Racing

I started a new blog for our 2009 racing effort, so if you're interested it that stuff then be sure to check it out.
Las Escobas

our new bike is hot

450 Singles

At this point I'm a little unsure what my immediate future in racing is. I feel a little bored of racing the smaller bikes I guess. Mainly due to trying to attend too many races this year. I feel like i've reached a point where i'm getting pretty decent at it, and really want to move up to some bigger bikes, even if they're still minis. the issue i have with that is: 1. i don't want to spend the money on a new bike right now, and 2. I feel like i've reached a level in my abilities that is allowing me to push myself and the bikes i've been racing closer to the edge which has resulted in some wicked crashes compared years past. I feel like i'm riding a thin line between getting faster and knocking the shit out of myself. Thats why i'm thinking i might take a year off and do some enduro racing on the dirtbike for a while. Start a new challenge.

Anyways, that wasn't really the point of this post. the point is that i really want one of these 450 single bikes! It looks like several organizations across the US are building a class for this new bike, and if they're not making a specific class for it, then they'll squeeze you in with another class where you'll be competitive.

So, I think that most of you know what a motard is by now. basically it's a dirtbike fitted with 17inch wheels, slicks and suspention adjustments for roadracing. Now there is a new breed of "motard" and they're callling it the 450 Single. Its a 450 four stroke dirtbike chassis and motor with upgraded suspension parts, 17inch wheels and slicks, some sport bike style clipons and rearsets, and its fitted with a road racing style fairing. I think this would be the perfect bike for me to race if i was to move up to the bigger bikes. Its not crazy fast, it looks fun as hell, and if they build restrictions into the classes so that you can't dump 10 grand into the motor to win all the races, it'll be very competitive and maybe not crazy expensive.

Last Race of the Season

This weekend was my last race of the year. We did a 4 hour endurance on Marc's DRZ110 and sprints on my yxr100. It was crazy humid causing major sweating even when you didnt' feel hot, but we had lots of fun. The endurance race started at 5pm and ended at 9, so half of it was at night under the lights. It was the first time i've raced at night, and i really liked it. It wasn't as different as i expected it to be thought. i'd forget that it was night time. We finished 4th in class a couple of laps behind 3rd.

The sprints on sunday went well, although i didn't bring home any trophies. I would have had at least one 3rd, but i crashed. Stuart was in 1st, Frank in 2nd and i was in 3rd with nice gap on 4th. we were wheel to wheel for several laps before i had a highside-lowside in the last corner causing a nice faceplant in my new helmet followed by 4 or 5 rolls. It dinged my head pretty good and my neck hurt for about an hour, but i was ok. needless to say, my new MX helmet is ruined. I'll have to wear it this weekend when i ride the dirtbike at muenster on sunday, but after that i'll pick up a new one before i ride again. Thanks to Dave from work for coming out to check out the races.

on a side note, if you're wondering what you might want to get ayden or myself for xmas, i'd recommend This.

Official Class Champions

We just wrapped up the CMRA Mini Endurance season last weekend at Oak Hill Raceway in east Texas. This was my first year doing an entire cmra season, and it was a lot of fun. If i remember right we one every race except for 2 second places. That puts us way ahead of the field in points and we've earned ourselves the Class Championship. Not sure what we get for that yet, but it should be some form of trophy or plaque along with some contingency money from a few vendors that we use such as Komodo Leathers and Bridgestone Tires.

The race on Saturday went well. I really enjoy riding roger's xr100. its very well set up, predictable and all around a worry free bike. Roger owns his own shop called OnRoad OffRoad Cycles (254 853 4852) in Austin, TX. He does a lot of work on European bikes and specializes in suspension and electrical i believe. as far as i can tell, he's pretty damn good at what he does. i was doing very consistan 1:58s, and my fastest lap was a 1:57.9. one second slower than my best at that track. We finished 2 or 3 laps ahead of second. their fastest laps were around the 1:52 range. They've got a crazy fast little KLX110, but somehow we beat them.

