The CE2's first outing under new managment

The final result makes the weekend look pretty bad: we went DNF for the Thunderbike class due to the crankcase breather tube coming off and oiling the bike. But the story is a better one that the results show. We’re only one weekend into this and there’s enough promise in it that I maintain my goal of a top five finish, some future race from now. The competition is harder than I’d estimated, but the bike is also better than I’d given it credit to be. I’m just inside of my best 125 times and there should be room for more. Chris has engineered and fabricated a competitive racing motorcycle in an era when the independent constructor has been outdistanced by bikes that work great right off the dealer floor. Why go to all this effort? A few will always prefer to roll their own.

Problems: Failed Friday tech due to no rear brake. Bled brake and won tech. Then we had oiling where the GSXR clutch actuator bolted to the clutch housing, but the ever resourceful Chris combed the Summit maintenance grounds for a lathe and fashioned a bushing which accepted an oil seal. Problem solved. The shifter was scraping the skin off my toe and I was struggling with hitting my downshifts, so we changed this trick one-off CNC’d linkage for the original Rotax shift lever, and the longer throw was perfect for me and my shifting troubles went away. The slipper clutch seems to work great. I had no rear wheel lockups (two stroke newbie here) and I could hear it locking back in on the gas in the turns. Chris had re-angled the exhaust to great benefit, but I found new places to touch it down, once picking up the front wheel across T8, which softened my left turns for the rest of the weekend. The right footpeg snapped off at the rearset hanger just past the T9 apex in practice, and I almost fell right off the side of the bike. All the buttons of the floating front disk seized up in LWGP, which was a...drag: changed disks. My complaint of lack of drive exiting 10 was confirmed by Chris’ laptop: we could gear down two teeth and still not redline in top gear. We needed a new chain for this. I left damping alone, softened front spring preload a turn, and stiffened the rear spring a turn.

The ride: I’m still trying to wrap my head around riding it. The thing just kills everyone on the brakes and is confident on the turn in. Mid turn is a bit loose and wild, a little front end push in T1, a little pitch fore and aft. But if you wait for it to settle out before getting on the throttle you’ll never get under a :25, so the best thing to do, just when you want your mommy, is to get back on the throttle hard and hang off the inside. It tightens its line with the gas on and just digs in and tractors away. We’d like more rear ride height but are topped out, so Chris is going to revise the shock links to get us a new span of adjustment. There is a hint of head shake at high speeds, fixed by weight on the pegs and moving forward over the tank: too much rear weight bias? Horsepower is lower than the competition. This doesn’t seem to hamper me against the SV’s too much, but dealing with the Buells is tougher. The “looseness” mid turn I think is an advantage, but I’m still looking for both balls before I investigate. I’m a little too conservative on ideas for making the bike better right now. I need to figure out how to push it to a limit before I can know what changes to make.

Racing: The bike ran strong all weekend, 139mph at 8600rpm on the front straight. I started at about a 1:29 pace and dropped about a second a session through the weekend, ending up in the low 1:22’s. I was 8th in GTL running 24’s, and 5th in LWGP running 23’s, both races starting somewhere around last place due to terrible start technique. I qualified for Monday’s race 13th at a 1:22.6, a time which felt quite comfortable to achieve. Pole went to Esktok on the Buell at 1:19! Buells controlled most of the top 15 spots, with a scattering of SV’s filling in the cracks. There were 8 bikes between 1:21.4 and my 1:22.6. Nate did a mid 21 on his BMW and was on the 3rd row; I was on the 4th. I was a bit humbled by only being 13th, but felt that with a good start I could run this pace for the 16 laps and hoped for fatigue from others. Running a 20 seemed too far away, but a few 21’s appeared to be within grasp.

