Bad Cat Racing

Short Summary…

Fly in Thursday Morning

~ Set up pits in pouring rain and lighting hitting around the track, waiving metal canopy poles around with Ian and Dennis, giggling like an idiot the whole time. Go back to hotel
~ Run into liquor store when tornado sirens go off
~ Run back to hotel with beer and drink (lots)

Friday (the 13th)

~ No practice all day as there was TORNADO AND STORM damage to the race track that had to be repaired.
~ Lots of poo-talking and bench racing between all the teams all day. Got to know all the East-Coasters.
~ Crazy old farmer who’s been racing cars for years gives us laps around the track for fun and points out the ‘fast line’ using one of the Road America trucks. This was fun.

Saturday

~ Two short practice sessions where we find out they spray the surface of RA with Pam before each race… slippery is an understatement. Sarah is, “Fast and Furious Wisconsin Drift”. Very first time out out going into turn two she’s in early and hot, and now we’re out on the rumble strips sliding around, and I’m on the back laughing my ass off trying to keep it down for her. We get back out on the straight and I reach up and pat her back, letting her know I’m still with us.

~ Oliver blows a motor in practice… with 30 more minutes he would have had his spare bolted in and read to go for the race… toe to toe with Frank

~ Race goes off without a hitch, RA is a fast track, Fourth place F1 finish.

~ Frank takes the win and laps us right at the very end. We catch the checkers behind him hard on the power… confusing AHRMA who award us 2nd place (sweet). They even hand us the trophies at the awards ceremony, which we then make a little announcement about the easiest way to catch 2nd is to let the leader lap you just out of sight before the checkers and come in right behind him… We then hand the wood to the true 2nd place F1 winners.

~ Frank then flys out of Chicago that evening since he gets the page that his wife has gone into labor. We then get up to the minute SMS updates from Frank from that point out.

Sunday

~ AHRMA gives us one practice session before racing, things feel much better.

~ We find out the violent tankslappers we’ve been experiencing coming down hard on the brakes into 5 are not geometry or suspension issues but the goofball on the back setting up and hanging out for the left way too early causing a pendulum effect upsetting the entire chassis. Sadly this means no more exciting rodeo action for the race fans in turn 5 as BCR comes in fishtailing chair in the air off onto the rumbles and nearly the grass every lap.

~ With some coaching from Dennis, goofball sits center chair behind the driver for all hard braking lefts till the last possible second before turn in before getting out, and suddenly like magic everything is butter and all traces of headshake vanish. Go figure. Sarah gets her Fogarty stare back.

~ Race goes off without a hitch. Oliver’s new motor is in, he looked good in practice, and again… just hammers it. Ian waves from the tuck as they go by, Oliver swoops over tight on us as he passes on the front straight to make it look good for the crowd. =D

~ We were keeping up on the tail of the wily Brits on 007 the first two laps during the race since we knew in practice we could catch and out pace them in the morning practice. But it wasn’t meant to be, we shot our proverbial load pacing them to watch their lines and them making the pass and pulling away, burning up our reserves for the race. Rather than risk throwing it away Sarah ran her pace and we just enjoyed being out on the track, getting it loose in the corners, stretching the CSR’s legs with top speed runs, getting the chair up in the air over lefts, and enjoying the blur of the Wisconsin countryside at triple digits while trailing 007. Our last time out on the track, might as well have some fun =D

~ We get in another 4th place F1 finish, and bring the gear home intact ready for Reno/Fernley Superside/AMA in two months.

~ Frank gets a 5.5 pound girl sidecar racer, Congrats Frank… A baby on Fathers Day!

There’s lots more about Sarah’s trips onto the rumble strips, getting sideways, or hitting speeds so fast down the straights that the vacuum created behind the intake scoop with my helmet tucked behind it made it hard to suck in breath. But that’s for another time.

Needless to say, the trip to RA was a great learning experience for the both of us, and we’re happy with two 4ths in F1. I’ll never be afraid of Sarah breaking the rig loose or getting in hot or sideways, or running right out to the ragged edge of the track. This girl had my butt in the grass clipping apexes like a pro by Sunday. I’m proud of her. Thanks to the East Coast SRA for being a cool bunch of folk, and see you next year!

Road America is a Beast.