This weekend is my last race with TMGP for the year (i'll be in NYC during the last round), so starting next weekend I'll finally get the chance to go play in the dirt with my new toy. It sounds like they're going to let us do a night race on saturday night under the lights. It'll be my first time. I hear its pretty fun. I'll let you know how it goes.

Fantastic

2003 KDX220... I've been dreaming of a dirtbike for 20 years, and wanting a KDX for 2 or 3 years. Now i have one.

Racing and Soccer

Last weekend was the first ever race on the newly expanded track in Katy, TX. It had some issues, but overall it was a lot of fun and a great weekend of racing. I raced with Marc and Jeff in the endurance on Marc's DRZ110. It's a well sorted out bike and a lot of fun. We ended up with 2nd place in the Lightweight expert class 1 lap behind first. Our fastest lap was around 55 seconds I think.

On Sunday i raced sprints on my yxr100 and did really well. I managed to get my 2nd ever 1st place in sprints. It was in the MiniGP Expert class, and a great, hard fought battle. I got lucky when Frank, 1st place, crashed and gave me first, but i still had a tough battle against Gilles. He passed me, i passed him back, he passed me back... we had a great battle until he tried to creep up on the inside of me in a left hander. I didnt' know he was down there and came down on him. we got together, leaving tire marks on my leathers, and he had to get on the brakes landing him in 3rd.

We were running 16:45 gearing i think. it felt pretty good except that i was topping out between the first new turn and the chicane. a 44 on the rear might be better. the sweet spot for the tire pressure seamed to be about 21 front 22 rear hot.

This weekend was Ayden's second soccer game. He did really well considering he wouldn't play at all his first game.

He went out 3 or 4 times durring the 30 minute game and took control of the ball several times. Only problem was that he never took it towards the goal. what ever direction he was headed when he found himself with the ball was the direction he went until he was out of bounce. He did a great job though and we both had fun.

Motorsports Ranch

This weekend was the 2 hour mini endurance at Motorsports Ranch in Cresson (just south of Fort Worth). I had mixed feelings about this race because: 1) it was only a 2 hour race, and it gets hard to justify the expense and effort that goes into a race weekend when you only get 1 hour of seat time, and 2) this track is bigger than we usually run on our bikes. you basically have the bike pinned for the entire 2 minute lap except for 2 turns. this means that most of your lap is spent buzzing down a long straight with the bike topped out at about 60-70mph... its not that exciting. On the up-side, i've never run this track, so i was looking forward to it, and Cara came with me. I don't think she's ever seen anything like this, so she was excited and seemed to enjoy the herself.

The weekend didn't get off to the best start. I set my alarm for 4:45am. everything was right: volume up, set to am, turned on, etc., but it remained silent all morning. When i finally woke, curse words began flowing from my mouth when i realized that it was almost 7. This means that i'm going to miss practice and will have to compete in a race on a track that i've never been on. its not the best strategy and it ended up costing us 1st place. We did manage to come home with 2nd with 1st only about half a lap ahead of us (pretty close after a 2 hour race). My best time was a 1:50 and i think roger was down in the 1:47s.

After the race cara and i cruised the paddock on the pit bike, watched the mayhem of the big bike endurance start (and restart, and restart again), and i taught her how to ride the pit bike. she did really well considering she's never done anything like that before. she was like a giddy little kid, "can we go ride the pit bike again?!?". She had one incident after a few beers on sat night that put her on the pavement, but she came away from it ok, unlike my brother.

Overall, we had a great weekend at the track.

hot, hot fun

My Dad and I spent the weekend at the kart track just north of denton racing with the TMGP guys. Overall the weekend went really well, but saturday was downright brutal. I believe the news said the air temp was about 105 and the heat index well over 110. Someone at the track with a heat gun said that the track temp was 128, and the ambient air temp was 108. Those are some nasty numbers when you're attempting a 4 hour endurance race on a 2 man team. Originally i was suppose to be running on two different teams in one race, but lucky for me one of the bikes broke early in the race. Theres no way i could have done both and i was feeling bad that i had over committed.

