Small bike - Big track

[Doc]

They're looking to drop classes at LRRS, not add them. Just a heads up.

Not what they were saying at the riders meeting this past weekend.

"More classes for the Motards"

Minimotards would fit right in.

[OreoGaborio]

more classes for the motards.... friggin REDICULOUS.... Just about ANY motard will fit into about 10 classes

[Doc]

I am hoping it will take the motards OUT of some of the other classes.

[pasta-rocket]

I am in favor of it. I raced with this guy in mini motard races in weare NH,and he wasted us! I think he would do very welll against the novice lightweight crew up at loudon. He knows the racing line and that bike rips!!! Hell of a nice guy and extended alot of insight when me and stupid hawk went to race with him. #266 Ryan Hobbs

[Kurlon]

Fark... I'm out.

Rule 7.15 -Tires must be in good condition and must be mounted on wheels at least 15 inches in diameter.

Well... it was a nice dream. I'm kinda curious what spawned that rule now. (Because you know every rule has a name to go with it.)

Also interesting to see Production Twins are exempt from the catch pan rule, but nothing else is? How are guys handling catch pans on motards?

[Paul_E_D]

They're not...

The rule book is applied loosely in some situations.

I don't mean to piss in anyone's cornflakes, but running minis with LRRS is a bad idea IMO. They have a FULL schedule and struggle to get all the races in as it is. Opening to a whole different type of machine is not feasible.

I think you're misunderstanding the issue with the classes. There may be call to re-organize existing classes, but there's no room to straight up ADD new classes. Especially minis, which could NOT run simultaneously with any other class. You would have to drop 3 existing classes from the schedule to do it. Whose gonna volunteer their class to get dropped in favor of minis???

[Kurlon]

Looking at the schedule posted at LRRSRacing.com, it shows motards running as a separate race, only time I've seen them run separate is for the Classic... what other classes do they run at the same time?

[Puppet]

There is a "motard" race, but there are 3 races going on at the same time, Expert, Amateur, and Novice. This is also the only race that the novices are on track at the same time with the experts and amateurs. It's not a true supermoto race like the classic with dirt and jumps...it's just the normal loudon config with motard style bikes.

[Kurlon]

There is a "motard" race, but there are 3 races going on at the same time, Expert, Amateur, and Novice. This is also the only race that the novices are on track at the same time with the experts and amateurs. It's not a true supermoto race like the classic with dirt and jumps...it's just the normal loudon config with motard style bikes.

Oh, I thought they ran with a couple other non-motard classes on the track at the same time?

[Doc]

Sometimes they do that too. Check out the results on lrrsracing.com

[978chris]

it makes as much sense as going to a go-cart track with a 600 superbike.

damn i was just about to ask about that cart track

you guys seen that youtube video of the guy doing a burnout on a sportbike at a 3 lane red light, weaving around all the stopped cars - around and around with smoke everywhere and drivers going "what the fuck"? i wanna learn how to do that.

[Kurlon]

damn i was just about to ask about that cart track

you guys seen that youtube video of the guy doing a burnout on a sportbike at a 3 lane red light, weaving around all the stopped cars - around and around with smoke everywhere and drivers going "what the fuck"? i wanna learn how to do that.

Dangit... now I'm getting thread jacked by squids! Er... guess I'm being squidly at the moment too with this idea so...

Be sure to share the secret once you learn!

Back on topic... looks like there are people running lap times as high as 2:06 in novice LWSS and LSPM, the rookie race has people doing anything from 1:26 to 2:23, motard ranges from 1:18 to 1:41.

(Interesting to see rookie race times don't last for long, you guys must do a good job getting people up to speed once they start playing.)

So, that gives me an idea of what various machines and riders are doing, I need to find out just what the 70 can actually toss down for a lap time. I can't do that on a normal track day, I want to do the Penguin school just to improve my mini racing, so I think that's the next step. I'm going to work on safety wiring and proper fluid containment (Bye Bye Gerber baby bottles), and scrape up the dough to do the Oct 5th Penguin school. Hopefully they'll either allow timing, or be using timing to track student progress.

If I'm not giving everyone the heebie-geebies at that point, I'll see if I can do the rookie race that Saturday.

[smf]

nothing personal, but this whole thread makes me more glad i just left NV. regular motard lines are retarded enough, i would think a mini would be more so... you'd end up being a nasty speed bump going into 1 or 3...

i'll be surprised if the penguin school allows you to ride a mini on the track. they have ppl taking the school w/ R1's, gsxr600/750's, etc and they do not split up per class of bike, only per rider experience. think about those closing speeds... r1's could easily be doing 140+ before braking into turn 1.

if you really wanna race pick up an ex for _cheap_ or a race prepped sv for <$2000 this winter. with all the $$ you've poured into the mini you must be able to come up w/ some $$ to pick up a racebike... if you're a smaller person think about a rs125.

this whole idea just seems horribly unsafe. there, i said what i've been thinking for a few days


btw no one can stop you from getting lap times... get a friend, give him/her a pair of stopwatches, pen and paper and collect your times the 'old-fashioned' way.

[Kurlon]

They also have riders with pretty basic skills and riders on EX500s, EX250s, 250 motards, etc running in the school. I agree, there will be some high closing speeds at the end of the front straight, but looking at the disparity in lap times for the rookie races, I don't think I'm going to be the only one that'll be 'slow' into 1 and 3.

At Fishtail, I was on the track with similar sized machines, I was hitting 130 before grabbing the binders into 1 on my ST3 and I was not the fastest machine in our group, so the closing speed problem was present there as well, and it didn't end up being an issue.

Ultimately, it's up to the guys running the racing, I'm just going to try and give them an opportunity to decide based on actual performance vs just thinking about it. I'll never find out if I don't try.