Sarah & Mike

All packed in today… Along with all our gear, toolboxes, spares, etc. 100% committed at this point. Transporter leaves tomorrow AM for Wisconsin, we fly out Thursday.

Well kiddies… it’s nearly time for Sarah and I to head to Road America. And the difference between the tracks that Sarah and I normally race on and Road America is straights and sweepers that you could land a 747 on. Fellow sidecar brethren and two-wheeled racers who have run there warn us of massive roller-coaster elevation changes, seemingly endless and wide pavement that has you pinning the throttle for what feels like days, and extremely high speed sweepers that make the top of the backside of 9 laughable.

The CSR is geared pretty short for most the tracks we run at, more grunt on the bottom end to haul my fat ass around, and get Sarah the holeshot advantage she likes to use off of the corners when she makes passes. But Road America is a different beast, a lazy blubbery object curled up in a fetal position clinging onto the back of a F1 sidecar platform in motion, tends to stay in motion.

With that in mind, I bought a new 46 tooth chain ring, a 42 tooth chain ring, and a 15, 16, and 17 tooth counter shaft sprocket.

First… Let me teach you how to do some basic math to figure out just how fast your bike will mechanically go, not counting for wind resistance or rolling resistance.

…,

1 ~ Whip out your best thin tape measure, and accurately measure in cm around the circumference of your tire. Not all tires are the same size, and tires do wear over time. So if you want to know how fast you can go -right now- take a measurement right now. In my case, 164cm on the Yokohama slick on the back of the CSR, or 1640mm.

1a ~ Convert that to Kilometers, or in other words, add a dot and two zeros. 0.00164km. Save that number, it’s important later.

2 ~ Pick a RPM, for the sake of sanity, I chose 11,000 ~ Sarah’s shift light is set to 11,500 RPM. Multiply that times 60, you get 660000 Revs Per Hour.

3 ~ Find out what your Primary Drive Ratio is, it’s in your manual, online, mine is 1.604

4 ~ Find out what your 6th gear ratio is. Mine is 29 teeth to 25 teeth or, divide 29 by 25 and you get a 1.16 ratio

5 ~ Now for some math…
Revs Per Hour 660000 divided by the primary drive ratio of 1.604 equals 411471 Revs Per Hour primary drive ~ divide that by the 6th gear ratio 1.16 equals 354716 Revs Per Hour of the counter shaft.

6 ~ Now you figure out the possible combinations of final gearing ratios you want to choose from by simple division.

6a – Final Ratio ~ counter shaft sprocket 15 / rear sprocket 42 – 2.8
6b – Final Ratio ~ counter shaft sprocket 16/ rear sprocket 42 – 2.625
6c – Final Ratio ~ counter shaft sprocket 17/ rear sprocket 42 – 2.47

6d – Final Ratio ~ counter shaft sprocket 15/ rear sprocket 46 – 3.07
6e – Final Ratio ~ counter shaft sprocket 16/ rear sprocket 46 – 2.875
6f – Final Ratio ~ counter shaft sprocket 17/ rear sprocket 46 – 2.71

7 ~ Now that you have your counter shaft to rear sprocket ratios divide your counter shaft revs per hour (354716 in my case) by your selected final ratio to figure out how many revolutions per hour of the rear wheel that particular gear ratio will give you.

7a 15/42 – 126684.2857 rph rear wheel
7b 16/42 – 135129.9047 rph rear wheel
7c 17/42 – 143609.7165 rph rear wheel

7d 15/46 – 115542.6710 rph rear wheel
7e 16/46 – 123379.4782 rph rear wheel
7f 17/46 – 130891.5129 rph rear wheel

8 ~ And once you have your Revs per Hour of the rear wheel, multiply that by your original measured KM tire circumference. In my case 0.00164km. Then convert the Kph to Mph and you’re set, you have your theoretical top speed at that given RPM (11k in my case) for that gear ratio.