I ran with Alan on Stuart's KX65 powered ysr (65cc water cooled 2stroke, pictured above). It was crazy fast and lots of fun. unfortunately it was just too hot out to enjoy it and start pulling good lap times. i was averaging 51-53 second lap times, and alan was doing around 47 seconds. the original plan was for alan to do 1 hour stints and for me to do 30 minute stints, but neither one of us could stay out for more than 25 minutes before we had to come in. Every time i got off the bike i thought i was either going to throw up, or pass out. It was one of those days where you wonder why you're even out there and just want to give up. In the end we wound up with a 3rd place, so we did alright.

Sunday was much better. The temps were probably about the same, or worse, but sunday is sprint day. That means you only go out on the track for one 8 lap race at a time, which works out to probably about 12 minutes per race. I had about 30-40 minutes between each race, so i had plenty of time to drink fluids and try to cool down. My bike was running great and i did fairly well. I finished 4th in a couple races and managed a 3rd in another, but the highlight of my day was passing and beating "Fast Frank" in the backwards race after he made a small mistake. I was running 15:44 gearing and it was perfect. no topping out between turns. Tires were at about 20 and 21 psi cold. My lap times got down to the 49 second range according to dad's stop watch, which is about 2 seconds faster than i've ever done before on that bike. actually, thats the best lap times i've done out of all the bikes i've run there, even the faster kx65 and 60! not bad.

I did have one good spill during one of the sunday races. I was going through turn 3 (tight right hander) and lost the rear on the exit. It came all the way around and i found myself spinning on my belly down the middle of the track. at one point i managed to look up and saw an XR100 coming straight for me. I knew he was going to run me over, and i felt him hit me, but i didn't know where. Its weird what you remember and don't remember from crashes. I had no idea where he had hit me. It must have looked pretty dramatic because everyone was a little worried that i was hurt, but i was fine. I got up, picked up the bike and continued racing. The guy on the XR came and found me later to see if i was alright and told me that he hit me right in the chest. he had to choose between that and my head.

Hallett 2 Hour

This weekend was the 2 hour endurance race at Hallett, outside of Tulsa, OK. The race went very well for us. The bike was running well, Roger and I kept it upright and we won our class. Only bad thing about the race is the fact that we all traveled all the way out there for a little over 1 hour of seat time on the track. I dont' like 2 hour races, but we're in it for the points, so we race them all.

As for the picture, Careflight flew in during lunch on Saturday for demo. they just happened to pick a spot to land about 20 yards from where i had set up camp. I've never been that close to a landing helicopter. As you can see, i had to stuff my tent under my truck in hopes that it wouldn't blow away.

Roger rode the first hour and was doing consistent 1:54-1:56 lap times with a fastest lap of 1:54.681 right before he came in for a pit stop. I didn't have as much practice on that track so my lap times picked up throughout my stint. i started out running 1:56 for the first 10 laps, then started running 1:54-55 for the next 10. The rest of my stint i managed consistent 1:53-55 with a fastest lap on the last lap of the race at 1:52.386 and an average speed of 57.148mph.

Fear and Fate

I've been reading a great book called Clear Waters Rising: A Mountain Walk Accross Europe. It's about a man traveling from the western coast of Spain, to the eastern boarder of Europe on foot. While passing through the mountains of northern Spain he travels through an area littered with coal mines. He's ventured into one of the abandoned mines and begins to imagine what the life of one of these miners must be like: blackness, rockfalls, gas, flooding, dynamite.

• I was beginning to understand fear. Or rather, I was beginning to understand that there could be no fear. Constant danger concentrated the mind on the practicalities of staying alive, of not making a mistake. It was a mechanical, absorbing business which demanded a combination of set rules and intuition.
  
  Real fear showed up when control was snatched by the claws of fate. Played the right way, fate stood little chance.

The reason this hit a cord with me is that it directly applies to motorcycle racing, among other things. Its really hard to explain to people what we do without them thinking we have a death wish. When i first decided i was going to start racing I had a new born baby. I could tell i was being judged. Some people were more vocal than others, but it was there. People thought i was being irresponsible. I knew that the only irresponsible thing i was doing was entering a hobby that would suck my bank account dry for years to come if i wasn't careful.

