Better late than never TGPR race report

TGPR Race Report, April 28-29th, 2001-

Short Version:

Very crowded weekend. Great turn out of spectators, friends, and fellow racers. C-Superstock finished 19th. C-Superbike finished 9th.

Long Version:

Well, as I said in the last report, I felt like I was extremely down on power at CMP. When I got back I took the bike over to Motoace for them to do a base line dyno run and see where we stand. When I bought the bike from my buddy Dave, he had only raced it once. He got a dyno sheet from the guy he got it from that showed 104 corrected rear wheel hp. We got a whopping 90 hp on our run. That was with Nutec race fuel in the tank!!!! To give those that don't know an idea, the R6 comes out of the crate with 96 hp bone stock. If you add a good pipe (Acropovic) and jet kit, you can pretty easily get 101-104 out of them. Add Nutec to a properly tuned bike and you will get around 5-10 hp gain bringing the grand total up to around 110 hp. At 90 hp we are between 10 and 20 hp down on the competition. There is also a pretty nasty flat spot right at 12,000 rpm. No wonder it felt like I didn't have any motor. I didn't!!!! There was only 2 weeks between the races, so there was no time to try to find the missing horsepower. I had to race it as is, so I geared it really tall to try to get the best drive out of the corners and hopefully run with someone. I also didn't have time to pre-register for this event either. The one good thing leading into this event was that I had time to get my leathers shipped off to Barnacle Bill (www.racingleather.com) to get adjusted. Actually, Bill made the time to get my suit taken out and returned to me in less than a week. The leathers felt 10 times better, and I could actually wear them without cutting off my circulation. Bill is the man when it comes to leathers. Not only does he build a great set of leathers, but he backs them up with the best customer service I have ever encountered. If you need anything from lettering to a full race suit, I highly recommend him.

On Saturday I got to the track at around 7 am, and already the paddock was full. This was a combined regional event, along with vintage, and a lot of manufacturers were paying contingency ($$$$) so everyone and their grandmothers were at the track. I drove through once and didn't see a spot, so I parked in a small space on the pit entrance road and made myself very wide. This year several other Floribama Rider members decided to try their hands at racing. This means that instead of just me and all of my crap, I now needed space for at least 5 racers and all of their crap too. This was not an easy task, but we finally spread out enough to get everyone in. Since I couldn't pre-register I had to wait in line at the track, and what a line it was. It was like waiting for a ride at Disney World. I got into the line at 7:30, and was finally registered at 8:25. I was first practice group and still haven't teched my bike at this point. First practice started at 8:30. I ran back to our pit and got suited up, and took the bike over to tech hoping for some odd reason to just blow right through there and make my first practice. That wasn't going to happen. Again, I was greeted by a long line. By the time I got my bike teched my practice group had been on track for about 10 minutes. I flew out to pit out and asked Chuck if I had time, and he said "one lap" so I took it. I never doubted him as he's the best at track time management, but I had to laugh when I came around for the first time to see the checkered flag. Doh. One lap it is. I came in and waited for second practice. When second practice came around I was ready to roll. I hit it pretty hard from the first lap. I knew that I would have to run the bike harder than I ever had to keep up with these guys this weekend. I was spinning the rear tire up out of almost every corner early in the practice session. I was dropping my lap times pretty consistently, but was still nowhere near where I wanted to be. I started pushing even harder to try to better my times, and nearly launched myself. I was coming around the first left hander, knee and toe on the ground in unison, rolling the throttle on harder and harder to try to get a good drive out of the corner. I got a little greedy with the throttle and the rear tire broke loose (while still in full lean) and slid around what felt like a mile. I had to actually save the low side by holding the bike up with my knee, then it caught traction and wanted to kick me off, but I stayed in the throttle and on the bike. The next several corners the rear tire was breaking loose pretty bad. I wrote it off as a greedy throttle hand, and after practice I headed to the house. Most of the other club members stayed to run Solo 20's.