8a 15/42 ~ 207.76 kph ~ 129.10 mph @ 11k RPM
8b 16/42 ~ 221.61 kph ~ 137.71 mph @ 11k RPM
8c 17/42 ~ 235.51 kph ~ 146.35 mph @ 11k RPM

8d 15/46 ~ 189.48 kph ~ 117.74 mph @ 11k RPM
8e 16/46 ~ 202.34 kph ~ 125.73 mph @ 11k RPM
8f 17/46 ~ 214.66 kph ~ 133.39 mph @ 11k RPM

…,

There are some tools that can do all this for you online with the flick of a few keys, but it’s nice to know the math to be able to do it yourself. And I like figuring things out. In my case I have an oddball rear tire size so calibration and measurement can’t be done by the preset online calculators.

Now that I had my gearing, I decided to gear as tall as I could go. 17/42 @ 146.35 at 11k RPM or hitting 160 at what I have the rev-limiter set in the translogic unit.

So I got the new gearing installed, and a new chain on. But now I needed to recalibrate the speedo, which has always been off to begin with due to the 13 inch rim on the back and oddball sprockets. For this we’ll be using a product called the “Speedo Healer”

I got in on a group buy on this two years ago, and it’s literally been sitting on my shelf ever since.

But, how do you calibrate the speedo on a stationary vehicle?

Well, the -lazy- way is to go down to the local bike shop and buy a Cateye Enduro 8 MTB speedometer for 30 bucks.

This unit allows you to enter in the circumference of your wheel (164cm) and then has a wired lead to a hall sensor that picks up the pulses from a magnet that you mount to a rotor/sprocket/etc on your wheel.

For my purposes I simply drilled and tapped one of my sprocket bolts for the magnet carrier, and secured it in place with a little epoxy just to be sure. I then just used the stock components from the kit to zip-tie the hall sensor to the swingarm in close proximity to the magnet.

Once I had the bike in gear and running, the CatEye speedo picked up changes in speed accurate down to the 0.5 intervals. I was pretty impressed.

The Speedo-Healer has a steep learning curve in terms of calibration. The directions flat out suck. They’re written by someone who has a fetish for complexity and verbosity where it is not needed. I think I found Fenor’s afterhours gig. If the guys from Speedo-Healer are reading this, please contact me, I could write clear and concise directions for this unit that fit on a matchbook cover, not the three page mess that you deliver with the product.

Needless to say it’s thankful I can count binary on one hand that I’m good with dip switch configuration hardware. Only the last three switches, 4/5/6 really matter for speedo correction, and 3 decides if your doing positive or negative adjustment. 4/5/6 equates to Ones/Tens/Hundredths of increment of adjustment in nine step adjustment intervals as determined by a pulse sequence from the LED embedded in the unit. (Think cheap ODB-II code reader) The toughest part of the whole thing once you have the swing of it is remembering that (in my case since I was correcting the speedo down) to set the speed higher you have to add less to your 4/5/6 settings because the unit is set to correct down. My magic number was 1 pulse on 4, 7 pulses on 5, and no pulses on 6. Flipping all the dip switches down once you’ve got it configured writes the settings to NVRAM, and you’re done.

I was able to throw the CSR into 6th gear and go up and down steady through the rev range and watch the stock speedo and CatEye Enduro 8 stay in exact synch with each other. The Speedo-Healer while having a clunky interface does as advertised.

The major drawback to this is of course since the pulse width modulation coming from the transmission pickup was now being changed by the Speedo-Healer my Endgear digital gear indicator was now out of wack. But luckly the Starlane unit is easy to recalibrate and takes all of 30 seconds to get back in sync with the transmission. It’s just annoying to know that I’m going to have to do that every time we change our gearing ratios.

“But Mike? How do you know you made the right gearing choice for Road America?”

Well see, I think computers are amazingly useful tools, not only for talking shit on the internet, but simulating things you do not have the resources to do in the real world. And thanks to our sponsor SimBin we’re able to do just that.

I fire up SimBin provided/modded copy of GTR2 and load up the Road America track expansion. I then load up the Radical SR3 with the 205 horsepower ‘Hayabusa’ powerplant that has been modified to have an asymmetrical chassis geometry to give it handling more in tune with a F1 sidecar.

I then plug in the first through sixth gear ratios from the 2004 CBR1000RR engine in our CSR, and start trying my available final drive ratios ‘in the simulator’ till I find a good combination of corner gearing and straight-line gearing. I set the redline on the motor to 11.5k and hit the track.

And then of course, I take it out on the track for a drive and see what it will do.