I guess this could also be applied to sky diving, which is something i've been presented with latley. I never thought of sky diving as something i'd do, but now that the opportunity sits in front of me, mine for the taking.... i don't know. The weird thing is, its not the falling, landing or any of those things that scare me. Its getting in that little plane, flying up to position and having the nerve to throw myself out of it when the time comes. I think its the anxiety that I'm afraid of more than anything.

OHR 6hour

This weekend was the 6 hour mini endurance at historic Oak Hill Raceway in east texas. I love this track more and more each time i go. its always a great challenge and really takes some guts to pull some fast laps, but once you figure it out you can rail around that place.

I always seem to miss practice at the hill for some reason. This weekend was no different, but i wasn't too worried about it. it was a 6 hour race, so i had some time to get up to speed. it only takes a few laps anyways. my first stint was a little hairy due to a lot of chattering in the rear which would start chattering in the front as well. after i came in and talked to roger (bike owner) we decided to let a couple pounds of air pressure out of the rear. what a huge difference that made. almost no chatter at all. the slicks were sticky, the track was dry, the brakes were fantastic and i was really getting into a solid groove.

towards the end of my second 1 hour stint i got involved in a heated and long fought battle with an aprilia rs70 2 stroke. it had our xr107 4 stroke out powered, but i was able to keep up with him. I was even able to draft him down the long straight. i've never drafted anyone and noticed a difference before, but this time it worked beautifully. if i was drafting he'd walk away from me and gap me by a good 30 yards or so, but if i could stay on his rear tire the entire way he couldn't pull any gap. thats the fastest i've ever gone on one of these small bikes, and it felt a little sketchy. he eventually won the battle when we almost crashed into each other (he missed a shift and i was committed to the turn we were entering). i had been on the track for an hour and when you get an adrenaline rush like that it takes a lot out of you when you come back down, so i came in for a rider change and tried to cool down.

My lap times were really good. on my bike i've only been able to do a 2 minutes flat lap times, but on roger's bike i was doing consistent 1:58 and 1:57. I had the teams fastest lap with a 1:56.9 which frustrated roger a bit. from experience i know that its not the best feeling in the world to have another teammate beat your time on your own bike.

Hallett

This past weekend Dad and I took our first ever trip to Hallett Motor Racing Circuit west of Tulsa, OK. Overall the weekend went fairly well. the track is nice and fun. It looks like it would be a blast in a car. We got there at about 1:30am saturday morning after navigating the crazy unmarked backcountry of north east Oklahoma. What a mess. We stoped at one town not too far from the track to ask the gas station attendant if she knew if there was anything to eat at the highway intersection about 10 miles up the road. She said "I don't know. I've never been that far." Hahahahaaa... my dad and i just looked at each other in disbeilief. After getting about 3 hours of sleep we got started with our busy morning at about 5:30am. The day went alright considering we only rode 45 minutes of the 2 hour endurance race due to mechanical problems. Dad worked the track all day picking up 10 or 15 crashed bikes durring the big bike endurance in turn 8.

Saturday night dad and I kicked back and drank a bunch of beer out of the CMRA Keg. Funny part is that we were both using the pit bike as our transportation. picture me riding a kids dirtbike with my dad riding bitch behind me. After getting a little drunk, we rode the bike through the paddock back to the truck trying not to crash. we found out in the morning that those little tires didn't stand up to that kind of abuse well... the rear tire was shot.

I joined dad in the corner working duties on sunday in turn 4 to recoup some of the gas money spent to drive out there. $3.39 a gallon sucks. It was a beautiful day with some of the best racing i've ever seen. Combine that with hanging out with dad, and getting paid to do so, and you have a good day.

Edit: these picts were just posted on the CMRA boards. they're really good picts of the big bike races on Sunday... Hallett Picts

Now for the technical stuff:

• ran the track clockwise. temps were cool... maybe around 60º. bike could have used some jetting adjustment. 17:41 gearing. could only pull 5th if i had a good run or if going down hill. i think 17:43 would have been better.


