A bit of a mixed bag in what was my most frustrating week of racing in my three years of doing this. Fantastic SV news in this update though.
ASRA Midwest Round 4 – Blackhawk Farms, August 16-17
I mentioned previously that I had a crash a few weeks ago on a track day at Blackhawk Farms. I spent most of Friday staring at the Turn 4 air fence ghosts and getting comfortable being on a bike again. By the end of Friday practice day, I felt confident enough I’d be able to ride through it once we got into a race, but I was going slower through the part of the track that has traditionally been my strongest. I was staring at that fence.
I came in hoping for 1:15’s… I left barely scraping 17’s most races. I just never felt comfortable, and I was pushing hard. Part of it was definitely mental; however, I’m starting to think I had some front end alignment issues after doing my first tire change on the Kramer and having to rebuild a bunch of the front end after the crash. I bought an alignment laser to go through everything prior to next event. I did put on a pretty good showing in the 25min GTL mini endurance race. It was 90°F and pushed me to my physical exhaustion limit. Made some passes in fast spots of the track I’m proud of. I know that race sent more than a few competitors into a heat exhaustion that effectively ended their weekends early.
Also the Kramer is overheating and firing coolant out. That was fun to fight all weekend.
I did actually get a race win when 13 people were signed up for Lightweight Supersport; however, only 1 person came to the grid—me. It had been raining hard about an hour before. Wind destroyed half our campsite. I had slicks on and was just going to roll around the warmup lap to see if I could find a dry line. It was sorta there. When I lined up after the warmup lap, the officials and the smoking hot flag lady were all laughing. I was confused and figured I lined up in the wrong grid spot. They were all laughing because I was the only one that came out. I looked behind me and saw no other bikes. So I ran the minimum amount of laps to make it official with the corner workers cheering me on.
SV
I brought the SV with the intention to race it in Ultralightweight Superbike against a buddy of mine that ran an SV July round for the first time. He was on a borrowed SV and is looking to buy one of his own. Well, the borrowed SV he was on… someone overfilled the oil badly. It likely frothed the oil and cooked the rings since the bike would not stop smoking bad after the first few practice sessions. So his weekend was done since his GSXR is also out of commission.
I brought him over to my paddock spot and said “you’re not done. Get on my SV and you’re racing it this weekend.” He was hesitant, so I told him at least take it out for the last two practice sessions. “I’ve never been on a carbureted bike before!”. I told him I promise you you’re going to be fine and, despite the fact this isn’t a “built” motor like the other one you were on, you’re going to go faster on my bike. He took it out for the first session and we promptly ran him out of gas since nobody put more fuel in after the 2 hour Summit endurance race, lol. He did get a full final 20 min practice session on it. After the practice session, he agreed he’d be running my SV in the races.
Ethan covered up my white #109 stickers with yellow tape and #871 taped numbers. He would go on to thoroughly kick my ass, every amateur’s ass, and a large portion of the remaining expert grid as well. My previous best on this bike was an 18.3; however, I was certain I had another second in it since this would be the first time I was running the bike at Blackhawk this year with working rebound in the rear shock. He signed up for 6 races and took 6 victories. The only one I ran away from him in was the GTL endurance.
My buddy would go on to obliterate my own personal best on multiple occasions, and I was getting questions about “what the hell did you do to that engine?!?”. Well, I’ve documented everything here. It’s a stock compression, stock pistons, lightened flywheel, new valves, home-honed cylinders, home-polished head, stock rods and crank. Basically, it’s not that superbikey; however, when you put a 120lb guy on it that knows how to ride, he was pulling with some of the 660’s out there.
Summary
So it was the most frustrated I’ve ever been on a bike. My brain was processing out the ghosts of turn 4, and I’m convinced I have a wheel alignment issue on the front. No crashes or any big moments though. And to boot, I got completely schooled by my own SV650—a bike I was actually hoping to race against Ethan. But you know what? I was frustrated in the moment, but it was actually pretty awesome. Over the last two ASRA rounds, that bike finished P2 in the 2 hour endurance race at Summit, and it took 6 race victories at Blackhawk last weekend and got a ton of high praise. I’ve worked and researched my ass off this offseason on that engine rebuild and all the geometry and suspension setup. It’s cool to see fast people hop on the 24 year old machine and do fast guy things. It gives me a goal to try to attain someday. I got so much valuable feedback about potential changes on things that could work better and also feedback on the things that worked well. And also the electrical fix I did appears to be working fine.
Next up
We’re onto the new race track this September in Missouri—Ozarks International Raceway. Nobody has raced there yet, but there have been a few track days. Thursday or Friday will be the first time any of my group has seen it. I don’t know which bike I’m taking yet or if I can take both. I have trust issues with the cooling system on the Kramer now and no rain wheels, so I’m hoping I can bring the SV. I’d like to bring both, but we’ll see. Space limitations and all that.
I never go to new tracks and expect to do well. I usually end up picking up like 5+ seconds the second time I visit a track. So I’m just going to go and try to enjoy this one. Keep the shiny side up, and try to put into practice some of the advice I’ve gotten over the last week.
