Round 7 |MotoAmerica Superbikes at Alabama | SEP 18-20

@Canadian Bacon Thursday tech is just for safety items. I have not stood there and watched during Superbike Parc Ferme, but there are people babysitting certain team's bikes in Twins Cup so I have been there for the entire 30 min. Haven't seen them check anything but tire stickers.

 

I’m well aware how tech works and I’m not talking pre tech I’m talking post tech, but the fact they don’t have the ability to check firmware, which is a pretty big one in terms of the ecu is mind boggling. They can somewhat track it with Motec because I “think” when you buy a firmware upgrade you have to provide the serial number, etc but that’s pretty easy to defeat as well. My point was how do you have a a couple options of spec ECU’s and no way to police it?
I don’t think the SBKU team has any malicious intent and were very transparent with their bike, to me it was more of a Hail Mary hoping those parts would get a pass for Barber. They had an illegal bike but I don’t classify them as cheaters per say, as they didn’t not attempt to deceive anyone. From the MA standpoint they did what they should have and I am glad they did because it keeps consistency, once they allow bending of the rules, changing them Constantly etc makes teams leave the paddock.
The whole thing sucks but to me was handled well form MA and from SBKU.

 

I know what tech is, I’m talking about random post tech inspections. They do random checks all the time and a lot of other series check ecu firmware. I guess this would be the equivalent of checking a tire sticker but never ever checking what actual tire is in there, and yes I know they do check actual tires time to time, was just an example.

 

@Canadian Bacon whered u get the info that MA is unable to check firmware?

I think it’s silly that the Kawi version of the firmware didn’t exist, if this is true as SBU said. How do you allow an ECU and not have all of those ready on day 1. I wonder if anyone else is using that ECU in SBK. Maybe there isn’t and MA felt the effort was better used elsewhere.

 

From a SW developer standpoint, you may not want to spend the time and money to make every permutation of software and hardware allowed by regulations and wait until someone orders one combination to compile, test and deliver. So it’s more a matter of lead time and in this case, it sounds like they didn’t have enough lead time to provide the right combination. So it might be easy to assume the right firmware was already available as you’re doing a last minute SBK build when in fact it needed one extra week to produce.

 

I believe it has to be requested to me homologated for that bike by x date which is above and beyond the regular MA request to them. That seemed very silly when I read that but it didn’t give much more detail, it 100% sure they don’t have it for the M130 for the Kawi. I’ll have my computer open in the morning and can check.

 

they had the superbike podium bikes in the tech shed with bodywork yanked off. not sure what they were checking. twins had a fuel check at Jersey. A bunch of Jr cup bikes got busted with thin head gaskets at Barber, 3 jr cup bikes got sealed up at Barber for future tear down.

 

Gino isnt it time for your MA mandated urinalysis??

 

I interpreted it as they didn't have a MA version of firmware available for the M170, which would make sense since it technically isn't legal for MA... I would assume they had one for the M130 that would have worked but I could be wrong on both counts.

 

He’s gotta be overdue by now.

 

Strangely silent on the topic, for sure.

 

LOL! I'm just going to leave this right here. https://www.thewhizzinator.com/

 

I don’t think it needs to be specific for the Kawi but I know there are a lot of package files available for other bikes for the M130 with MA firmware that gives you a good baseline to load as far as setup goes, if not it’s a pain programming inputs and outputs. Not difficult but can be time consuming getting everything in range to be measured accurately.

 

I'm just a few tenths off the required Drug Test pace the last few weekends

Don't worry, I got one at work this week if it makes you feel better!

 

Which is why you’re the go to random rider!

 

What if a rider has a script?

 

For the weeds

 

I recall the Olympic Committee giving a Canadian Snowboarder his medal back because they concluded it “was not performance enhancing”.

 

or Adderall? Or Testosterone? or?

That's why they just test me, so you don't have to worry about those questions.

 

Was he using a van to haul everything in...... Lol