Teambwr47
22nd June 2008, 16:05
Part 1......
Okay first off, apologies to all my sponsors and supporters for the delay in writing and web posting this race report. The reasons for the delay will become very clear once you start to read the report. Shamefully I’m posting this after the 2nd round of the VMCC has happened but hey ho that’s the way it will have to be….. might bore some to tears but I’ve made up for the lateness by writing a lengthy ‘war and peace’ report…….
The last report was for the 4th round of the AMCC series which was my first race meeting in New Zealand and despite our bike being virtually a roll out of the shop road bike, it went pretty well. I had planned to get the bike better kitted prior to the final AMCC round but it was not to be and we had to miss the meeting which was very annoying to me. I would have raced the bike fairly standard again just for the track time but in the end having no bodywork scuppered the plans to race as the stuff we had borrowed from Dave Cole got sold prior to the meeting.
So, with no racing there was plenty of time to get into the bike in terms of getting it better prepared for racing. While I could track prep a bike and have done for a few people the full spec preparation on this bike was turned over to Dave Cole who I knew could build a good motor and complete bike package. Suspension in the form of Ohlins was on order in the shape of a TTX36 shock and the very best 25mm fork cartridge that we could get, all to be fitted and fettled by Robert Taylor. Add to the package a Graves system and other parts plus some race bodywork and we’d be ready to go in plenty of time…….or so I thought.
So with a few weeks to go until the start of the VMCC winter series I was sure I’d get to Taupo for some testing and hopefully get to round 1 ready to compete at the front with a full spec bike. As the weeks went by however parts and kit just failed to arrive in the timescales I assumed. When we got to one week prior to the Taupo meeting and still no suspension I thought the chances of racing were again slipping away. Thankfully the long, long wait for my race bodywork ended with the arrival of a big box from Racers edge in OZ and thanks to Perry in True Tone Auto Sprayers, Papakura it looked awesome in Yamaha blue/black.
A call to the ever helpful Mr Taylor revealed that the suspension had been shipped and was due to arrive on the Monday of race week so my forks were sent of to him for stripping to await the new kit. All this time my bike was at Dave Coles workshop and on a visit to his place I was treated to a look at my motor completely stripped to parts and laid out on the workbench. Rather a shock was the fact that my clutch was knackered after just one meeting and that a valve bucket had some damage to it. All this was on a virtually new motor but almost certainly the clutch was down to that fact I had had to run it on the original oil at the first race meeting. The valve bucket was put down to a manufacture fault and replaced by Yamaha. Anyway back to the engine build… the time put into the motor and the level of care taken in the build by Dave is impressive and I’m sure once set up will give us one of the best motors out there.
Jumping around time wise here but anyway… I was not that keen to race at Taupo without ever having seen the track before. I knew the track time available on the race day would be minimal and trying to learn a track in a short timed qualifying session is never a good idea. This in mind I had planned to test our bike there the week prior to the meeting on a track day but these plans were scuppered by the bike not being ready. Thankfully my mate Russ Rutan offered his R1 to me and I accepted gratefully meaning myself and John Hanna (CBR600rr) got to ride at the MotoTT trackday the Saturday prior to the VMCC event. The track day was useful in at least getting to know which way the track went but I rode very carefully as it was not my bike and the rear slick was in fairly dire condition. The day was great weather wise and the MotoTT crew certainly seem to put on a good trackday.
So the week prior to the race……… finally the suspension arrived and things seemed to be on the up… could we be ready I wondered? Now Dave Cole’s wife had warned me that things can get a bit ‘last minute’ sometimes but as the week went on I started to realise exactly what she meant. A call to Dave on the Monday let me know that my crank was due back soon while Friday the call was a little more dire in that a set of shims we needed were on order and due to arrive on Saturday morning. Just to put this in context I wanted to set off for Taupo at 4pm that very same day. That afternoon I kind of assumed the weekend was off and took my kids to the swimming pool for their club lessons.
Feeling bit pissed off as I watched the kids swimming my mobile rang….. it was about 1650……… now for the past few weeks I had been talking to Ricoh New Zealand about a job that they were looking to create and I was waiting for a formal interview to be set up. The guy who rang me sounded quite flat in the brief conversation and due to the noise I said I’d call him back when the session was over. As I was already moody from thinking the racing was off I assumed the worse and that the job was not happening……. err wrong.
‘The jobs yours mate if you want it…but sorry to drop this on you, we need you here Monday to talk terms and then Tuesday if you take the job you off travelling’
Slightly shocked by the lack of notice but very pleased I said fine I’d try and sort out being there on the Monday. Now the dilemma which I was faced with……. Race or not race?
My sensible head said forget racing, this is a once in a long time job chance while there will always be other races,……the racer in me still wanted to be a on a bike that weekend.
