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Old October 11th, 2017, 02:08 PM   #1
tgold
ninjette.org sage
 
Name: Timm
Location: West Seneca, NY
Join Date: Oct 2015

Motorcycle(s): 2006 1050 Speed Triple, 2010 250 Ninja racebike, YZF320RR? Racebike

Posts: 556
MOTM - Nov '15
Team D.A.Y.A.M SOAR Lightweight Endurance Season Recap

Installment #1:

D.A.Y.A.M. Racing Team 2016 Southern Ontario Associates of Racing Lightweight Endurance Season Recap
Season Prep:
The DAYAM Race Team had a fairly good 2016 season (2 wins and 2 3rds) with our 250 Ninja, so the bike was already in good shape for the 2017 season. However, I have a difficult time refraining from constant modifying of my racebikes so I continued that habit of small changes. The suspension was spot-on, with no adjustments needed for all of 2016. The biggest change was tires. I really liked the Pirelli Supercorsas that we used in 2016, but I was very tempted to try the Alpha 13’ takeoffs so I bought a couple of sets from Bruce on the Ninjette forum. Moving to the 150 rear meant a change to the 4” 300 Ninja rim that I had intended for use on my FZR400 Chassis/R3 motor project bike. I was a little concerned about the weight increase due to the larger tire and the wider rim, but it wasn’t quite as awful as I thought. Comparing the weights A13/Ninja rear combo with my Pirelli rain/250 Ninja rear combo showed about a three pound increase when going to the bigger tire and rim. Not as bad as I thought, but still significant.
In 2016, most of the weight savings had been accomplished which resulted in the bike weighing 285lb. For 2017 I continued to pare weight of the frame and other parts as I could with one of the bigger weight losses coming from machining off unnecessary metal that remained from the keyswitch mount on the upper triple clamp.
Round One SOAR GTL 3 Hour: 84 laps- 3rd in class, 15th overall
Going into round one, I knew I couldn’t go to the race (due to a preplanned camping trip with my wife Amy) but I wanted to make sure the team was represented. Otherwise, it would have been extremely difficult to win the championship due to the SOAR points structure which makes it difficult to win if you miss a round. So I worked hard at getting the bike ready and organizing our rider lineup for the first race. My friends Todd and Chris were in for another season but then it looked like Todd couldn’t go, then Chris calls me about two weeks before the race and tells me he broke his throttle hand playing basketball. I was pretty bummed thinking that our season was already over before it started as far as the championship was concerned but we recruited another rider in Craig Braymiller and then Todd was able to go. I had trouble sourcing the chain I wanted and it came down to the last minute, so I had to just get any 520 chain I could locally. I had Craig pick one up from a dealership before he came over to pick up the bike. So installed the chain which was probably two pounds heavier than the chain had the previous year, then Craig hitched up my trailer with all the gear and gas (more on the gas later…) to his truck and left. It was a bit strange handing off my bike to an almost complete stranger, but Chris and Todd knew Craig so I was ok with him taking my bike while I went to the Thousand Islands with my wife.
Todd and Chris were doing fine in the race with my brother-in-law Brad helping as pit boss. They did rider swaps every half hour and threw in a couple of gallons of gas in the bike with an hour to go. Team DAYAM was leading by five laps when things began to go south. About ten minutes after the fuel stop and rider swap the bike began to run like crap and wouldn’t accept any throttle without falling on its face. Todd brought the bike into the pits and they tried to figure out what was wrong. The guys weren’t able to figure it out and get back out on the track, but we still wound up with 3rd place in class.
Note to self: Don’t give your teammates old race gas from last year to put in the bike! I suspected bad gas, but it took me a couple of days to confirm that it was true. Oh well, 3rd place wasn’t bad all things considered.
On to Round two.....
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Last futzed with by tgold; October 11th, 2017 at 03:10 PM.
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Old October 11th, 2017, 03:04 PM   #2
tgold
ninjette.org sage
 
Name: Timm
Location: West Seneca, NY
Join Date: Oct 2015

Motorcycle(s): 2006 1050 Speed Triple, 2010 250 Ninja racebike, YZF320RR? Racebike

Posts: 556
MOTM - Nov '15
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.

Last futzed with by tgold; October 12th, 2017 at 05:02 AM.
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