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View Full Version : Racing in the rain! - and other things not to do on a sportbike...


Shady
03-07-2005, 04:57 PM
Went out to Phoenix this weekend for the CCS Races and it ended up raining off and on throughout the weekend. Saturday and Sunday it was raining in the mornings and dry in the afternoons. With tons of water standing on the track and still coming from the skies I decided to opt for the supermoto bike and try my luck with that instead of taking a chance with my freshly worked R6. It was an absolute blast during the practice sessions when it was really wet out there sliding the rear end all over the place passing liter bikes out there with a little 450 dirtbike. Sunday was raceday and it was still raining for the Expert Unlimited Qualifying. I checked the rulebook and it just so happens that there isnt a rule against qualifying with a different bike than you ride in the race. I took the supermoto bike out and tore up the wet track and ended up with a 6th overall qualifying position right next to Kane Lasky, Mark Ledesma and Nicky Moore! I had quite a few people come up to me and let me know how scared they were when I came into a corner all sideways. It was similarly wet for the beginning of the GTU race and I took that out for the 25 minute race. I ran some pretty good times and was real impressed, but in the end the constant high revs caused my coolant to boil and melt a plastic fitting in the coolant system and I got black flagged 2 laps from the end while in 5th place on a track that had almost completely dryed out.

It ended up drying out in the afternoon and I finally got to take the R6 out for my initiation into the real world of Experts on a dry track. I am very happy with my decision to move up to expert after only 4 races...I ended up knocking about a second off my fastest time from last year and felt smoother and more confident doing it. There were a ton of wrecks this weekend due to the rain, but the supermoto bike loved it and I got plenty of comments about how much fun I looked like I was having out there in the wet with the rear end all over the place.

veejay
03-07-2005, 05:05 PM
ah i remember seeing your smoking supermoto out there and saw you get black flagged at the straight. Sucks man u were lookin good out there! Guess they weren't really meant for those endurance races!

i had some issues this weekend as well, but hope to do better next round.

what times were you running on ur R6?

Shady
03-07-2005, 05:17 PM
ah i remember seeing your smoking supermoto out there and saw you get black flagged at the straight. Sucks man u were lookin good out there! Guess they weren't really meant for those endurance races!

i had some issues this weekend as well, but hope to do better next round.

what times were you running on ur R6?

I only got to ride the R6 for 2 practice sessions in the dry on saturday and spent most of the time trying to get the damn coating off my new brake discs. They weren't completely clean even in the last race and I had some trouble getting used to them, but managed a couple of low :59s on my DOTs on sunday. I'm hoping to get my suspension set up correctly and get these brakes clean from this coating and get down into the :57s next time :cheers:

veejay
03-07-2005, 05:30 PM
sweet! i'm sure you're one of the guys zooooooming past me +1 or +2 laps! hope i didn't get in your way!

veejay
03-07-2005, 07:07 PM
browsing through my pics and found this one...