So we’re getting ready for Road America, and Boy Wonder is getting the CSR ready. It’s a long way away from home, and we’ll be out there with limited tools and spares since we have a set amount of stuff we can load in the transporter, so he’s going extra psycho over the amount of prep on the CSR.

He’s repaced a brake line on the chair wheel caliper on the CSR. A nice new Goodridge unit thanks to Mr. Bill. It looks snazzy and fits perfectly. Brakes are flushed and ready to go.

Then for some reason Boy Wonder decided the center faring and radiator/chair wheel mount was bothering him. So he took the entire assembly apart, inspected every single component and fastener, polished it, and then powdercoated all the individual parts. He says this gives him peace of mind. I say he’s OCD. He even powdercoated the washers.

Needless to say the work goes on in the garage. He’s flushed the clutch fluid and done countless other things. You’ve already read the write-up on his re-engineering of the Translogic shifter system. Well, at least Boy Wonder is a good kind of crazy and handy with a wrench. If we get a DNF at Road America, it won’t be due to mechanical failure.

~Sarah

If you read my race-report about our Willow Springs weekend, you’d see that we had an issue with the 3 cent allen bolt that holds the translogic shifter in place snapping mid-race causing Sarah to lose most of her ability to downshift. This is the second time this has happened, just this time it happened at the heim joint at the top of the shifter servo as opposed to the heim joint at the bottom of the shifter servo.

The old design. Two inexpensive bearings press-fit into a sleeve with two allen bolts in single-shear. The allen bolt on the black heim joint is what failed last season in practice at Reno/Fernley.

The old top mount for the shifter servo, also single shear. The allen bolt is what failed during the race last Sunday.

First, engineering a new stronger bellcrank.

I decided to use thicker wall tubing and sealed roller bearings with retainer rings this time around. For the heim joints I decided to make my own clevis ends and weld them directly to the pipe so the heim joints would be supported from both sides.

Test assembly for clearance and movement was promising, and I would press-fit a bronze bushing into the internal race of the bearings to sleeve it down to the correct size for the bolt the bellcrank mounts on.

And of course, once I had the parts finished, everything had to be powdercoated. Instead of using bolts, I made steel pins which are drilled at either end. I will safety wire these just like you would safety wire a brake caliper pin. A solid pin ensures no slop in the heim joints and no worry of failure due to breakage.

once installed, it was on to the top end of the mount. Essentially there it was the same type of redesign, just slightly modified. I gas-braised together two lengths of square tube stock, then created a clevis in one of the tubes. I then drilled through both tubes to allow for the placement of a securing pin, clamped the new clevis to the existing mount, and gas-braised it in place, cutting off the excess after it had cooled down.

I fabricated a similar pin for the top mount which will get safety wired as well.

So much for that, I don’t expect we will be having any issues or failures with this subsystem any longer.

-Mike-

From the desk of Boy Wonder…

While most of you were either in the comfort of your homes watching the AMA SBK races or actually up at Sonoma enjoying the races… Girl Wonder and I were down in Rosamond broiling in the desert for round 5 of the SRA-West sidecar races hosted by WSIR at the Big Track.

Saturday went well.  We started out chasing a traction control issue on the front end.  Sarah was having problems with some chatter on the throttle through corners that I was able to eliminate by taking a click of preload out of the springs on the Koni’s on the front end, and winding in six turns of preload on the Penske in the rear.  This took a little stiffness out of the front, let it sag a bit more, and raised the rear ride height a tad transfering a little more weight to the front.  Just enough of a difference to make the chassis stick like glue on turn in and on the power during the next couple practice sessions… restoring Sarah’s confidence in the hardware.

We skipped the last practice of the day as we were both starting to feel the relative effects of pushing ourselves in the bone-dry 100 degree weather to make sure the chassis was up to par.

Sunday we did the first practice session just to dial in, and then it was back into the pits for the long wait for race 15 to be called.  Finally, after what seemed like forever and two red flags and restarts in the 20 lap Formula 1 race (race 13) we were ready to suit up and head out.

The warm up lap was fine, everything felt good, I glanced down at the temp gauge and we were reading 180.  The engine sounded beautiful from underneath the cowl a mere couple inches from my head as we sailed through turn 8 on our way to the grid.