A call to Dave seemed to suggest we would not have a completed motor so I said if the parts arrive and you can build it we’ll go but don’t panic.
I posted a thread here for views on the dilemma just for fun and it was 50/50 split on race or not. With a kind of ‘what will be will be’ attitude I turned up at Dave Cole’s place early Saturday afternoon to find him still building the motor and bike which we finished at near 4pm. So we were ready, well kind of…….
The engine which cost a pretty penny or two was freshly built and now needed a run in period and I was off to a race meeting to race it….. eeekk
So we arrived at Taupo basically with a completely untried package and a kind of ‘see how we go plan.’ Sign on out of the way I was amazed to find that there was no scrutineering just a pit lane riders briefing after which I approached the organisers and explained our situation. Very kindly they agreed to let me out in the Supermotard session to do some running in and I circulated well behind their session just putting miles on the engine.
Back to the garage and all seemed well with the bike and I was pretty much straight out into Superbike timed qualifying. Still cautious of pushing the new engine to hard I set myself a rev limit for each lap and gradually increased the pace as the short session went on. I was not that bothered about where on the grid we placed as my main aim for racing here is always going to be the 600’s,……me and Superbikes are finished, they have hurt to much over the years. The Superbike entry is just a way of getting more track time and after the three hour drive I was glad we entered the extra class as the races were scheduled to be just 4 laps per class!!! On track it was like I’d never ridden the circuit before, yes I’d done the track day the weekend before but on someone else’s bike the pace was way to slow and the 600 was so different. The new suspension felt good but the rear was moving around way too much under power but I put that down to the cool track and my rather tired rear Dunlop 209. As we’d not been sure I was going to make the meeting I thought we’d use the tyres that had done Pukekohe AMCC plus practice day and then a full Kiwi Trackday event where I did some tuition and seemed to spend all day on track.
Back to the garage after the session and I was fairly happy to have set a 1.38.3 securing 9th on the grid for Superbike. I knew there was more time to come as I learned the circuit and bike during the day and I set a goal in my mind that I wanted to get into the 1.35’s.
One of the substantial benefits in my mind of buying my Ohlins suspension from Robert Taylor of Crown Kiwi Technical is that support comes with it and after the superbike session Robert was on hand to tweak our set up. With some adjustments mainly to the rear Robert commented on the state of the rear tyre but that’s what we had to work with for the day.
Okay first off, apologies to all my sponsors and supporters for the delay in writing and web posting this race report. The reasons for the delay will become very clear once you start to read the report. Shamefully I’m posting this after the 2nd round of the VMCC has happened but hey ho that’s the way it will have to be….. might bore some to tears but I’ve made up for the lateness by writing a lengthy ‘war and peace’ report…….
The last report was for the 4th round of the AMCC series which was my first race meeting in New Zealand and despite our bike being virtually a roll out of the shop road bike, it went pretty well. I had planned to get the bike better kitted prior to the final AMCC round but it was not to be and we had to miss the meeting which was very annoying to me. I would have raced the bike fairly standard again just for the track time but in the end having no bodywork scuppered the plans to race as the stuff we had borrowed from Dave Cole got sold prior to the meeting.
So, with no racing there was plenty of time to get into the bike in terms of getting it better prepared for racing. While I could track prep a bike and have done for a few people the full spec preparation on this bike was turned over to Dave Cole who I knew could build a good motor and complete bike package. Suspension in the form of Ohlins was on order in the shape of a TTX36 shock and the very best 25mm fork cartridge that we could get, all to be fitted and fettled by Robert Taylor. Add to the package a Graves system and other parts plus some race bodywork and we’d be ready to go in plenty of time…….or so I thought.
So with a few weeks to go until the start of the VMCC winter series I was sure I’d get to Taupo for some testing and hopefully get to round 1 ready to compete at the front with a full spec bike. As the weeks went by however parts and kit just failed to arrive in the timescales I assumed. When we got to one week prior to the Taupo meeting and still no suspension I thought the chances of racing were again slipping away. Thankfully the long, long wait for my race bodywork ended with the arrival of a big box from Racers edge in OZ and thanks to Perry in True Tone Auto Sprayers, Papakura it looked awesome in Yamaha blue/black.
A call to the ever helpful Mr Taylor revealed that the suspension had been shipped and was due to arrive on the Monday of race week so my forks were sent of to him for stripping to await the new kit. All this time my bike was at Dave Coles workshop and on a visit to his place I was treated to a look at my motor completely stripped to parts and laid out on the workbench. Rather a shock was the fact that my clutch was knackered after just one meeting and that a valve bucket had some damage to it. All this was on a virtually new motor but almost certainly the clutch was down to that fact I had had to run it on the original oil at the first race meeting. The valve bucket was put down to a manufacture fault and replaced by Yamaha. Anyway back to the engine build… the time put into the motor and the level of care taken in the build by Dave is impressive and I’m sure once set up will give us one of the best motors out there.
