| Author | Message | ||
     Barker |
This guy needs some help. Read about his problems. I might need to send an email to tell him the elusive tool to get the axles out is metric and is located in the tool kit that came with the bike! http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/ 20070608/SPORTS03/706080308/1047 So Andy Weiss won his Clubman race at BeaverRun on Sunday. What of the new Buell? After spending the better part of two days chasing an electrical short, the bike was running and ready to race, right? The last item seemed inconsequential in comparison. The bike still wore its street shoes -- nice Pirelli Diablo all-season tires. We'd swap them out for race DOT tires at the track, where Moose of Trackside Racers Supply has the Pirelli franchise. Serious oversight No. 2 -- I forgot to bring the specialized tools that remove the front and rear axles. And of course, the Buell uses all "standard" size fittings, while EVERYONE else in the paddock is loaded down with every metric tool you could imagine. Careful finagling with an adjustable wrench got the rear axle off, so I hustled that wheel off to Trackside for a new tire. But the front axle is an interior hex fitting that uses what Thom Godward calls a "monster" Allen wrench. Andy tried several alternative approaches, but even after we realized the axle is reverse-threaded ("Thanks Eric," he muttered) and tried turning it the proper way with a Rube Goldberg assemblage of tools, it wouldn't budge. No doubt Thom had actually tightened it to spec! Eddie Kraft's Witchkraft Racing team loaned me a Suzuki wrench, but of course it was metric and just a hair too large. So it was time to decide whether to race on a street tire, or just sit and watch. Are you kidding me??? We didn't come all this way to spectate. "Just be careful with that front tire," Andy warned me several times. "It's not going to stick as well, and the bike will probably understeer." "Yeah, I will," I promised. "But you know how it is when you get racing." Yes, he knows. Compounding the problem was the fact a giant storm front was crawling toward us, and WERA was doing its best to speed up the schedule. Working on Andy's bike, and fiddling with the front axle, meant the Buell wasn't ready for the first practice session. Since I'd never so much as set foot on this track before, it was imperative to get out for the second (and only remaining) practice. I suited up and followed the parade of bikes onto the track, deliberately slotting in at the back of the pack so the rest of the group could "show me around." I got three laps, and two lap times, both slow of course, before the checkered flag ended the session. Next time on the track it would be for real. So after the obligatory riders meeting, some ineffectual efforts to help Andy with the temperamental Yamaha single, some food and lots of water, it was show time. Butterflies are always in season at the races. Nowadays they disappear pretty quickly, but I can still get that pit-of-stomach feeling just thinking about a race start. It's oddly comforting -- the thrill isn't gone. On the back row of the first group on the grid, I watched the countdown progress, clicked the Buell into gear, slipped the clutch to take slack out of the drive chain, ran the revs up to the north side of 4,000 and the green flag spun upward and we shot off toward the first corner, which is a blind, downhill left-hander. I stayed out of trouble, misjudged my speed (too slow) for the next set of turns and saw the group pull away. The Beaver is a flowing track, and I really enjoyed flopping the Buell from side to side up and over the hills in the back section, running through the gears and feeling pleasantly surprised at the amount of power the stock engine was putting to the ground. Cool! The handling -- one big unanswered question up to this point -- was amazing. I told Rich Cronrath at Innovative Motorcycle Research that it was a lot like riding the TZ chassis-single. I had knee to pavement without even thinking about it, kept one eye on the tach after bouncing off the rev limiter once, and was surprised to see the back of the pack getting closer, instead of further away. That's when the real racing began. I had a Ducati 999 right in front of me, and six laps to track it down. Each corner, I tried to close the gap a little bit. The Buell was responding, and life was good once more. I totally forgot about that front tire. No appreciable understeer -- at least at these speeds. Then reality came flooding back. A group of about three bikes charged up on us from the next group on the starting grid. They were clearly racing each other, out for blood, and we were just backmarkers, getting in the way. Unfortunately, I had closed up on my Ducati foe, and committed to a fairly high corner speed in order to get on his rear wheel. When these guys pulled into that space and checked up for the corner, I had to grab the front brake. We were all pretty well leaned over, and I knew it was going to be a little dicey, but it was slow down or hit someone, so I pulled the brake as hard as I dared and it turned out to be too hard for that street tire. I kept my knee down while it lost traction, locked up and bounced along the pavement toward the outside of the corner -- terminal understeer. When the rubber met wet grass, the whole bike dropped onto its right side like a boulder hitting a pond, and my head, as the end of this big heavy lever, hit the pavement with a loud smack. The bike stopped relatively quickly, but I went earth-sky-earth-sky for an expletive-laden eternity before stopping on hands and knees, the world spinning around me. In a few seconds, a corner marshal was spinning around me, too, asking if I was OK. I reassured him, finally got to my feet and walked wearily over to the corner station to sit my muddy bottom in his folding chair. The bike suffered mainly cosmetic damage, and will be ready to go before I will. So why am I so happy? Because both of the significant goals for the weekend were met: Find out if the Buell is a fun race bike. It is, no doubt about it. Determine if I still love racing, after more than a year of frustrations. I do. So how can I complain about a few wicked bruises and a trashed helmet? Bruce McLaughlan, a racing enthusiast his whole life, began racing motorcycles 10 years ago and is rated "expert" by AMA, WERA and CCS. You can email Bruce at bmclaughlan@hughes.net. |
