I have over 300 pictures from this weekend's Suzuka 8 hour race. Here's a few from the first day. I took a couple of pictures of the Yosh bike in the tech line and was imediately told by the officials that photos were not allowed in there.....oops!
Here are some pictures of the team and the bike. The saturday night before the race there is a big festival and all the teams practice their pit stops in front of th efans. It was pretty cool!
I'm still sorting through them. I will probably post the good ones on my website as soon as I get a chance: http://suzuka-or-bust.com/
How about some details on the 10R you were riding. How did it handle, what was the power like, what kind of set-up was it i.e. superbike, superstock etc? Can't really access your link from work hence the questions.
It was prepared by the KHI R+D development team. The engine was built by the KHI mechanic that handles all the kit part development. Engine mods were mainly just kit parts (cams, bearings, tranny, etc.). It made good power. It was a moderate Superbike spec, not quite as powerful as the factory Superbike teams but not too far off. The suspension was KYB. We had the KYB techs with us helping out on settings. We never got it to work perfectly. We never could get good front feeling with an empty fuel tank. I think if we had a little more time with the KYB race stuff we could have found a setting that worked better. Other than the front end issues with the KYB suspension, the bike handled really well. It was really confident in the high speed stuff (which is virtually every turn at Suzuka). It was easy to ride for an hour stint. We were running 16.5 Dunlops and they were really predictable at the end of the stint. I would turn on the TC with about 15 minutes to go just to help manage in some of the faster sweepers. It was a good bike, but it still needed some refinements. The team didn't get much time to test it before the race weekend, so we were doing a lot of development during practice and qualifying.
Thanks for the feedback on the bike, will check out your link. Don't suppose you have an inside line for the Beet exhaust your ride was sportin...
The team is sponsored by Beet. I'm not sure who the US importer is. That thing barely passed the sound check at tech...it's loud!
That's my boys on the left. Lagrive got sideways in fourth gear on his first lap. It was so brutal he broke bodywork and the brake fluid reservoir and his shoulder hurt too much to continue. That dropped them to 45th place and they finished seventh. :up:
Some of the interesting bikes in the fan zone. The Mini Ducati is a KLX 110 with custom everything. The builder was an old Japanese guy. Very clean work!
Cool thing about Ben being there to help crew for y'all. He fit right in with the rest of the gang being the same height and everything -steve
These are from the pit walk (the first one was the view from our garage every day during the pit walks).