• finished 4th in the F6 sprint. beating 5th by .07 of a second... good times.


• finished 2nd in the F7 sprint with a fastest lap of 1:59.637 on the yxr100


• finished 2nd in the endurance on Roger's XR. spent the first hour and 15 minutes trying to diagnose a sick bike. replaced all the electronics and rejetted the bike. finally noticed that the choke was broken. fixed it and Roger put me out on the track for the remaining 45 minutes. ran a fastest lap of 1:57.677

On-Board Camera

I found this on-board video that one of my racing buddies has on his putfile. its a little long, and the quality isn't that great, but it'll give you a pretty good idea what its like racing these little bikes. you can't race this close, bumping, kicking and rubbing on big bikes.

the video is of the backwards race. it's an 8 lap sprint and you run the track backwards. its usually a crowded race and you get absolutley no practice time. no hot lap or anything. you just grid up and go. what makes it even more interesting is that you use slightly different parts of the track than you do normally, so its slick too. we also cut off a portion of the track due to saftey reasons.

in this race we did do one sighting lap going the correct way around becuase they had just cleaned up some oil on the track and they wanted us all to see where it was. the camera man actually follows me around the track on the sighting lap (black leathers with 2 white stripes down back), but after that you don't see me.

so... here it is. Enjoy.

Denton race results

This past weekend was round one of the TMGP series in Denton, Tx. I made the mistake of taking a clariton D on saturday morning, so the first half of the day i wanted nothing more than to take a nap. this is not a good state to be in while racing. it takes way more concentration for long periods of time than you would think. After about 2pm, i started to feel normal again and got up to speed. I didn't finish too well in most of my races, but i did manage a 2nd in the 19-29 age group sprint. The bike ran great. better than it ever has before. i was worried because i changed the oil before loading it up and noticed that the bike had sucked up a lot of water during the last race of the season last year. you can tell becuase it turns the oil into a chocolate milk consistancy and color. i wasn't sure if the internals had rusted up from the water sitting on top of the oil all winter, but i guess all is good. we were running 14-45 gearing i think and it was popping up the front wheel a little when shifting into 4th. i wouldn't call it a wheelie, but it was coming up. we weren't quite toping out on the straights, and i was topping out between the hairpin and the back chicane.

Sunday was the 4 hour endurance and we were riding peter's kx60. I can't believe that a kids bike is that fast! it hauled ass! That thing was a lot of fun, and tried to loop over backwards everytime you shifted. it handled a lot better than i expected, but we had NO front brake. it was a little scary. I only use the front on my bike, so adjusting to only using the rear (which is probably about 25% as effective as the front) was a challenge. I ran off track a couple of times, and even had a small crash in the grass once while trying to get back to the track. Eventually i kind of got the hang of it and was able to continue braking with the rear while diving into the turns. My fastest lap of the weekend was a 50.890, and peter beat me out for fastest lap on the team with a 50.843. Eric was our third rider and it was his first time ever on the track. He had only been riding for about 6 months, but he did really well. It started raining durring his 3rd stint, and he went down once, but he did a really good job in the rain. i think he passed everyone in the field at least once while the track was wet! He was super hyped about the day and is hooked already. I'm just glad i wasnt' out there in the rain. thats how i end up in the hospital. the track was dry by the time my next stint came up.

We had a few mechanical issues: sparkplug change, sproket bolts backing out and the sparkplug actually popping out. apparently it didnt' get tightened enough. we finished 7th out of 10 teams in the superbike class.

oh, and we gave ayden a mohawk on saturday morning before heading to the track.

Race weekend results

The weekend went pretty well! it was cold as hell at night, which made it hard to sleep in the tent, but the days were nice. we arrived at the track friday night at about 9:30. set up the tent, blew up our air mattresses and tried to get some sleep. it got down to around 30º. combine that with excitment for the race to come and i didnt' get much sleep.

we awake at about 5:30am. Mom and Dad head out to the corner workers meeting (they work the track while i race) and i start taking care of all the pre-race business while trying to stay warm.

