[tgold]

Round Two SOAR GTL 3 Hour: 1st Place in class, 12th overall

I hate wasting time in the pits and our fueling was quite slow with our pseudo dry break jug, so between rounds one and two I installed a true dry break valve (from an Indy car! How cool is that?) on the tank and fitted one of my fuel jugs with a Redhead Valve. Fitting the valve had the added bonus of increasing the fuel capacity to a full five gallons due to the removal of the filler neck. I actually thought of just increasing the fuel capacity to six gallons which would likely have allowed us to go the entire three hours without refueling, but I decided that six gallons was just a little much to be carrying around early in the race. I also fitted a one way breather valve on the top of the tank since there was no other venting.

Anyway, I had also installed a barely used EBC full floating rotor that I scored off ebay for $125.00. Most of my time between rounds was taken up with installing the dry break, but I managed to remove a few more bits of unnecessary metal from the frame. Along with a change of oil, I was pretty much ready for round two.

On to the race: We were highly disappointed when we found that only one other lightweight team was really in the race. Mills Racing had an FZR400 and they had bike trouble just before the race. They had broken a swingarm adjuster end plate and we really wanted them to race so I gave them some ¼” aluminum to fab a new end plate. They made the start, but only did a few laps when they realized that their tires were toast and they were done. Team Two Broke Girls (they did have a pretty fast guy on their team too!) was the only other lightweight team but we had them covered pretty good. Todd, Chris and myself were the riders for the round and I started first.

We have a real LeMans style start for the endurance race, and the grid is determined by whoever shows up at the start line first, so I decided to line up first. Now, I know some of you are thinking that a team with a 250 Ninja would have no business starting at the front of a line of 600 and 1000cc bikes, but hear me out. First, the positions are open to whoever shows up first, so if it’s important, well, Get there first! Second, I wanted to involve myself in as little first corner shenanigans as possible. And third, most lightweight teams started at the back, but I just couldn’t give up track position if I didn’t have to. There is one more thing that I was thinking about: Every step and motion of the start sequence and rehearsing it. As we waited at the start line about 15 minutes before the race, I realized that I normally run to the left side of the bike to get on it. The problem was that the bike was oriented so that the right side was nearest me. I decided that it would waste time to run around the left side, so I practiced all the motions in getting on the right side instead. It is a dead engine start, so in order to save more time we had the bike in gear and ignition switch on, so I would run across the track and hop on the bike from the right while simultaneously pulling in the clutch and hitting the start button. And I nailed it! I did exactly as planned and beat every single bike into the first turn and they didn’t get by me until we got onto the main straight about a half a lap later. I rode my butt off for a half hour and we switched riders. When I got off the bike, my Brother in Law Brad told me that the next closest bike was at least 20 yards behind me going into the first turn. Preparation!

The rest of the race went pretty smoothly with Todd and Chris doing fast consistent laps and we all kept the hammer down. Our rider swaps were the fastest of any team and the same for our fuel stop. Two gallons in about 15 seconds. Mylaps was all screwed up for that one, but I think we won by 8 or 10 laps.

Postscript to round two:
this was the first time for me to try out the Dunlop A13 SPs and my first time at the track for the year so I did the Friday practice. I was a little concerned about the performance of the A13s because they aren't a true race tire. In practice I noticed that the front end would chatter mid corner if I was not on the gas. I don't typically have the bike off-throttle midcorner, but the A13s didn't seem to like constant throttle much. They liked for me to be on the gas. Later in the year , I didn't experience the front end chatter as we lowered the tire pressure a bit. The A-13s would slide sooner than the Pirelli Supercorsas, but I only had a few moments where I had a pretty big front end slide. The A-13 SPs are an excellent choice for endurance racing, but not the best for sprint racing in my opinion, simply because they don't have the outright grip of the Pirellis. We were able to maintain a pretty fast pace with the A13s, but if the competition were tighter, I would go with the Pirellis.