Jumping around time wise here but anyway… I was not that keen to race at Taupo without ever having seen the track before. I knew the track time available on the race day would be minimal and trying to learn a track in a short timed qualifying session is never a good idea. This in mind I had planned to test our bike there the week prior to the meeting on a track day but these plans were scuppered by the bike not being ready. Thankfully my mate Russ Rutan offered his R1 to me and I accepted gratefully meaning myself and John Hanna (CBR600rr) got to ride at the MotoTT trackday the Saturday prior to the VMCC event. The track day was useful in at least getting to know which way the track went but I rode very carefully as it was not my bike and the rear slick was in fairly dire condition. The day was great weather wise and the MotoTT crew certainly seem to put on a good trackday.
So the week prior to the race……… finally the suspension arrived and things seemed to be on the up… could we be ready I wondered? Now Dave Cole’s wife had warned me that things can get a bit ‘last minute’ sometimes but as the week went on I started to realise exactly what she meant. A call to Dave on the Monday let me know that my crank was due back soon while Friday the call was a little more dire in that a set of shims we needed were on order and due to arrive on Saturday morning. Just to put this in context I wanted to set off for Taupo at 4pm that very same day. That afternoon I kind of assumed the weekend was off and took my kids to the swimming pool for their club lessons.
Feeling bit pissed off as I watched the kids swimming my mobile rang….. it was about 1650……… now for the past few weeks I had been talking to Ricoh New Zealand about a job that they were looking to create and I was waiting for a formal interview to be set up. The guy who rang me sounded quite flat in the brief conversation and due to the noise I said I’d call him back when the session was over. As I was already moody from thinking the racing was off I assumed the worse and that the job was not happening……. err wrong.
‘The jobs yours mate if you want it…but sorry to drop this on you, we need you here Monday to talk terms and then Tuesday if you take the job you off travelling’
Slightly shocked by the lack of notice but very pleased I said fine I’d try and sort out being there on the Monday. Now the dilemma which I was faced with……. Race or not race?
My sensible head said forget racing, this is a once in a long time job chance while there will always be other races,……the racer in me still wanted to be a on a bike that weekend.
A call to Dave seemed to suggest we would not have a completed motor so I said if the parts arrive and you can build it we’ll go but don’t panic.
I posted a thread here for views on the dilemma just for fun and it was 50/50 split on race or not. With a kind of ‘what will be will be’ attitude I turned up at Dave Cole’s place early Saturday afternoon to find him still building the motor and bike which we finished at near 4pm. So we were ready, well kind of…….
The engine which cost a pretty penny or two was freshly built and now needed a run in period and I was off to a race meeting to race it….. eeekk
So we arrived at Taupo basically with a completely untried package and a kind of ‘see how we go plan.’ Sign on out of the way I was amazed to find that there was no scrutineering just a pit lane riders briefing after which I approached the organisers and explained our situation. Very kindly they agreed to let me out in the Supermotard session to do some running in and I circulated well behind their session just putting miles on the engine.
Back to the garage and all seemed well with the bike and I was pretty much straight out into Superbike timed qualifying. Still cautious of pushing the new engine to hard I set myself a rev limit for each lap and gradually increased the pace as the short session went on. I was not that bothered about where on the grid we placed as my main aim for racing here is always going to be the 600’s,……me and Superbikes are finished, they have hurt to much over the years. The Superbike entry is just a way of getting more track time and after the three hour drive I was glad we entered the extra class as the races were scheduled to be just 4 laps per class!!! On track it was like I’d never ridden the circuit before, yes I’d done the track day the weekend before but on someone else’s bike the pace was way to slow and the 600 was so different. The new suspension felt good but the rear was moving around way too much under power but I put that down to the cool track and my rather tired rear Dunlop 209. As we’d not been sure I was going to make the meeting I thought we’d use the tyres that had done Pukekohe AMCC plus practice day and then a full Kiwi Trackday event where I did some tuition and seemed to spend all day on track.
Back to the garage after the session and I was fairly happy to have set a 1.38.3 securing 9th on the grid for Superbike. I knew there was more time to come as I learned the circuit and bike during the day and I set a goal in my mind that I wanted to get into the 1.35’s.
One of the substantial benefits in my mind of buying my Ohlins suspension from Robert Taylor of Crown Kiwi Technical is that support comes with it and after the superbike session Robert was on hand to tweak our set up. With some adjustments mainly to the rear Robert commented on the state of the rear tyre but that’s what we had to work with for the day.