or hard.
    It's a blast though
     
  16. stangmx13

    stangmx13 Well-Known Member

    My tire bill in 600s was great until Dunlop started making 3 super soft compounds that only last one heat cycle. Too bad everyone doesn’t just agree to race on Mediums. We’d go nearly just as fast and would use half the tires. The smaller bikes are lucky that their compound to HP ratio is nothing like a 1000 on a super super soft. You should prob hope they don’t bother making those tires lol.
     
    Last edited: Apr 12, 2020
    aftriathlete likes this.
  17. aftriathlete

    aftriathlete Well-Known Member

    That's what I like to hear. I want a high dollars to smiles ratio! Racing the big bikes was just a dollars-to-smiles ratio because it was both big dollars and big smiles.
    I want to be reasonably competitive with mid-pack experts in more than one race per day. So whatever I get would be built out to Superstock limits. Just D Superstock or smaller, but I guess I haven't completely ruled out LWT either at this point.

    The fast guys at Arroyo have made tire negotiations at least once or twice, it was a great idea to me. I don't remember the specific details they agreed to because I wasn't a "top" Formula guy, but I think they agreed to only buy one set of tires for race day or something along those lines. Historically I've never been a race the softest tire option possible for the weather kind of guy, I have so far always factored some amount of longevity into my tire compound choices. Maybe it just meant running a SC1 rear versus a SC0, but I wasn't out there trying to run a fresh rear tire every sprint race.
     
  18. aftriathlete

    aftriathlete Well-Known Member

    More accurately, high smiles per dollar ratio. You know what I meant.
     
  19. Gixxerguy855

    Gixxerguy855 Well-Known Member

    Did this exact thing during the ole WSMC days. Switched from the GSXR 1000 to an SV 650. Took me forever to come to grips with the smaller bike and I won't even get into the number of blown motor issues I had until I had it built at Spears the right way. In the end, the racing was fun, I did save some tire money too, but if I had to do it all over again, I should have stayed on the 1000 simply because I loved it and I was getting faster.
     
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