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

You jinxed him !

 

Either that or it takes longer to try to make sense of what Floyd is babbling on about?

 

SEE YA

 

Seriously lol. Why is he even racing in the stock1000 class? He won race 1 with his fastest lap around a 1.25, then turned around and ran a 1.24 in Superbike..sandbagging

 

He’s just playing the hand he’s dealt right now. Any other competitor would do the same thing. I don’t think he’s sandbagging, Melissa and the team I believe have figured a lot of stuff out since their “brake issues”.

 

If people have the expectation that if they win in SSTK they should be running in Superbike, then they need to be going as fast as Cam (and PJ would be) is going.

Also says something for some of the Superbike programs and that maybe they should take a step back in terms of getting lost in the set up that trick Superbike parts bring. I thought Westby did the best job at that. Some of the teams might just go faster with a good SSTK bike and a Superbike engine.

 

100% agree and think I used West earlier as an example of how to switch over to sbk. Having all the parts in a lot of cases will slow riders down and make the bike almost un-rideable, ask Gagne about that one from the past. You haven’t know what to do with all those fancy bits and have the right combo and set up.
Also keep in mind from a budget it’s not just building the sbk, it’s having the spares etc for changes, testing, crashes, different set ups, etc. Some guys don’t like full on sbk forks if they aren’t the right ones if they are too stiff for example. Swingarms that act different etc.

 

Also agree with this. The amount of extra tricks and bits that are allowed in SBK, can screw a team. Especially if the team goes into it thinking they need everything that's allowed. I came from car racing and I can tell you first hand it is MUCH easier to get lost in setup with bikes. The more things you can adjust and tweak does not always equal the better. Also because its a trick part does not alwasy equal better. Look at Herrin.. He asked Scheibe to put a Suter swingarm on that Bimmer and he was slower afterwords. I believe there is a 44Teeth video from a few years ago about the BuildBase Suzuki BSB team. They talked about how they just stuck with the stock swingarm. "We tried them back and forth over and over, and it didn't seem to make us faster. They're $10,000 and take a while to get. Its not worth it for our program" was the jist of it. Unless you have a wizard like Stanboli running the engineering aspects of your team I think a lot of the SBK teams start off on the wrong foot with all these parts. problem is, there are only a handful of Stanboli type people..

Also not to take anything away from Cam B, as I think he'd prolly be getting podiums on a STK1000 bike.

Spitball side tangent: When Elias/Ulrich relationship inevitably breaks down Cam Peterson would fit well on that team. I don't hate Elias at all. It's clear he still loves racing. Im sure he made a decent salary through his Grand Prix years. However, it's clear he's missing something this year. I'd pick Cam because I hope that SDK makes it back to Europe and Paasch somehow goes as well.

 

I wonder how this season would have looked with PJ racing. He would have definitely taken some wins off C.P.

 

Great post. A lot of it comes down to a- having a plan b- executing that plan. By plan I mean for example if you are going from sstk to sbk have a detailed test plan to introduce the parts in a methodical fashion, get good data from the bike and out of the riders head. Also have the people on the team involved that need to be. It’s also training for the entire team that needs it. I know a couple BSB teams that work with aftermarket swing arm manufactures and they bring a variety of the “off the shelf” stuff but also have their engineer at the test to be in the discussions. Often times they modify one of their existing swingarms to address rides concerns. One of the companies even brings a truck with a welder and the stuff they need to make smaller modifications to try for example - adding a bit or side rigidity. They add plates or gussets in certain areas. They would either make more like that or take that data back to the shop and make one with thicker material in a certain place etc to have the same effect. That’s obviously the higher end of the spectrum but they’d spend many, many sessions just on a swing arm. Then move on to another. Then start combining, a lot of money and time but results showed it payed off. Other rides are ok with an off the shelf kit piece or maybe even a braced stock one.

 

It's funny you say that because pretty sure the BSB Evo class was just that. And guys did pretty good with it.

 

My feeling is if you can’t go as fast as a SSTK bike can, then you probably aren’t ready for Superbike (as a rider, team, or both).

It also reinforces the fact you don’t need all the trick parts to get close. Sure you’re not going to beat Cam B on one, but as people have used the excuse of trick parts being a barrier to entry, it’s bs. Until you’re running 24.5 around Barber on a SSTK bike, you don’t need it. I remember when RRF was complaining about all of this, yet they were getting smoked by Scholtz, Fong, and Lewis who were on SSTK bikes.

Westby was methodical in their approach as they knew they had to develop the team and train the rider to work with all of it, it it’s taken at least a whole season and a lot of testing to get there. Westby does well with less because they are one of if not the best managed team in the paddock with some super talented wrenches under the awning.

Stanboli said that about Jake Gagne. He said he rode on other Superbikes with the widgets, but he was never trained on how to give feedback and to learn what he actually likes. He just always hopped on and let it rip, which you can’t do anymore at that level or can’t do if you want to keep improving.

 

Cam must be gelling well with Stanboli's crew because he's gapping the field and looks like he's on a Sunday ride with the cruise control on.
The occasional scrap for the other podium spots and watching a few stock1000 bikes getting in the mix has been about all the excitement there's been.
Supersport on the other hand...

 

Cam B checking out on the field Superbike is not good for the series or sport in my opinion. Hats off to him for how well he's doing but fans want to see battles not someone checking out on the field. Same thing with RE checking out in SS. Not good for the series. Both are incredible talent though

Friday it was funny during qualifying when he was complaining about grip and setup. Then they told him he was P1 by several seconds. He was like "oh" LOL

 

THIS.

 

Yup Roger seems annoyed by that douche bag. Robby deserved a punch in the face after the comments he made about 119 when he fell down in SSTK Q1.

 

Undoubtedly. Bummer he hasn't been able to grid up. I hope he can get one of the final round in to cement himself again.

 

I'd like to say that Robby is getting better as the year goes along.... but I can't. He sucks just as bad as he did at the start of the year and annoys me even more, because he should be getting better. What was his deal with blathering on about Jeremy McGrath winning all of the MX races one season. Who F'n cares. If he wants to talk about a dominant racer then how about talking about Josh Hayes and his 16 wins, which is who Cam has to beat for the record, not some dirt dog.

BTW He sucks!!!

 

No way. He studies, learns and has greatly improved. He remembers past results and things about the riders that Rog misses. He has grown leaps and bounds this season. They BOTH need to stop talking over each other. Rog is just as bad with that (Robbie tried to tell us about Andrew Lee but Rog interjected and it was lost) but yall give him a pass because he used to race. Not to mention he directs the broadcast and the producers better than anyone else. The broadcast was cutting to the finish of the first place rider no matter what else was going on but HE was the only one who said "we cant leave this battle" and they cut right back to it and we got to watch MESA and Corey battle instead of watching Cams cool down lap.

Here's a novel idea, listen on mute if you know so much and can do so much better, SMH.

 

This is from the article yesterday:

Which brings us to the upcoming round eight at Indy. We checked in with HSBK Racing team owner Bobby Shek, who said that it “doesn’t look positive for Indy.” Then, we contacted Jacobsen himself, who concurred with Shek’s assessment of the situation and said, “Yes, it doesn’t look positive.”