Our team owner, Roger, recently broke his finger and had some pins sticking out of it, so we weren't as efficient as we could be. This was also the first time that the three of us had ever been on a team together. We didn't make practice, but i don't think that mattered much. We've all been on this track before, so we know it well. we'd just have to adjust quickly to a new bike.

we started the 4 hour race with me on the bike. I goofed the start and started from the back of the pack, but was quickly passing those bikes i could. the bike we run is an XR100 dirtbike that is converted for roadracing. it falls into the slowest (smallest displacement) class in the field, so theres only so many people we can pass. to put it another way, there was 38 bikes in the race, and only 3 of them in our class... yet we finished 19th overall. that tells you we were doing pretty well. We also got 1st in class with a lead of 17 laps over 2nd place.

I did take one good spill at the very end of my second hour long stint. i was in a back and forth battle with another rider for several laps. i got a good run on him through turn 5 (a fast right hand turn that you go through at top speed if you're good) and made it past him before turn 6. unfortunatley i went into the turn too hot and lost the front at turn in. my shoulder and head quickly smacked the pavement and i slid off the track about 25 feet in that position. once i hit the grass the tumbling started. after about 3 of those i stoped and sat up on my knees to take a mental inventory of injuries. I was ok, but i couldnt' really see straight. i pick up the bike and its got a bent handle bar and some earth stuck in it in various places, but it looks ok. i get it started and head to the pits to let Darrell take over for the rest of the race. i think we only lost one or two laps.

the crash gouged out a nice hole in the shoulder of my new leathers, but it sounds like the good guys at Komodo are going to fix that up for me when i take them in for some alterations this week. By the way, the new leathers are awesome. i love em. that was the roughest crash i've had, and it was at about 50mph which makes it the fastest too. the protected me very well. my Shoei helmet did a great job too. i was dazed but no concusion.

well... since helmets protect your head by self destructing on impact, i'm off to do some new helmet shopping. luckly we made enough money working the track over the weekend to pay for it.

More picts can be found on my flickr account

CMRA Season Opener

The racing season is finally here! its been a long off season as always. I've got the truck all loaded up with gear and I'm leaving straight from work to Oak Hill Raceway for round 1 of the CMRA racing series.

I will only be doing the mini endurace race this season. its a 4 hour race on a 1.8 mile road course. Basically, you have one bike per race team, and anywhere from 2-4 racers. you ride for however long the team decided your stint will be, then you come in the pits to hand the bike off to a teamate. sounds simple enough, but can be painful. We'll be on Roger's XR100 motard (dirtbike converted for roadracing - pictured at the left), so its a little more comftorable. usually i'm on my yxr100. its a much shorter bike, but has the same motor. its killer on the knees and after doing a 30-45 minute stint on it you can barley walk.

the weather looks decent, but a little on the cold side. when we purchase our gear (helmet, leathers, gloves, underarmour etc) we are usually planning for hot weather since most of our racing is done durring the summer. This weekend has a low for about 30º and highs at about 60º. the 60 sounds good, but i'll be done racing by about 1pm on saturday... so i'll miss out on most of that. not to mention we'll be camping at the track and corner working when i'm not racing in order to help pay for the weekend.

I also finally got a real set of leathers. i've been using a somewhat cheap two piece set up where you have a jacket and pants that zip together. now i have a one piece that was custom made to my measurements. i picked it up yesterday and can't wait to break it in... hopefully not by sliding my ass across the track.

Surgery

I finally had my surgery last friday to remove the metal "pin" from my shoulder. I had broken my collar bone into 5 pieces in september '04 "mountain biking" in houston. i had a pin put in to keep it together so that it would heal properly.

