MotoAmerica - Road America - 2022

For sure! He's a very talented racer / rider and wrench. The bad luck he's had over the years has sucked for him. Whether the bad luck was out of his control or not he's been in the game a long time and deserves some good results. He earned that win and capitalized on the conditions and being at his home track

 

Do tell, I cant wait to hear all about it.

 

I became a very close friend with Jason when I moved to Appleton. I was at his shop just about every weekend. As well as being one of the most talented riders I know, he’s one of the smartest and hardest working people I have ever met. It wasn’t uncommon for him to work 7 days a week 50+ hours a day. The dude never sleeps.

I feel part of his “bad luck” issues is he’s so involved with a lot of others racers and his own business that he just got pulled in so many directions at a race weekend helping others which resulted in little time and concentration towards his own efforts.

Dude was a blast riding around RA with at a NESBA day after the AMA national. I could keep up with him on my 1000 when he was on his 600. One time he put such a hard pass on me going into Canada Corner he actually hit me and side swiped me. He was working to get by me before T-14 as I would have gapped him on the front straight. Which I did just going into T-1 only to have the fucker get me on the brakes into T-5. (I hate that corner).

He’s a smart guy who loves going through data etc. He helped me with my riding tremendously.
I called him Rainman.

(never drink Alabama Slammers with him). He’ll drink you under the table.

 

I suppose you could ask MotoAmerica why they publish tech inspection results, they apparently feel it's more important than you do.

Case in point. I spoke with David at length at VIR, he said they were going to ask for special dispensation. When they refreshed the motor before the season the cylinders were scored, he said they could not find any new ones anywhere. So the cylinders were sent out to get replated. He was concerned that Kayla would be DQed because rules say cylinders "Must be the originally fitted and homologated parts with no modification allowed." This is not rumor, that was a face to face conversation that I had with him. So if replating is allowed it's important to know that. I want to know if something covered in the rules is not quite how it reads. I damn sure disagree that the rulebook does not need to be clarified.

There's more to the story but I'm not going to get into it here.

 

Ah yeah that makes sense. I remember now that the schedule got all screwed up and they were supposed to be the first race (when it was still very wet) but ended up with a short race at the very end.

 

Also, Dunlop has a tire fitting schedule with each class getting a couple of 1.5-2 hour windows a day to have their tires changed. Usually it's no big deal, but with changing conditions, it gets crazy with people showing up wanting rains mounted. So they may have not had the opportunity to get tires changed.

 

The Twins airbox rule is another good example. The rule says "airbox is free, bike must be able to run in all atmospheric conditions" When lots of people showed up with pod filters or a Hordpower on the FZ, they were told no bueno. So it's not exactly "free"..... you need some kind of enclosure, and over the years I've seen people passed with as little as the bottom of an airbox only. But there is no technical bulletin, no drawings, and just a guess as to what will or will not be passed until you get there.

So to Frank's point, you can't always just read the rulebook (although it will keep you out of trouble on 99% of issues).

Parts availability is another real problem. If you pull heads for teardown, you aren't getting a stock head gasket or bolts to put it back together. Everything is backordered for months in the case of the Yamahas.

 

Yep, one reason a spec tire series can be a challenge. Even before the spec tire it was a challenge for the average privateer to get a tire change when things got busy with the factory teams due to weather. Honestly, shame on both MA and Dunlop for not anticipating things. Whatever.

 

I've always run super hard fork springs at RA. Four big breaking zones, two of those downhill.

 

So new bikes off the showroom had different cylinders?

 

Coatings. Nikasil.

I don't want to put a single word in Frank's mouth, but I believe that was the point of contention he's discussing.

 

OEM have nikasil coating, but I read "no modification allowed" to mean you can't have them recoated. Which is in line with other illegal maintenance procedures like valve seats, etc.

 

I'm not saying they couldn't get rain tires, or they even tried. Just pointing out that it *could* have been complicated.

FWIW, I have never seen anyone unable to get tires mounted in time for a session. Racing with one set of wheels and failing to have tires mounted for possible conditions isn't MA or Dunlop's fault.....

 

Gino, here's another. If you ask an official if rain tires need stickers, they will tell you "not in a race that's been declared wet." Find the "declared wet" wording in the rulebook.

 

Agree

 

I read the airbox rules about 5 times trying to help understand the tech inspection issue @Waterboy was getting with his new R7 and I went around in circles. My conclusion was that they expected some airbox and that it was free therefore pod filters weren’t enough. If that is the case, I think the rules should read “an airbox is required and the design is free” as a starting point. For 2022, the Twins rules now allow a separate crankcase breather tank which I would think enables more flexibility on the airbox design too.

On parts availability, I feel like a bunch of parts could now be deemed illegal due to current lead times and the rules requirement for things to be readily available.

For brakes, “The products must be available within four (4) weeks of a confirmed order”, for suspension, “The products must be available within six (6) weeks of a confirmed order.”

Something goes on backorder, it becomes illegal it’s how I read it.

 

Why doesn't Dunlop offer intermediate tires anymore? Road America seemed like the perfect example of why they should still have them as an option.

 

Club racer me has 3 sets of wheels…….to avoid the run around.