Race reports

Sept 23-24: Barber, WERA

Pat

Riding in the Dunlop WERA National Endurance Series, Round #10

for the Wizard Racing team '04 GSX-R600, Wizard Racing II #82

Well the story goes like this: These Wizard Racing fools are all buddies of mine and are tackling the WERA Endurance series this year pretty hard. But recently Jen had two crashes and got hurt - opening up a spot on the 600 Endurance bike. She also was going to put her personal SV 650 up to race for a third Wizard Racing team. The team consists of an '05 GSX-R1000, '04 GSX-R600, and an SV650.

Jim McConnell, aka Wiz, aka Wizzo, aka Jackass, who is the team owner asked me if I wanted to ride the last 2 rounds of the series to fill the spot. I accepted, and flew south for this Barber round. Myself, Mike Daniels ("Sixx") and Gian Bojanovich ("Fever") are the other two riders for this bike.

Mind you, I haven't ridden a 4 stroke motorcycle in 2 years. And this bike team runs Pirelli tires, another major change from what I'm used to. And this bike is set up with standard shifting, opposite how I shift on my own bike.

So needless to say I was going to be on the bottom of a bit of a learning curve getting used to racing this motorcycle!

Thursday night I flew to Atlanta and then drove to Barber. Friday morning we got to the track and started setting up for a full day of practice. I went out first as I needed the most seat time out of anyone, and I wanted to see how the bike felt. We were using some shaggy tires from the last Endurance race, so the bike would slide pretty easily. I was not very comfortable at first, but after a few laps I got into a rhythm finding out my shift and braking points, and how the bike would react to inputs. I started turning 1:42-43 range and ran one 1:41.7 - not bad considering my best time around that circuit on my 250 is about a 1:40.0

The practice day went well, we swapped sessions and everyone got great riding time. I ran consistently in the 1:40-43 range which is a decent pace and I knew I could do that pace all day long. No one crashed all day from our group - with all 3 bikes running all day that is a great thing, and we used up another used set of tires to make sure we could get through the day. After practice was over, we changed the oil, put a new chain on, a different set of used front brake pads, and a new rear brake line.

Saturday we got ready for the Endurance race - a lot of work to move the whole pit area and everything for 3 bikes/teams. We got out for practice, during the Endurance practice we had a red flag so that shortened practice a little bit but no worries. We changed the tires and scuffed up the brake rotors, so we had a fresh bike ready to go for this 4 hour Endurance race.

Fever was on the first stint and got a decent start. Timmy was riding the 1000 and on the start someone bumped into him and pushed him off the track, so he got a bad start plus the left handlebar was a little bent. Fever amazingly stayed out for a little over 45 minutes, he was doing good laps too in the 1:37-38 range - then he came in for fuel and I went out on the bike. The brakes felt horrible! They were very spongy and had little feel to them... the braking power didn't seem there. After a few laps this small plastic piece on the bike was flapping loose and whapping my leg too. It got stuck inside my left knee once while I was setting up for a fast left-hander so I came in to rip that piece off and adjust the brake lever to get a lot more confidence in the brakes. I immediately started turning faster lap times, I saw a few 1:39 times flash before me which I was happy with. That's faster than I've ridden my 250 around the circuit.

The gas light came on after only a few more laps, so I ran 6-8 more laps with the light on and came in. Turns out Fever said he only put 2.5 gallons of fuel in the bike, WTF? So I only rode maybe 25 minutes max. Sixx got on the bike, and amazingly ran 50 minutes! Then we were around the 2 hour mark, so when he came in we changed the rear tire and Fever went back out. We did a very good pit stop being quick to change the rear tire. We also changed the 1000 rear tire around the same time and that pit stop went very well also. Fever rode about 20 minutes then a red flag came out.

The red flag lasted only 20 minutes or so, and I went back out for the restart. I went out on the warm-up lap following Timmy so I was riding aggressively to keep up with him on that big bike! The bike seemed fine.... I gridded up and waited for the flag. Green flag waves, I whack the throttle and the bike just bogs and won't rev. People are streaming past me like I'm going backwards. I tried to clutch in and whack the throttle open again, nothing really happened so I started waving my hand frantically as there was the third wave behind me. They came flying by, luckily all got by me cleanly as I was coasting towards turn 1 on the inside. I coasted around tring to figure out what was going on with the bike but it just wouldn't rev past 7000 rpms under load. I looked for loose wires, something dangling, etc. I couldn't find anything wrong so I limped around the track and came into the pits. We put more gas in the bike and unhooked the power commander. It was still the same but the bike woudl rev to redline under smooth slow throttle opening. If you whacked the throttle open it wouldn't go. I tried for another lap but it was not rideable... I was a hazard out there putting myself and others at risk so I just came back in. We cleaned the fuel pump, changed spark plugs, checked the air filter, wires, vaccuum lines, etc but the bike simply would not rev. Something was more majorly wrong than that - we only had about 20 minutes left in the race so we called it quits. Oh well, it was fun overall even though I did not get much seat time in the race. We finished 8th in class in MiddleWeight SuperStock.

The GSX-R100 team of Tim Rinaldi and Dave Girardin finished 15th overall and 6th in class (HeavyWeight Superbike). The SV650 team finished 5th in class.

Everyone did great, over 600 laps we probably turned all told and nobody had a crash - now that is a successful race weekend regardless.

If the 600 bike gets fixed and all is well with its motor I'll ride it again on Oct 12-16 at the WERA Gran National Finals at Road Atlanta - the last round of the Endurance series.