Sunday I got up to the track around 7:30. "Big Daddy" Greg Calhoun was already there with the generator for the tire warmers. We were able to run the warmers before my practice so I went out with toastie tires. From about the second lap the rear tire was spinning and sliding in every corner, and it was spinning as I stood it up and tried driving off the corners. The front was sticking like glue, but the rear was toast. In all of my practice sessions I only managed a best time of 1:05. The fast guys run 1:00 and 1:01's so I was definitely still off the pace. I practiced both of my sessions with it hoping that I could save a little money and run it all weekend, but it was done. When I came in from my second practice, we pulled the rear wheel and headed over to DB Motorsports for a new "Stone". The new Bridgestone BT-001's are a great tire. Very predictable slides, great traction. The profile of the tire is a bit different than the BT-58's I was running and the bike turns in a lot quicker. Just like any make or model of tire though, once they are gone, so is the traction. Derek mounted up a new 001 for me, I took it over to Max at Traxxion for some of his magic tweaking, and we were ready for the races. I managed to get the bike together in time for me to take one lap with a different group to scrub in the new tires. Jen, Jacob, and Zoe got to the track right before my first race. My races were race #5 and race #10. Race 5 was C-Supersport. There was a large field for this race with 22 entries. I was gridded on row 5. I actually got a decent start and was in probably around 10th place going into turn 1. I tried hitting the first couple of laps harder to see if I could hang with anyone. In every corner I was either as fast as or faster than the person in front of me. As soon as we straightened up, they were gone. The power difference was pretty obvious. Every lap a few more riders would motor me on the straights and more positions were lost. I was pushing the bike very hard, and driving deeper into the corners. Even being down on power, with the gearing that I had on the bike it would pull the front wheel off the ground between shifts. I managed to get my times down to 1:04's but that's all I could do. I finished in a lonely 19th spot. Too far back to battle for the next position, but far enough ahead that I didn't need to worry about mine. I felt a little dizzy when I came in and got off the bike. I helped Jen carry the kids to the tower and had to stop because my legs were cramping up. I was dehydrated. I sat in the air-conditioned tower for the next several races to cool down a bit and drank plenty of water. As my last race approached I headed out feeling much better. Race #10 was C-Superbike. Not as many in this class. I think there were a total of 15 people entered in the race. I was gridded on Row 3 this time. Again I got a decent start and this time I was probably about 5th going into turn 1. Same thing different race. Every straight at least 1 rider would come by. I wanted to run with someone in this race so I was pushing the bike harder and harder. About halfway through the race a guy passed me on the front straight right before the first turn. I wanted to try to hang with him so I once again got greedy with the throttle. As I said, same thing different race. With both toe and knee on the ground I again broke the rear tire loose and hung on for the ride. Luckily I managed to save it again, but my drive off of the corner was shot and I settled in to my position and finished the race. I managed to drop my times down into the low 1:03's which is the best I've done there in the counter-clockwise direction. I finished in 9th place, again no one close enough to me to worry about. All in all, given the situation with the bike, I am very happy with our results. I rode the bike hard enough to give me blisters on my hands. When we find our power and if I can push the bike at least this hard again, we will have much better results. I stayed to watch the other guys finish their races, helped tear down base camp, and headed to the house. I turned the bike back over to the guys at Motoace to do a compression and leak-down test and hopefully soon we'll have a strong running bike. As usual I need to thank a bunch of people. First would be my wife Jennifer, son Jacob, and daughter Zoe. My life would be incomplete without them. Next is Greg Calhoun and 29 Dreams Motorcycle Resorts. Check them out at www.29dreams.com and come visit us sometime. A huge thanks goes out to Barnacle Bill for fitting my suit into his busy schedule and doing such a great job of fixing it. Thanks to all of the Floribama Riders that came by to watch us race, we had some from VA, NC, FL, GA, AL, TN, etc. This is the best group of friends a guy could ask for. Cudos to WERA, and all of the corner workers that made this weekend such a huge success. Thanks to Bridgestone, Ferodo, LP USA, Mary Lou's Team, Arai, Traxxion Dynamics, In Your Face photography, Pit Bull, Vortex, and thanks to all that have read this far. Next race might be the National at TGPR on Memorial Day weekend, if we have a strong running bike by then…

Thanks
Jeffro
29dreams.com Racing