Kind of a WOW! weekend in a way. Boy was it hot. I was entered in three races, but the heat took so much out of me I couldn’t do the third. I ran the GT Lights (12 laps) and the Lightweight F40 race. In 2010 I ran this track twice, but neither time felt fast. I mean there were places that got better and I was able to pass other riders, but my best lap time was a 1:59 which is pitiful. This year was a totally different story. Turn 4 was no big deal (despite running off once). Turn 7 was fun (despite running off once). I was dragging stuff in both those corners as well as Turn 1 and my lap times were down six seconds a lap to a best of 1:53. Still not very fast. The fast SVs are running 1:45s at VIR. But two things are happening. Not only am I better at VIR, I’m just getting to be a better rider in spite of giving 60 lbs of, ahem, personal weight to my competition. Although there is one rider catching me in the LWF40 class, I still have the points lead.
Next weekend we go back to Roebling Road. A fun track and I’m not working so it should be relaxing and chance to learn and have fun.
About the technical stuff on the bike: The first race of the year I ran a stock exhaust can that was half the normal length and empty. Pretty loud. Power didn’t seem to be helped or hurt. For VIR I changed the pipe by whacking the shortened stock can entirely saving about 8 lbs and I added back a 14″ straight pipe with a 15 degree bend. It was a lot louder than the empty can. There was no change in feel of power except it felt that the power band moved down a little. I got one really good launch at VIR and led every rider but one all the way to turn one. Even the staff were surprised. Felt good. I have on the way a 12″ long, straight-through, stainless muffler for Roebling. I hope to have all that together. It will bring the sound level back down to something reasonable and we’ll see what happens to power.
And once again thanks to Nick and Eric at Woodcraft-CFM for getting a new billet clutch cover out to me quickly before VIR. Brandon and I were not able to get the stock plastic cover to seal any longer. Consequently after every practice or race I would have a slightly larger puddle of oil in my belly pan. It was never alarming, but no one wants to ride around knowing they are filling up their diaper.
I attribute this clutch cover leak to several things. The O-Ring was stretched and we shortened it so it would fit the length of the groove. The O-ring would necessarily not fill the gap completely any longer in spite of adding a proper coating of gasket material. Next the stock cover is plastic. It is pretty well gusseted, but still flexes. Lastly we safety-wire the oil fill cap to the frame and I believe this pulls upward on the side cover enough to flex it. Thus after four race weekends, no more seal. We added a new O-Ring from Barnett’s Suzuki in Raleigh, NC and the new billet cover from Woodcraft and problem utterly solved. There was absolutely no material in the belly pan after two practices and two races.
Cheers.
Tags: Racing
