Ducati Racer Chick: May 2013

Racer Practice and Group 3 Practice

May 17th & 18th

The bike was brought to the track by Kyle from Seacoast Cycles after they diagnosed and fixed my reversal of the exhaust valve. They took the power measured at my rear wheel from a wimpy 42 HP to a roaring 126 HP. That's an enormous amount of power. A 300% increase!! While they had it they also adjusted my throttle plates and tuned it on the dyno. In addition to this they fine tuned the adjusters on my brake and clutch master cylinders and generally went over the bike. The bike felt incredible before I even started it. I must admit that there's something very comforting about having master mechanics work on your bike who are expert racers too. It's a form of mutual investment, an understanding of consequence. Above all that, there's a common passion for every dimension of racing. Like I said earlier, I like that.

After Kyle dropped the bike off, I ran down to Miles over at Street and Comp and picked up a set of tank stompers I ordered the session before. I got them mounted and I suspect that they will really help me keep my distance from the tank correctly when breaking.

During my first practice session I really took it easy on the throttle and I spent some time getting used to all the new power at the wheel. The entire time, I practiced finding my lines, good markers and getting a little bit of a sing song counting rhythm going on in my helmet. I've found that I've been rushing transitioning from the throttle to the brake, knee clamping to learning and quite a few other transitions. Having a rhythm that I can use to pace myself in these transitions is helping my be a lot smoother. By the second set of riders practice, I was able to brake a little deeper into the turns and set the front wheel without having to shave too much speed to the apex. Good improvements!! My practice lap times were a pretty consistent 1:32.

I tried a new method off pitting in and getting into the paddock and it really proved perfect for me. I bought an inexpensive floor wheel chock stand and brought my MotoMFG center stand. Getting into the paddock after a session was much easier to manage.

Pit out and drive into the garage straight into the chock stand
Dismount the bike and take off boots, gloves, helmet, loosen crash suit
Check tire temperatures and log them in my journal
put helmet, boot and gloves on the dryers
slide center lift stand to bike on chock and lift bike out of the chock stand
wheel the bike away and rotate so that it's pointed for the next tract session.
tire warmers on
drink a ton of water
sit down and shut up (enter race notes into journal)

Performing these pragmatic steps allows me to pit in and treat myself before I have to try and balance the bike in some form of exhaustion. It really take the pressure off too.

Novice Formula 1 (Race 6)

Saturday, May 18

As soon as they released us from pre-grid I went to do a moch start. I've been practicing oscillating the throttle between 5000 and 7500 RPMs and I think this is a decent sweet spot for me at this time. I progressively released the throttle and got a really good launch, when I twisted it to get to the rev limiter my front wheel came up how I had to roll back on the throttle to rejoin the other riders who were entering the track on pit road. I completed my warm up lap while keeping that rhythm I had developed firmly planted in my mind. I'm sure anyone who was listening in my helmet would think I was nuts.... or a drummer

It was a clean sighting lap and I felt confident that it was going to be a good race.

I was gridded on Wave 1, 4D. Besides being at the rear of the fast bikes I was also in a position from which I couldn't see the number boards nor the flag. I used the sound of the other engines as my indication and got a good launch in spite of the fact that my focus was not on my bike's RPMs. Got a decent shot and passed 1 rider on the way to turn 1.

I'm still braking a little too early on most of the really hard break turns: 1, 3, 6, 9 but I'm getting much better about not shedding too much speed. I've been getting some really good lines back through 11, 11a and 12 which has allowed me to get a pretty good projection for the straight away. The bikes front end was feeling light and nimble under throttle so I shifted my weight over the tank to try and plant her down for a good straight away run. I was able to hit uppers of 100 MPH before I started rolling off for turn 1. This is likely on of the places that I can improve the most. I'm not confident being full on when turning in slightly on the back straight away and I brake way too early setting up for the apex of 1. Even though I've got those issues, I'm still driving through 1, 1a and 2 approximately 50 MPH.

Coming out of turn 12 in lap 5 I got a really good flick out to the straight away and really got on the throttle early in 2nd gear. The bike flew down the straight and I grabbed 3rd, nailed the rev limiter and then grabbed 4th. Oh wait, I'm still at the rev limiter shit, blew the shift!!; try again... nothing I'm stuck in 3rd gear and approaching marker 5. I started my turn in, planted the front wheel and reached for an up shift and still nothing. I completed the entire last few laps with only 3rd gear.

Ironically, these were my best lap times to date. 1:31's I believe this is an indication that my braking is still not right. My hypothesis is that when I have more speed I'm over breaking and shedding way too much which lowers my pace through a turn.

Touched left knee 5 times, right knee 0 - definitely an indication that my body position is inconsistent between the two. Saw some photos of my position and my left looks good, I'm twisting my body when turning right. I need to practice that a lot more in the future.

Novice Formula 3 (Race 9)

Saturday, May 18

Did Not Show - Repairing the bike. It turns out that when I lost the ability to shift that my carbon fibre shift linkage broke at the metal connector near the ball joint. Goosh over at North Garage #2 loaned me a replacement shift linkage and saved my weekend. I will definitely start carrying one of those in my parts box from now on.