As it turned out my race almost ended on the starting line. Wanting a good start, I let the clutch out too fast and killed it on the line. Disaster! Chris was on it though. He ran down the track with the starter tool (and car battery) and got me going. I was a lap down but on the track and, guess what...here comes the red flag. Restart! This time I was on the back row, but at least on the same lap, and after another terrible (but functioning) start I went through T1 about 21st. I’m still too chicken to shove it in there like I should, so I took too much time with traffic and let too many fast guys get away. Once clear I settled into a 22 pace for 4 or 5 laps. Everything was feeling steady and grand. I was beginning my run on 10th when the hose popped off. I might have had an 8th if I’d stayed in, which would have accomplished my goal of a top 10, but instead I had a nice chat with the corner workers and watched the Buells fart on to victory.

Conclusion: Chris deserves a big thanks for his constant attention to the bike over the 4 days and his excellent coaching. Although Silvana won’t hold an umbrella, she likes to remove tire warmers. Carl rode over from DC on his new F4I and was always ready with a stand or push. Turu came through when no one was smiling. Evenings were spent over at the Celento Henn Airstream lounge: slothful feasts of grilled meats under the stars, with Dave’s stories rolling everyone out of their chairs in laughter. The good life! In all, the DNF was about as much of a setback as the sausage I dropped when I was taking it off the grill. I still ate it, and I still raced, and I raced without eating it.

Todd

I agree with Todd very much on all aspects of this weekend. As the mechanic the breather tube coming off in Thunderbike really bummed me out, but instead of the crash that would've told me that it was oiling the rear, Todd managed to notice before any damage was done and pulled off left before turn 1.

As far as the times go, I was extremely happy with him progressing steadily from 1:29 to consistent 1:22 (4 in a row in the Thunderbike race) with a best of 1:22.15. For reference my best time at Summit was a 1:29.5 and his on a 125 was a 1:22.6. Even though we were entered in official races, this was still development track time and the best was made of it. I have lots of laps of full data from the bike (front and rear shock travel, throttle position, brake pressure, wheel speed, engine speed) and will bring the PC to matchless on Monday so we can do some real bench racing.

The competition has definitely stepped it up a bit this year. The leaders did a fast lap of 1:19.4, but with some time and work I don't think that is totally out of reach. Those buells really romp down the straights. They all have pretty large ram air systems which can probabally fool the dyno as it does not have the ability to recreate the extra boost. Racing definitely does improve the breed.

My hat is off to Todd for his riding performance. Lots of people coming by to see what the hell that thing is, it goes pretty fast. No disasters, a couple of near misses

As the team photographer I've been remiss about getting to the first few races and I don't have any good shots. An annonymous source sent this shot of Todd during a training ride...

(all mechanicals) all in all a great job. In discussing the bike, laps, etc., I realized how much he actually senses about what is going on with the bike. I am amazed at his clear description of what is going on in entry, mid corner, exit, etc. and look forward to him finding the both balls. Between the data from the bike system and Todd's even more valuable feedback with soime time I really think this bike can shake things up.

As far as my weekend went I actualy had a ball. Suprising as it was I didn't really miss racing much and tried to be the 'mechanic' as much as possible. Even got a stopwatch. As far as the bike goes I think this is the best thing I've done so far to help it's progress. Having someone else to share the effort with, especially someone as fast and consistent as Todd, really makes the weekend go a lot smoother.

We're going to try to do loudon in 2 weeks (6/11-12) for a test before the fusa event the following week. Then vir the next. A busy few weeks but then no race until mid august at barber.

For the bike I have a few plans in store. Before loudon I will cc the head to determine the actual compression ratio and then get some dyno time with peter this weekend and test some of the more exotic fuels in the hope of gaining a couple of extra Hp to help out on the straights. I'm not as concerned at loudon but VIR has a long straight and we need as much top end as possible. I'll also see how the f/r weight dist is and see if I can tweak it to get some more up front. More exhaust clearance is the only fab project that needs completion ASAP and 2nd on line is a new lower link for the rear suspension to jack the rear up. I have a new cam on order from megacycle and will do some more testing after vir in the neverending quest for more power.

Chris