We were on the third row, inside left against the dirt.  First row was right in front of us, second row was just to our 3 o’clock.  We run a staggered grid launch formation.  If Sarah got a good launch there was a good chance we could be in the top three right behind the leader with the inside line into turn 1.

The flag dropped, and Sarah bogged on the start for half a second.  We got off the line slow and plastic missiles shot around us as Sarah hammered the throttle and fanned the clutch trying to get off the line.  We’re going to have to work on her starts, it’s her Achilles heel.  We were nearly in the back of the pack going into one, with tons of ground to make up.  Sarah put the spurs to it and I buried my head as she chased the pack around the Omega and down the back straight.  I’ll cut/paste what happened at this point from a conversation I had in IRC with Dave… edited for family internet.

[10:12am] [MoikeBox] so Sarah nearly made me s**t my leathers yesterday
[10:14am] [Strega|Wk] Well that’s no fun when it’s over
[10:14am] [MoikeBox] We were trailing Sean after the green flag dropped on the first lap
[10:16am] [MoikeBox] She’s hot on his a*s through turn 8, she dips it late into turn 9, and uses the momentum to slingshot up beside him driving onto the front straight
[10:16am] [MoikeBox] and she drag raced him down the front straight side by side, all the way up to the brake markers for turn 1, and he wasn’t rolling off
[10:17am] [Strega|Wk] lil game of CHICKEN
[10:17am] [MoikeBox] And, she was way off her line for turn in for one, way inside of it… I’m looking at Sean praying to God he’ll f*****g shut down or give up
[10:17am] [MoikeBox] he had the line, Sarah was way inside on him
[10:17am] [MoikeBox] and he puckered up and finally shut off, Sarah didn’t actually roll off the throttle till we hit the 1 cone, which is normally where she’s finishing her braking
[10:18am] [MoikeBox] and, she’s inside, off her line now
[10:19am] [MoikeBox] she snaps it to the right out across Seans nose, doesn’t even hit the brakes, pitches it in and then just goes WFO again aiming for the gators on the inside
[10:19am] [MoikeBox] my a*s was in a different zipcode hanging out trying to find some traction for the front wheel
[10:19am] [MoikeBox] I was already thinking about where the ambulance was going to have to drive up to on the mountain to recover my carcass
[10:20am] [MoikeBox] full on three wheel drift out of 1 on the power, tire spinning, front end chattering, chair wheel hopping up in the air, me s******g myself, and Sarah crawled up out of the cockpit over the front wheel trying to get even more weight on it
[10:21am] [MoikeBox] and she nails it perfectly with even room to spare
[10:21am] [Valgar] hahahahaha
[10:21am] [Valgar] awesome
[10:21am] [MoikeBox] my turtlehead retracted, six more weeks of winter
[10:21am] [MoikeBox] dude, I’m not kidding
[10:22am] [MoikeBox] she never hit the brakes
[10:24am] [Valgar] moike: which track?
[10:24am] [MoikeBox] Willow Springs, big track
[10:26am] [Strega|Wk] that sounds f****n scary
[10:29am] [MoikeBox] it was, I saw Jesus, dressed like Elvis

Despite nearly crapping myself I had to keep my head in the game, so it was over to the right and Sarah put some serious distance on Sean between 2, over the Omega, up over 6/7.  Sean started to reel us in through 8, and on the straight I looked back to see him coming up on us.  I actually slid my ass off the platform on the straight in case he thought about going up inside of us, trying to make us as wide as possible before the turn in into one.

Sarah put more distance on him into two, flew through the Omega with the sidecar skittering, and coming down out of five she had her sights set on Leon in front of us who she was starting to reel in at a pretty rapid pace.

Then something happened.

I noticed she missed her downshift for five, and saw her shake her head…  She bogged it over six, and slowly got up to speed through 8/9.  We turned into 9, acellerated down the front straight, and she once again missed her shifts turning into one, having to hammer down a gear after turn 1.  I saw her once again shaking her helmet and we were about 15% off our pace through turn 2.  I assumed the heat was finally getting to her and she was starting to make stupid mistakes.   She was hard on the gas out of two, and I got out waiting for her to drop two gears for the turn in for 3, but it never happened, and we bogged over the top of the Omega.  I could tell at this point something was wrong, and she was pissed off.  We got back to the front straight and Sean had made up all the ground he lost, he easily blew by us on the power, and Sarah had to let him go… dropping back behind him on the turn in into 1, unable to match his speed over the Omega since she was unable to downshift consistantly.

