The first race was GT Lights and with competition things change. Everyone was a little more intense. I finished last as I was still trying to find limits, entry points, etc. Looking at the finishing order was an “Oh, Well” moment. The second race was CCS Thunderbike late in the day and something changed. I don’t know what it was, but I got a holeshot past the row in front of me on the grid and the rest of the race was a RACE. It was my overloaded little SV against a really nice Paul Smart Ducati 1000 and a BMW R1200. They caught me and were able to get by on the banking from shear speed. But I passed the BMW on the brakes into turn one and I passed the Ducati exiting the infield in turn seven.

The Ducati showed me a wheel entering the chicane, but I went in deeper. He passed me in NASCAR 4. On the last lap, for some reason he backed off at the finish line and blew past him to take the spot hard on the brakes into T1 again.

New to me was the Michelin PRO qualifying. I was running against another, newer model Ducati and as the session progressed an expert fell back into my clutches. The Ducati left me for dead, but his transponder was not working and his times were not recorded. SO lining up Sunday on the Amateur pole for Michelin PRO Thunderbike is yours truly. It was a wow moment.

I’ve had a lot of those this year and I thank God because they ARE a gift. -k

The infield seemed pretty easy to negotiate, not simple, but not brain surgery. Turn one entry speed takes time to figure out, the corner tightens considerably.  The little kink after T1 is no big deal, but it helps if you exit T1 aligned to shoot through the kink.  Next we accelerate down to the horseshoe (T3), planning on a late apex to avoid running out of room on the exit.  The next left-hander (T4) takes some nerve to stay on the gas.  Slower riders can plug up this corner.  The next right-hander (T5) calls for another late apex.  Then there is a fast short chute up to T6, a slow left-hand turn that dumps you onto the NASCAR T1/T2 complex called T7 on the road course.  Once you learn to aim up-track to maintain position on the banking, the NASCAR turns are not so menacing.

T7 turns into the back stretch, a straight that seems like it should be a lot longer than it takes to negotiate.  Two downshifts entering the T8, 9, 10, 11 chicane.  Entry speed here is fast.  In fact entry speed feels way too fast.  Then back onto NASCAR 3/4, on to the Tri-Oval and back down to T1.

After a half dozen laps (two very short practice sessions shortened by Scott “Mr. Daytona” Russell crashing in T1 and breaking his arm) today I feel more confident about riding here.  Tire wear is surprisingly low.  After this many miles on a typical short road course I would have considerable tire roughing, but the asphalt here is super smooth after the re-paving.

I have 2 rounds of practice tomorrow and two races.  Then late in the afternoon I have to qualify for Sunday’s Michelin Pro Thunderbike race.  Sunday I Also have the Lightweight Formula 40 National championship race.  More to come, so stay tuned.

Sunday I ran my regular LW F40 and GT Lights grabbing a 4th and 5th and dropping lap times to a 1:33. I was run off the track twice, once by an expert and another by another amateur. I re-passed them all, so that felt good. I was surprised to find that I was faster than some experts.

Lisa Theobold was there with her camera.

Thanks for the picture Lisa.

And by the way.  I counted the points after the race.

And surprisingly I am tied for second in GT Lights behind Dominic.

I haven’t seen the points standings yet, but I expect I still have a little bit of lead in Lightweight Formula 40. However, I do not expect that I have retained second place in GT Lights. Oh well. It sure is fun.

I had a great time hanging out with Tim Ivanoff and Joel Spalding this weekend. And although the consistency I need to finish better in races has not yet come, I found this weekend in particular I was between two and four seconds slower than fastest in class rather than eight seconds, as has been the case here in the past.

Next weekend is a Twin Sprint weekend at JenningsGP and the last regular regional event of the year. I’ll be there and we’ll see then for sure whether I can take the 2011 LWF40 Championship.

It will be my first run at Jennings, so I don’t expect to be very fast. But we’ll see. At this point we are only 3 weeks out from my first race at Daytona which is pretty exciting.

Yee Ha! Hope this continues.

I tried my best to get away by 2:00 PM. I was using the little Toyota pickup to tow the trailer this weekend and knew I would not to be able to make the same pace as usual. The only thing standing in my way was a determination to get a new muffler installed on the SV.

I had already decided to stop at RJ’s Custom Piping in Raleigh, NC for the small amount of pipe fabrication needed. What neither of us expected was all the stuff Suzuki sticks inside a stock exhaust pipe that complicates things. Anyway, 3.5 Hrs after we started I left the shop with a nice looking pipe and although a couple hours behind, it was OK.

This new pipe is 304 stainless, looks good, has nice tone and is significantly lighter and smaller than most other cans.  We made sure to rip all the restrictive plates out of the inside of the stock pipe before adding a big mounting collar on which to clamp the short transition pipe.  RJ’s then made the transition from scratch and fit the new can perfectly.  The whole time he worked with me to choose the right sizes and shapes to get the smoothest flow and installation/clearance.

Here’s a shot of the pipe after the first cut and you can see the restrictive double wall in the stock pipe.  We yanked that stuff out to smooth out the passages.  When you open up the pipe you will also see that the stock pipe is lined with another steel perforated inner pipe wrapped in fiberglass.  All of that is noise damping, and power killing, material.

Notice the double wall

Here’s a closer photo of the finished SV650 custom exhaust.

A closer look at the custom pipe. The can itself was sourced elsewhere.

The weekend went well.  After the second practice I checked my lap times and saw that I had shaved 4.2 seconds off my March 2011 times.  That was pretty exciting.  The GT Lights race on Saturday saw me get a pretty lame start.  So I just settled down and tried to knock out good laps.  By lap four the rain had started in turn two.  And on the next lap two riders were down so the race was red-flagged.  I finished seventh and collected a few points.

Sunday practice went a little less encouraging.  I actually missed the first practice, turned some 1:29 laps in practice number two.  I did have one off-course excursion.  I was passing a 2-stroke machine exiting the final turn onto the front straight and just ran wide.  Coursing over the grass at 100 MPH was interesting.  But I got it slowed down and got back on track.

After practice I waited for six hours for my single race of the day.  I got an excellent start, but the three Ducati’s lined up next to me were just enough faster to lead down into turn one.  Lap after lap went by and it was just raw fun.  The bike was flawless, the tires were flawless.  I had all the grip I could imagine and finished the race third in class picking up a much needed 26 points to extend my lead in class.

Next race is late September at VIR followed by JenningsGP and Daytona, all within about 4 weeks of each other.

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.

Carolina Motorsports Park was better. I knocked 1.5 seconds of my best laps from last year and picked up another couple of trophies. The turn out was light again, but I really like this track. It was good to get into a groove and feel improvement in specific corners.

My tires have met their end. Riding an SV650 is great. The bike is quick enough for me, it is very stable and it is gentle on fuel and tires so it is pretty inexpensive to race. Because I am relatively slow the tires on my bike (Pirelli DOTs) have lasted one year…exactly. I bought them my first weekend in 2010 at Carolina and this year at Carolina they started showing a wear pattern. It showed up as an overly-worn edge on the right side of the rear tire. The tires haven’t given me one lick of trouble and I can’t complain about the mileage. I recommend Pirelli.

Round 3 was run at JenningsGP the first weekend in April.  I wanted to go.  I couldn’t.  I should have though.  I am going to need all the points I can get at the end of the season.