(And as far as stopwatches at a track day, all the ones I've read the rules on explicitly forbid that exact behavior for insurance reasons. I'm not going to try and sneak around them and get permanently tossed. Money wise, yup, I've spent a fairly good chunk over three years getting that 70 where it is. I don't have any loose left, and damn-it, I like racing and riding IT. If I wanted to flog an EX500 I'd have one. )

[Kurlon]

...damn copycats... He had this bike with him on Tuesday, guess he decided to bust it out Wed after watching me play. Based on the tires I'd say it's been flattracked. My 70 could take it...

[RyanNicholson]

i kinda have to agree w/ smf.... the idea of it makes me uncomfortable to think about it. like he said about the liter bikes in the penguin school and the closing speeds...not only are they 170hp vs your 16hp....but they're inexperienced as well which doesn't help the cause.

i'm sure the bike is a BLAST to ride/race, i just dont think LRRS races are a proper place for it. IMO. to be 100% honest, if you go out there and race motard, you'll get eaten up in the results and times against the other guys....so whats the point of racing and not sticking to track days for fun?

i race to compete personally...i do wanna win (safely), not get lapped and become an obstacle for the leaders to avoid.

not trying to be an asshole by ANY means, just stating my opinion on the topic.

[Kurlon]

Points well taken, no offense received. : )

Part of this stems from the fact that the bike is getting to be too fast for most of the traditional venues for minis. It's just not as fun sitting in one gear doing a lap-a-thon vs 3hp to 8hp machines on a track that has 20 second lap times. Cutting down the motor just seems wrong, so I either find a new venue, or go insane.

I'm used to being a back marker, it's how I started and it's worked well to drive me to improve my skill as well as the bike's capabilities. When I'm on the track with this machine, I'm looking to ride aggressively, and improve my perf with each outing. Podiums aren't realistic, and that doesn't bother me. It also presents a new engineering challenge to me. Up till now this motor has been built pretty mild to hit the numbers I'm at. I've still got some big knobs I can turn to up the pace a good chunk. (Mid to high 20's hp, and a 5 speed or 6 speed gearbox are possible.)

So let me put this to the group a new way, at what front straight speed and overall lap time would you consider it a more realistic possibility?

[RyanNicholson]

looking at the results the slowest motards run 1:30 or so....i dunno about top speeds

guys running 1:27's get lapped i guess

[tonyd]

Kurlon,
I'm a former PocketBike guy from Sugarhill so I'm coming at you from a different angle than the rest of these guys but still think it's a bad idea.
You have outgrown the local mini scene and overbuilt your bike. You have but a few logical choices.

1. Hit the highway and travel to run some of the other mini events at tracks like BeaverRun, VIR, and MidOhio. You'll have room to open it up more on those larger Kart tracks and find a bit more competition. Englishtown NJ has several options for minis and lap times are around 1 minute.
2. Man up as Doc says and move to a different class. From your engineering approach I would think vintage racing would be a cheap way for you to get your kicks, monkey with a motor, and the key is cornerspeed there. CHeck it out.
3. Continue to Bore yourself to death at the Sugarhill Kidney Bean.

[Kurlon]

Just for fun, confirmed the group's theory, Penguin won't let smaller machines run the school, on motards they wouldn't even allow 250Rs (their example). He did give me some hope though, guess they might do one or more SuperMotard specific schools next year, in which case I'm in.

And Tonyd, I think everyone's abandoned Sugarhill this year, that kidney bean just isn't interesting enough to keep the track from being a hp shootout drag race. All it'd take is a couple tires down the front straight to add some turns and there'd be some more interesting racing, but I got the distinct impression that anything that'd take longer to setup/teardown wasn't going to happen.

If you've still got your pocketbike, hit up 106 Race Park in NH some time. Slightly smaller track, but it's got a more interesting set of layouts for the PB guys.

In the mean time I've got to figure out what I'm going to do. I still want to do the Penguin School, but don't have an appropriate bike. (I'm not race prepping the ST3, still making payments on it...)

[Puppet]

If you're looking to just do Penguin right now, you can do it on the ST3 with very little prep work. Unplug and tape the lights, remove license plate and mirrors, and drain coolant. Take the cert and then come back next season and do your rookie race. Or rent one of the school's ducati's and you can use it for the whole weekend

[Kurlon]

The ST3 is actually ready to go, other than swapping coolant and putting the tape back on. I haven't reverted it to street duty since the Fishtail outing. My main reason for not running it at Penguin is I wouldn't be able to really 'go all out' and get the most out of the school, as I'd be constantly afraid of binning it.

I've considered renting a SS900 from Penguin, gotta see how my finances work out, for a 3 day weekend I'm looking at $575 for the bike, $150 for insurance, plus class and race fees... 'cording to some people thats enough for a hefty down payment on a race ready EX500, etc. (I see one on the LRRS classifieds site there is a ex Penguin EX500, all done up for $1700... where's a loan when I need one? )

[naked-daytrader]

Loaner? No kiddin huh?

[Fast_Eddie]

Kurlon, check with Arcy next time he races at 106. He might have a couple RS125's or 250 kicking around that he would rent for you a little cheaper than Penguin. I doubt he'll make the next one as he had a shoulder injury, But you could set up something for spring.

[Kurlon]

Thanks for the tip Eddie! Now, to prove how blind and unobservant I am... which one is Arcy?

In the mean time I've been looking over the rules some more, and I'm now curious what classes people are running EX500s in? ULSB allows for far bigger machines, including bikes like Duc SS800s, etc. Production Twins brings the displacement cap down, but looks like the restrictions prevent most of the typical mods I've heard people discussing. (Can't even change the pipe?!)