One more lap saw the conclusion of the race and a very angry Girl Wonder.  Wade and Christine had dropped out with a mechanical at the entrance to 3 (chair wheel hub broke), Roy dropped out with a toasted clutch, and John ended up pushing it across the finish line in the hot pits when his ECU freaked out in turn 7 on the last lap and he coasted in.

When we got in and got the body off the CSR it turns out the Allen bolt at the top of the Translogic servo shifter had snapped off.  Since the body shell rests against the top of the Translogic mount, the Translogic servo could shift  the gearbox up since pressing the ‘shift up’ button caused the top of the servo body to press against the kevlar CSR body.  But pressing the ‘shift down’ button would just move the servo body down instead of moving the shift arm.  As far as I can tell Sarah would get lucky now and then jabbing the ‘shift down’ button when the broken bolt would catch on the servo mount and let the servo shift down the transmission.

It’s racing, these things happen.  It will be re-engineered so it does not happen again.

Sarah on the otherhand is amazingly pissed.  She passed and put distance on Sean by the 2nd lap and thinks she could have put down Leon since she was reeling him in after passing Sean if it wasn’t for a stupid 3 cent bolt.  I have to remind her that at the start of this season just being able to keep Sean in her sights for a couple laps was a major accomplishment, and being able to keep up with Leon was a pipe dream, passing him… laughable.

But no, she’s turned from mild mannered scooter chick into full blown agro racer now that she’s had a taste of what it’s like to intimidate someone for position and win.  And all she can think about is the next race, the next pass, the next name on the hitlist to cross off.

Thanks to Stuart Smith for the photo.

Thanks to all our wonderful sponsors for the epic level of support so far this season, we could not have made so many top 10 finishes without all of you.  And OH MY GOD thank you SCORPION SPORTS USA for the KwikWick liners in the helmets.  In punishing 100 degree heat I can attest that this KwikWick technology is not just some gimmik to sell helmets, it actually works, and works well.  You rule, Teri!

Next Stop…  Fight with the Big Guns out at Road America, June 13/14/15.  Expect amazing things from the Dynamic Duo!

-Mike-

Doug Dano and Wade Boyd got their ‘refused’ letters to the IOM TT

Dig…

American rider’s bitterness at TT rejection

You throw some tea off a boat a couple hundred years ago, and someone has to hold a grudge.

Doug had a entirely new FII sidecar built just for the TT over the course of the last two years from the ground up by a master chassis builder. JT Kroupa who is an experienced FI/FII passenger from the Pacific Northwest was set to go to the IOM and passenger for Doug. This was going to be vindication for an American/American team going back to the IOM and beating the Mountain Course. It would be a first.

Wade has raced solo bikes at the IOM for the last 15 years, everybody knows Wade Boyd. Why all of a sudden are the Americans being axed from the TT consistantly?

This grinds my gears.

~Sarah

831 Magazine interviewed us before the beginning of the season.  Ryan e-mailed us a few days ago to let us know the latest issue had hit the shelves.  Neat!

831 Magazine has their own MySpace page.

~Sarah

We are exhausted.

That is the understatement of the year.  Back to back race weekends at Willow Springs, while nice for getting the bike dialed in and getting the rust blown out of our technique, are very physically and mentally demanding.  We have bruises on top of bruises.  I’ll do a quick summary of both weekends.

April 12th/13th ~ AHRMA 13th Corsa Motoclassica

Boy Wonder made a couple changes to the CSR to help me before we left. First off he changed the trail on the leading link front suspension from 35 to 22 mm. This lightened the amount of steering input effort required an amazing amount and allowed the CSR to turn in and change lines lightning fast. Secondly he installed the1/4 turn throttle that Fred from Yoyodyne Ti sent us to replace the full-turn stock throttle assembly. This allowed me to finally really discover what the double-digit numbers on the tach actually do.

It paid off. We took Roy, one of our biggest rivals and mentor on the first lap of Saturday’s race. I drove up on the inside of him into turn 4 over the top of the Omega on the power, I blipped the throttle, tapped the brakes, got the rig sideways and shot down out of the Omega like a rocket towards 5/6 just clipping the apex like a crazy woman. I laid down a blistering pace with Boy Wonder working to keep up on the back.