A lot of people ask why i didn't just leave the pin in there. people give me looks like i'm just getting it removed so that i can show off the pin, or get pain killers after surgery or have some kind of addiction to pain. The real reason i needed to get it removed is so that i could break it again. Since i mountain bike and race motorcycles on a regular basis, the chances of me breaking my collar bone a couple more times is pretty high. its just a given, if you do these activities on a regular basis, you're going to break your collar bone at some point. Look around the next time you go to an event like a motorcycle or mountain bike race, and i'll bet you see a lot of unsymetrical collar bones.

If i were to break it with the pin still in the bone, the bone would have no choice but to break on the ends, making things very messy. Now that the pin is removed, it can once again break in the middle and do less damage.

So, here it is. my trophy. a 4" long screw with a hex head and a tip made to dig into some flesh and bone. its been 3 days since i had it removed, and i'm already feeling pretty normal again. about 4 more weeks of healing and i can ride without the worry of tearing things up in the event of a crash!

Nicky brings home the championship

Congrats to Nicky Hayden for winning the MotoGP World Championship! There was a lot of people that didn't think he was going to pull it off in the last round in Spain, but when Rossi went down it sealed the deal.

Next years is going to be a very interesting season with the new bike rules. Everyone will be on new machines and some new stars will shine. mainly nicky's teamate Dani Pedrosa.

One of the coolest parts of Nicky winning the world championship is that he grew up here. He's from Kentucky, but as a kid he raced the exact same little series that i race (TMGP) and on the exact same bike. From there he went on to race in the CMRA which is another texas based series that i have participated in, and i'm hoping to get a full season's worth of racing in their series next year.

katy 3 hour - round 8

i got the bike rebuilt with a new transmission assembly that i bought from cartwright for $40. works great! i also picked up a brand new set of aluminum rims with new tires mounted.

bike ran great on saturday morning. pulled strong. track was slippery. second time i went out for practice it started running bad. we couldn't figure out what was wrong. we replaced all the electronics, spark plug, new jets, i took the carb apart and cleaned it... nothing. finally i took the flywheel cover off and found shavings in there. apparently my impact wrench wasn't powerfull enough to get the flywheel on all the way. it shook loose, sheared off the woodruff key and beat up the stator under it. we stole the needed parts off dennie's spare xr100 and put it together. i only missed 1 out of the 6 sprints i signed up for, and the bike ran really good.

the track was slick all day. we ran a 14-44 or 45 gearing. i bought a 14t sprocket, but forgot that i need xr80 sprockets. so i have one that doesn't work now.

sunday was the 3 hour endurance. it rained all day. we ran the race and finished 3rd in class. 4th broke, but i think we were ahead of them before that.

denton 4 hour round 6

i just rebuilt the motor. rebuilt crank and all new bearings except for the bearing on the end of the clutch assembly. i left the top end alone.

bike ran prety well on saturday. i think we ended up with a 97.5 main jet. we finished 5th out of 5 in lightweight expert. short from 4th by about one lap. at the begining of the day dennie's yxr was pulling us in the straights. by mid race the bikes were even. i started off with 52-54 second laps. greg started with 55-56 second laps. my last stint i was averaging about 53-54 second laps until my battle with dennie. he passed me and i put in an effort to pass him back. i did a couple laps later. then he passed me, then i passed him, then he passed me... by this time i only had about 5 minutes left of my 40 minute stint, so i wore myself out. when he passed me i was doing 54 second laps. i dropped that down to the 51's with my best lap at a 51.168. we battled back and forth for 13 laps. dad was working the hairpin corner. the first time i passed dennie was going into that turn. i out broke him going in on the inside. dad said i was floating the rear wheel 3-4 inches off the ground. greg finished out the day with 54-57 second laps. we were running 15/45 gearing and felt like it could be shorter. was not topping out, but was pulling dennie's bike between 1 and 2 and between turn 3 and the chicane, but i always seem to pull dennie there.

sunday started with a dry track, but it started raining just as the races started. i skipped my sprints until the track dried. the bike was running well but began slipping out of gear going into corners, hitting false neutral i guess. it was really frustrating because i was feeling fast after my battle with dennie the day before. sounds like i've got some transmission parts to replace. i was running 14/44 gearing i think. felt nice, could have been topping out if at full speed.