Round 1 was a washout...

Summary

Well, Round 1 was a terrible disappointment.  The bike stopped running and I missed all of my qualifying races Saturday and so we packed up and left Saturday night.  I did manage to get licensed however and we also did the endurance racing Saturday, so it wasn't a total waste.

Friday - SOAR Race School

Arrived bright and early Friday to about 5°C and light mist...which turned to heavy mist...which turned to something that could only properly be called rain.  Everything was soaked and I didn't bring enough warm clothes.  I had two hours of race school classroom time in the morning, which was very useful - answered all of my outstanding questions about starting procedures grid assignments, flags etc.  But the building was unheated and I was wet and actually shivering during the class.  The classroom instructor was Mike Bevan, a top runner and previous champion in Expert Superbike, and he was just great.

Here is what our pit area looked like after the class:

After lunch all of the race school students had to do some laps with an instructor following to make sure our lines were safe and that we weren't totally incompetent.  Problem is the track was still about 80% wet and several of us had only slick tires.  Fortunately for me I also had the endurance bike handy wearing Q3 street tires, so I took that out with the instructor.  The instructor had race DOTs on, which must have been kinda spooky in those conditions.  After I had done five or six laps I went back to the pits to wait.  He eventually showed up and said "I am very tentative in the rain and you left me for dead out there, so you can consider yourself licensed."

Hooray.  I guess....

Eventually the track dried up, but when I started the Ducati it was running very badly.  A bit of a shocker because the bike has been very reliable (except for the oil cooler thing....) and was running great two weeks prior at practice.  We found some issues with the battery connections and got it running well again.  By that time it was pretty late so I didn't even set up the timing beacon or record any video.  The track layout was "Reverse Screaming Alien" which I have some prior experience on, and I felt like my times were probably okay, though certainly not the 1:10s I was hoping for.

I got registered with Bridgestone for the tire contingency program, and put the stickers on the bike.  It was looking even more bad-ass and I went to bed very excited.

Saturday - It all goes pear-shaped

To make a long story short, when it was time to go out for Saturday practice (on a nice, dry track) the bike wouldn't run.  Now it was actually turning on the check engine light, but I had left the connector cables for my diagnostics software at home so I couldn't check the codes.  I spent the whole day Saturday wrenching the bike, trying everything I could think of, and making runs into Exeter for parts (fuel filter, plugs).  This is how the bike looked during my qualifying races:

It is hard to get more pathetic than that.  I was just frantic, at first hoping to make the last practice session, then hoping to make qualifying, then just hoping to get it going for Sunday and start at the back of the grid.  No dice.  

Eventually I just had to admit defeat, throw down the tools and concentrate on the Saturday evening endurance race on the Gixxer.  That was quite a bit of fun and at least I got some practice with passing under (low intensity) race conditions.  After that we had a beer and a hotdog, then broke camp and headed for home a day early.  

I am extremely disappointed because, looking at the lap times others were doing, I am pretty sure that I could have been reasonably competitive in both of my sprint races.  On a happy note, a friend of mine on a Triumph 675, also a first year racer, decimated the field in the 600 Rookie qualifying race.  Way to go Brodie!  Still waiting for the Sunday results to see how he finished.

So, how did we do?

Reviewing the list of "realistic goals" for Round 1:

1. Get licensed - Check!

2. Don't crash - Check!

3. Turn some practice laps in the 1:10.x range - Uh,no....

4. Don't embarrass myself in the sprint qualifiers or races - Never had the chance.

5. Have fun - Meh.  Froze my butt Friday morning, spent 9/10 of Saturday frantic and frustrated.  So I'm gonna say "fail" on this one.

Definitely a failing grade overall.  Hopefully it all gets sorted for Round 2 in three weeks.  Diagnostics led me to an electrical fault to one of the fuel injectors and the bike is now running again.  You can be sure that it will be started and run on pretty much a daily basis for at least a week to see if it misbehaves again.

Plans for Round 1

SOAR Round 1 is this weekend at Grand Bend.  It will be a three-day weekend for me, because I need to do the race school on Friday.  Assuming they are crazy enough to grant me a race licence, I will get a bit of practice in on Friday afternoon and then again on Saturday morning.

I struggled a bit with the decision about how many classes to register for.   I am committed to the endurance racing with PDR on Saturday, and wondered if maybe that, along with the Friday school, would be enough for the first weekend.  And actually it looked like that would be all I would be permitted to do, since my family was understandably not thrilled to learn that I would be gone for three days straight.  However, they eventually acquiesced so the decision was mine.

I knew I wanted to do at least one sprint class, if for no other reason than to get the experience of a race start.  Battle of the Twins Lightweight is the obvious choice - my bike should be pretty competitive there.

The question was...do I also sign up for the 600 Rookie class?  Air-cooled twins up to 1200 cc are permitted, but could I be competitive against a bunch of young guys (and girls) on Japanese supersport bikes?  Also, that class is usually pretty heavily subscribed early in the season.  I could be gridding up with 15 to 20 other riders as inexperienced as myself.  Recipe for disaster?

The track layout will be "Reverse Screaming Alien".  I reviewed quite a bit of youtube video of past Rookie races on that layout, and convinced myself that lap times in the 1:10 range would be competitive (i.e., potential to podium).  So, even the high 1:12s I was managing last year at a track day on that layout would not see me getting lapped or otherwise humiliated.  Accordingly....I signed up.  If I can get my practice times down into the 1:10s I will be pretty confident going in, so that is the goal I have set for myself.  But if I even manage some 1:11s I won't be too disappointed.