 I quickly caught up to and tagged onto the back of Sean, one of our much faster rivals who used to lap us all last season. All he saw the whole race was the nose of our F1 in his mirror. I was driving hard, the F1 skittering around the track, back end spinning up, we were running a pace that was unknown territory to the both of us trying to get around Sean. I tried to show him a wheel two or three times, but I knew I did not have the stamina to make it stick if I got the pass in. So going around turn 8 Boy Wonder reached up and patted me on the back, letting me know it was ok and to let Sean tow us around the track at this much higher pace to get comfortable with the speed. I gave him the nod, and just got back into the flow for two more laps till we saw the checkers waiving.  9th place secured right on Sean’s tail.

Sean came up to me after the race, gave me a big hug and said, “Bitch, when’d you learn how to TURN!”

Biggest, Compliment, Ever.

Sunday was more of the same…

 I said to Boy Wonder before the race, “Roy’s going to expect me to take him into 4 again because he knows I’m faster through there, I’m going to take him around 2.” Judging by Boy Wonder’s slack jaw and shocked expression, he didn’t know if  I could do it.  The tires would be cold, we’d all be bunched up, the outside line on 2 was pretty hairy and low traction.

But once again, the green flag dropped, and I launched the F1 like we were shot out of a cannon, and as the pack of 12 rigs dove into the high speed turn 1 of Willow Springs we were right on the tail of Roy. Down the short straight between 1 and 2 WFO, he turned in early on the ‘proper’ inside line and I spooled up the CBR1000RR into loud zone. Boy Wonder later said all he could think was, “My f’ing God, she’s going to go for it…” I felt Boy Wonder slide far forward on the back to get some bite on the front wheel under all that power. I walked around the outside of Roy and proceeded to climb the hill towards the 2/3 straight, the F1 bucking and drifting but I kept it right on line with a finesse touch, pouring on the power heading for turn 3.

Once again we tagged on to Sean and chased him down best we could. He had his more experienced passenger Pete Silva with him today and they were running quicker. So we were really working to keep up and I was pushing hard. There were a couple times going into turn one I could feel the rig chattering and drifting and the chair wheel was in the air.  I was screaming in my helmet as despite all that violence I still insisted on pouring on the power now that I had full use of the throttle. I was having fun using all the engine at my disposal.

Passing the white flag I looked back to see ROY COMING FOR US FAST! Someone had lit a fire under Roy’s ass because he’d made up an incredible amount of ground to catch us and Sean. Boy Wonder slapped the body, made eye contact with me in the mirror and pointed forward for GO GO GO GO. I thought he meant pass Sean. So now I really started to pour it on and nose into Sean’s line. I kept looking back to keep an eye on Roy while trying to keep my timing down. As we crested 6 and I got forward to keep the front wheel of the F1 down (they get light) Boy Wonder reached up and grabbed on my back pushing me forward for GO GO GO GO. We all were on the power into 8, I had the line, and Roy was back there but gaining. We turned in to 9 and I poured it .. racing Sean for the line. Sean got it by a bike length and Roy had let it all hang out, opting to turn in early on 9 and run wide on the power resulting in pushing himself into the dirt on the outside of the track. He kept it under control and crossed the checkers behind us.  11th place secured, once again right on Sean’s tail.

This is the note Boy Wonder to Fred with Yoyodyne Ti on Monday morning;

“I can’t say thank you enough for the throttle cables, and the throttle. I’m going to have Sarah send you a thank you note so she can tell you how much -she- likes the 1/4 turn throttle. Once I stop shaking uncontrollably, seeing Jesus and Elvis… maybe I’ll thank you too. Oh, and I’ll send you the dry cleaning bill for my leathers. I didn’t know Sarah could go so fast.”

