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Friday 2/27/09
We left the house at 530 AM and headed to Daytona. After a non eventful trip we pulled into Daytona International Speedway. After filling out endless paperwork, I registered for CCS LWSS, LWSB, LWGP, Thunderbike & ASRA Thunderbike. Off to the garage area. I meet up with Steve a guy from the WERA Forums who was looking for someone to take over his garage after Friday. After a little while I get everything unloaded. While getting ready to tech, I discovered I left my gloves at home. Oh joy. So off to Street & Comp to pick up some Alpinestar GPTech’s & Stomp Grip pads. I pull the lower and hand it to Scott along with my helmet and gloves and off to tech we go. I roll the bike up on the ramps and the tech inspector grabs a tech sticker and tells me where I can get the rest of my contingency stickers. He signs off on me and back to the garage. I put the lower back on, lube the chain, and swap to my Pirelli Supercorsa DOT (F-SC3/R-SC2) tires. We get the bike ready for the morning and head out. I’m pretty excited about my first expert weekend.
Saturday 2/28/09
Left the hotel and picked up some fuel. And headed to the race track. Get out and do some morning prep (some of which we lacked in). Had a very brief riders meeting and got ready to go out.
First practice is called and off I go. So off I go and immediately I notice I feel very rusty. Get onto the west banking and down through the chicane (my favorite part of the track). About half way through the East banking, my bike shuts off. WTF! I headed down pit road and I get it to start. I head back out. About half way through pit out it dies again. So after a relatively long push, The problem was all air, no fuel. Doh.
Second practice rolls around, and off I go. I feel real slow but started working out the kinks. Nothing to exciting here. I finish practice and pit back in. Time to mount my wheels with my Pirelli Superbike Slicks (F-SC3/R-SC2).
Race 1 (CCS Thunderbike) [Grid 5C] - Horrible excuse for a start. Worst start I think I’ve ever done without stalling. This was a omen, as the my quick shifter kept working intermittently and I had a 4 false neutrals. 2 in the chicane, 1 in the international horseshoe, and 1 in T5. After the false neutral in T5, I just pulled off course and took the infield roads back to the garage.
After calming down I headed over to the Factory Pro Dyno and got the bike dyno’d. I was quite pissed that the bike dyno’d at 59.9HP [68.88 DynoJet HP] and was down about 3 hp over last October. So back to the garage and pull the tank and the air box cover to check the air filter. The air filter turned out okay, but we pulled the snorkel off of the airbox. Which after race 5 was dyno’d at 60.3HP [69.34DJ HP]. So not much of a improvement.
Race 5 (CCS Lightweight GP) [Grid 3D] - Another dismal start, not nearly as bad. But it could have been a lot better. The quick shifter issue was extremely apparent and the bike just wouldn’t shift. I was quite aggravated and was ready to ghost ride the bike into a wall. I ended up completing one of my goals this weekend by not finishing last (11/12)
Race 8 (CCS Lightweight SB) [Grid 4B] - A relatively decent start. I was able to keep up with the field for the most part. I felt real good this race. I spent a lot of time pushing my self in areas where I know I need a lot of work. I was able to pick up my pace through the chicane A LOT. I was previously braking about half way between the 3 board and the 2 board. Now im on the gas till slightly before the 2 board and braking by the 2 board. I was also able to drop a down shift as I was carrying much more speed through the chicane as well. I also applied the same thing with my entry to T1 minus the dropped down shift. I think these are 2 areas that late breaking works real well. I’m not sure how I finished. I forgot to write it down.
ASRA Thunderbike Qualifying - After talking with Scott Greenwood a couple times through the day about ASRA procedures, I was ready to head out for qualifying. This was basically a 15 minute long practice session. You are not racing anyone and it feels more like a high paced track day atmosphere. So I spent the time working on some of my problem areas. I also pushed back my break markers for T1 & the chicane. I was now on the gas till after the 2 and hard on the breaks for the chicane while dropping 2 gears. This almost bit me hard. On my last lap I went in the fastest ive ever entered and got on the gas the fastest ive ever gotten on it. Crossed the yellow rumble strips on the right (exit side). Flip over for left, cross the rumble strips and holy tank slapper. I manage to keep it up without changing the color of my shorts. I finish my lap and take a nice cool down lap.
After that I got the bike back on the stands, and Scott & I changed my wheels and put my DOT’s back on. My slicks are now starting to be a little slidey going into T6 but respond pretty well still everywhere else. They do have quite a few laps on them now though so that is to be expected. More tomorrow
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Originally Posted by Pookie