Group 3 Practice

Sunday, May 19th

The weather was pretty cool Sunday morning with ambient temps in the low 50s. I put the tires on the warmers set high early, around 7:00am. Not sure if this was the right thing to do or not but I wanted to get as much heat into the the wheels as I could for practice. Got the pressures warm set to front 29, rear 26.

I did moch starts on each of my practice sessions and I feel like I'm getting a decent rhythm for easing the clutch out progressively while maintaining an increasing throttle rate. In practice session #2 I hit a false neutral heading into the bowl but I recovered my letting the bike roll high and then went for an up shift. Unfortunately, my up shift muscle memory has not quite learned that it's GP shift now so I would up with a downshift and found myself in 2nd gear heading towards turn 7. I was able to power through and get a short shift too recover. Other than that bad lap my times were ranging between 1:32 - 1:30s. I felt really good about that.

After I pitted out around 11:30, I put the bike back on the stands and set the warmers to 'warm' and waited for race 8 to be called. At 1:45pm, I went to flip the switch my warmers and noticed that the front tire had already been switched to 'hot' I felt the heat on the tire and there was no way it had been turned up like that for 2 1/2 hours. I suspect that a visitor or track kid may have played with it. I think that this is something that we should keep a watchful eye on.

Novice Rookie 1 (Race 8)

Sunday, May 19

I was gridded at 3A and had great visibility to the flag. I had an excellent launch and wound up tight in the pack in position 9 through turn 1. I stayed in 9th position as I approach lap 5 and passed a rider heading towards the apex of turn 1a. A red flag was then thrown on the track and we enter pre-grid.

Did a very slow practice lap because I didn't want to push myself and headed back to my position on the grid. I got a great launch this time at the flagged and shaved 3 seconds off my first race start lap time. Driving out of the bowl in turn 6 I felt my rear tire drift out a bit while my knee was planted on the drive out of the apex. I reduced the throttle slightly and the bike recovered perfectly. I feel like I was very light on the bars and listening carefully. Great drive down into 9 and my best left hand turn coming out of twelve onto the straight away.

I cycled through 4th gear and took a short shift to 5th while I was turning in a little for turn 1. Got solid on my front brakes and shed my speed from 123 MPH to 62 MPH by the time I was getting ready to carve right for turn 1a. I felt a little bit of walk on the rear tire as I was learning the bike in and I assumed it was because I didn't achieve a low enough combined center of gravity. I tried to push with my outside (left) leg to get down on the bike a little further to balance it out and let it stand up a little however I'm pretty certain that I inadvertently blipped the throttle in the process. Looking at my telemetry data, that's pretty much what it reveals. Unfortunately, my rear tire lost traction and I had my first low slide. Thanks to the corner workers who help get me and my bike sorted out and evaluated!! I remounted the bike and pitted out with a 'signal' until I was off the race surface.

Back at the garage I evaluated the damage and it was very minor.

From this angle you can hardly notice.

Hand guard completely saved my hand and lever

Woodcraft engine gaurd save my case and brake lever

Tail only got a little scrape

Foot peg was grinded to a stump!!

Only took about 1 hour to put her all back together, if I had more races that day - I'd be back on the pony.

If you're gonna ride, remember to twist it!!

-DiZ

As you may have read in a previous post rather than taking my bike home from the track after Round 1, the folks at Seacoast Sport Cycle graciously took it back to their shop to diagnose my engine trouble. Normally I would be busy doing post race telemetry data review and prepping the bike for Round 2 but I forgot to remove my USB stick from the tail before my little racer went for a trip to the dyno.

Well, that's given me plenty of time to think about all of the items that I really need to be full prepared at the track. I contrast of course to everything I brought for the first round.

I started putting together I pretty comprehensive checklist of everything I need to spend an entire weekend at the track camping. I also decided that there were several things I could be doing much more efficiently.

First, I've been using separate front and rear stands because it is easier to put the rear up after a run by myself vs. my center lift stand. Doing it this way requires me to either back the bike into it's spot so that it's a straight shot to the pre-grid for the next race. Or of course, do it I was doing it, walk the bike back and forth after taking the warmers off and try not to drop it before my next race. Neither is ideal.

I decided that I would order a floor mount front tire chock stand and then use my center lift stand after I dismount. this way, I can pit out after a race, drive into my garage spot and drive right into the front wheel stand. Next, I'll dismount the bike, center lift it which will free it from the chock stand.. Now I can effortlessly spin it around in place, install the tire warmers and we're good to go. Hopefully this will be just as smooth as I described next weekend.

I also decided to consolidate most of the items I'm bringing to the track into far fewer containers. This was pretty fun and I re purposed an old toolbox to become my new race case. While I filled it up pretty quickly, I think that I've achieved easy access to everything I'll need and gained a ton of places for stickers in the meanwhile.

if you're going ride - remember to twist it!

-diz