April 20th ~ WSMC

Windy, very very windy.  Saturday practice we contend with winds gusting to 38mph and averaging 30mph.  Does not sound like much till you’re doing triple digits and you’re trying to keep something shaped like a wing pointed in one particular direction of travel.  Wind grinds away on you.  It’s irritating, it shakes the EZ-Up, it blows away anything that you don’t set a wrench or rock on, sometimes it blows away the wrench.  When we’re not on the track we’re huddled in the Rav4 or in a RV trying to stay out of Rosamond’s natural sandblaster.  First practice is slow and cold, with both Boy Wonder and I learning to contend with the wind variable.  The next two go better as we come to terms with the fact that the CSR is just going to hop around and change direction suddenly for no obvious reason, and nothing is actually broken or in the process of catastrophic failure.  I’m feeling beat up, it takes twice the amount of effort to hold the CSR on line, so much more mental focus to run near my race pace compared to last weekend.  Boy Wonder is complaining that his head is getting thrown around like a grapefruit in a washing machine.  Somehow we pull together something resembling decent practice sessions and flee the track to the sanctuary of the Devonshire Inn.

Sunday is just more of the same.  It’s freezing cold, and the gusts are over 40mph now.  Another neat thing is now the wind has decided it’s going to change direction at random.  Boy Wonder is yelling at the sky at this point and giving the finger to passing clouds.  We nail down our two practice sessions, and curl up in Pete’s RV waiting for WSMC to call Race 11.  Eventually after what seems like a lifetime that happens.

Mr. Bill decides for a nice change of pace they will do the grid by points, and then invert it.  Since our two LCR rock stars Frank/Dennis Oliver/Ian are not attending this race, this puts Boy Wonder and myself 2nd row outside right just behind Doug Dano on the Carbon-Fiber Windle F1.  This means I have the entire grid behind us banging off it’s rev limiters waiting for the green flag to drop.  No Pressure.

The flag drops, and of course I get wolf packed going into turn 1.  Doug is off like a shot, something to do with drag racing jet cars in a previous life.  We just get murdered on the start and I slot in behind Sean.  Ah well, they can’t all be epic starts.  At least from our point of view we get to see some excellent racing as the next three laps the pack stays very closely bunched up and on the same pace before tires start to come up to full operating temperatures.  After that third lap the pack starts to pull apart as the little ‘cliques’ of speed are formed.  We know we can run Sean’s pace, so we stay on Sean who has Leon not at all too far ahead of him.

Four laps in we’re presented with the crossed flags telling us the race is half over.  I think to myself, “Someone’s screwed up, this is a six lap race.”  But two laps later of chasing down Sean there’s no white flag.  I’m starting to fade, and I’m running on my lizard brain at this point keeping on his tail.  A lap later we get the white flag, at a total of seven laps in.  Ok, finally, only one more to go.  So I give it every last little bit I have, Boy Wonder reaches up as we’re going around turn 2 and pats me on the back, giving me the, “Hang in there!”.  I pull some ground on Sean going into and over the Omega, I drive hard out down out of turn 4 and into 5 trying to stay on his tail but it takes every ounce of my strength to keep the CSR turned in on the off camber left.  We hammer around turn 8 and I’m reeling him in, it’s going to be close but I’m too far back.  We dive in for 9 and I go WFO at the apex for a slingshot Hail-Mary exit.  Sean’s on the throttle and I cross the line behind him right on his tail.  Close, but just not enough.   I come across the line 8th behind Sean.

Given the conditions it was a good weekend.  I did set some new personal bests.

– New top speed in turn 8 at Willow Springs of 155mph.
– Stayed on the tail of someone who used to consistently lap me last season.
– Did not get lapped by the leaders / stayed on the lead lap the entire race (on a 8 lap race even).

~Sarah

Two cool new things.

First, just in the nick of time Alex at Eddy Wright Parts over in the YooKay expressed Mike a pair of Frey Daytona Sidecar Passenger boots.  His Oakley boots were held together with tape after the last weekend at Willow Springs.  Alex you rule for making this happen!!!

Second, HUGE thanks goes out to Fred with Yoyodyne and Chris with Motion Pro for collaborating to get our new throttle cables and throttle assembly together and working in time for this coming race weekend.  We actually got it a day ahead of schedule!!! Custom Motion Pro adjustable push-pull cables with a adjustable cam quick-turn Yoyodyne throttle.  All made just for the CBR1000RR throttle bodies.  You couldn’t ask for higher quality work from two nicer guys.

Sponsors rule.  OUR SPONSORS RULE!!!

~Sarah