So the weekend schedule is: Friday - school and practice. Saturday - practice, 6-lap qualifying races for both BOTT LW and Rookie, then 3-h endurance race.  Sunday - a bit of morning practice and then two 12-lap sprint races.  The only thing certain in all of this is that ibuprofen will be my friend on Saturday.  I wonder if Advil would like to sponsor an amateur racer?

Speaking of sponsorship, I am going to sign up for the Bridgestone contingency program, since I am running their V01-R slicks.  They pay back to third place for any class that has a minimum of six competitors on the grid.  That will include 600 Rookie for sure but we may even have that many in BOTT LW.  Of course expecting to podium on my first race weekend is a bit fanciful...but I would feel like an idiot if I somehow pulled it off but hadn't bothered to register for the contingency program.  Also, it sure would be helpful at this point to win a little tire money!

On the bike prep side, the replacement oil cooler didn't arrive until today and I couldn't wait that long to get the bike ready, so I just removed the old cooler and bypassed it.  These bikes run fine without coolers anyway, but I will keep an eye on the engine temperatures and install the new cooler at the track if I deem it necessary.

I just acquired a new front wheel so that I can get set up with rain tires, but that won't all get organized for this round.  Hopefully it doesn't rain or I am screwed for the sprint races.

So, in summary, Realistic Goals for Round 1:

- Get licensed
- Don't crash
- Turn some practice laps in the 1:10.x range
- Don't embarrass myself in the sprint qualifiers or races
- Have fun

I should add that there is a running bet within the PDR team as to who will turn the best laps on the endurance bike...we are talking serious gloating privileges here.

A middle-aged guy decides to become a motorcycle racer

Hi there -

My name is Hugh Earl and, at the age of 45, 2014 will be my first season racing motorcycles.  I will be campaigning a 2006 Ducati Sport 1000 in the Battle of the Twins Lightweight class in the Southern Ontario Association of Racing (SOAR).

I am also a member of the Prairie Dogs Racing Team, which consists of myself, my brother Steve and our friend Allen.  We have put together a 2003 GSXR600 which we will run in SOAR's GTU Endurance Class (basically, a 3-h race with multiple riders taking turns).

I have been track riding since 2010, mostly at Cayuga (Toronto Motorsports Park), but with occasional outings to Mosport and Grand Bend.  Six of the 2014 SOAR rounds will be at Grand Bend on the various configurations there.  One of those is a joint round with RACE, and then SOAR also has another joint round with RACE out at their home track of Shannonville.

My bike is pretty unusual for a race machine, being a 1000-cc air-cooled 2-valver.  However, SOAR's rules allow me to enter it into a number of classes, competing against 600-cc inline fours if I so choose.  Here is the bike:

Modifications from stock include a DP slipper clutch, WASP intakes and fueling mods (with Dynojet PCIII), WASP top mount steering damper, Traxxion Dynamics fork cartridges and springs, Penske shock, Arrow 2-1 exhaust, Airtech fairing on an Endurance Engineering stay with a Gustaffson windscreen, Catalyst Composites bellypan, LSL (Spiegler) footpegs, Brembo wheels and 4-piston / 4-pad front calipers, Shorai Lithium Battery relocated under the seat, Tech Spec tank grips, 14 / 41 final drive gearing, Motovation frame sliders and RhinoMoto bar and axle sliders and probably some other stuff I am forgetting.  I am running Bridgestone V01-R slicks with Bickle tire warmers.  The bike has been safety wired according to SOAR tech requirements, and the crankcase breather is vented into a catch can mounted in the front fairing.  There is also a brake lever guard and a rear sprocket "shark fin" guard (both Woodcraft) as required by the rules.

I have registered with SOAR under novice race number 282, but won't be officially licensed to race with them until I complete the race school on Friday May 23.

With this bike I expect to be reasonably competitive in the Battle of the Twins Lightweight class, but am also very curious as to whether on not I could hold my own against other novice racers on inline-4 600s.  SOAR has a special class for rookie (first year) racers on 600s, which I may enter if I can convince myself that I could make a good show of it (i.e., not be dead last).  So far the signs are encouraging.  Last Saturday SOAR had a test day at Grand Bend on the "Modified" track layout.  Watching youtube video of rookie 600 races on that layout from previous years, it seemed like 1 minute flat would be a respectable time.  So, on Saturday I went out with the "Red Group" (what was I thinking...holy smokes those guys are quick), and quickly managed to average 1:00.x, with a few 0:59.x in there for good measure.  

Here is some video, which unfortunately ends with my oil cooler exploding.  The fellow at the end is trying to signal to me that my bike is smoking, but of course at that point I already knew.  I really should have exited the track sooner (rookie mistake), but fortunately the leak wasn't bad enough to drop any oil on the track surface.

  

I've ordered the parts I need to fix the bike and so expect to be ready for Round 1.  If not then I will just do the endurance racing for that round and wait for Round 2 to get the Duc out there.

Got some laps in on the endurance bike as well.  I was 2 - 3 seconds slower on the Gixxer, probably because I have not ridden an inline 4 for so long (over a decade!) and so had no feel for what gear to be in.  The bike seemed to work reasonably well though.  We have it on Dunlop Q3s, which seem to be really wonderful tires.