There was a mis-comunication on my part in regards to the start time of Sunday’s Race on 09-04. For some reason, I was under the impression that racing would start at 4:00pm. When I arrived, I still needed to install a new sprocket on my car. When I was loading the car on the trailer that morning, I realized that I didn’t just blow a water line the week before. I also completely rounded out my rear sprocket. The sprocket only had 3 races on it, and I had turned it around each race. I did notice that it was experiencing a bit more than usual wear, but I underestimated the severity of the wear.  When I thought that the motor had sucked in water last race, it was actually the chain skipping teeth on the sprocket.

I hassled to change the spocket as the 600′s were lining up for the heat. I had already missed the practice laps, and Drew, still hadn’t arrived yet. By the time he did arrive, I was climbing into my car for the heat he would end up missing.

With my late arrival, I started at the back of the pack. Seven cars started the heat. During the heat, I gained 2 spots to finish 5th.

The feature was a bit more exciting. I started 3rd beside Lowbed Johnson #12, and behind GSMSRC driver Jake Williams #73 and Christine Boesch #23. Drew, missing the heat, started last. The green dropped and cars would jockey for position. By the back stretch I was chasing Williams for the lead, with everyone else on top of me. Into turn 3 and Williams suddenly slowed more than expected. With everyone on top of us, I tried to maneuvers up beside Williams. As the 73 came down the track I caught his left rear with my front tire and took a pretty good hop. Quickly back in action, we exited the turn everyone still on track and running full speed. In the hussle, the #12 managed to make the pass on the inside to take the lead. The following lap, I made the pass to take position away from Williams on the inside and secure 2nd.

After a caution for Rich Crooker #21 who wedged a rock in his chain, and Williams exiting with fuel pump issues the restart found Terry Reil #11 on my inside looking for 2nd. On the dry slick track we had to work with, Reil found himself sliding up the track during the pass. We pressed wheel to wheel as we exited turn 2, and I helped hold the two of us on the track.

Now running 3rd to Reil and Johnson, Drew found his way up behind me. Turn one had a hole in the track so large, that I hit it once, bottomed the car out, sent a shock wave through my back, and I knew not to run that low in turn one again. Drew on the other hand, apparently hadent found the hole yet. While I was now running higher than usual, Drew saw an opertunity to make the pass. unfortunately, he found the hole in the process. His car hopped, slid up the track in front of me, and colided side to side with Boesch who was lap traffic at the time. Both cars spun in front of me. In the process, I was able to manouvor under both of them to come out maintaining 3rd.

On the restart, I held 3rd as Johnson and Reil pulled ahead. For the remainder of the race I worked to hold off Rookie Spencer Allen #22 for the third place spot. Meanwhile, my brand new rear sprocket was taking a beating. I could hear the chain snapping off the top of the sprocket as the teeth were rolling over. With two laps to go, I slid a little too high in turn 4 and it opened the door for Allen to make his move. And that he did. Allen was able to get it to stick to the low side, pushing me back to 4th for the last two laps. Drew, finished right behind me in 5th.

What an exciting race with allot of close action. After the race, I inspected my rear sprocket and found that within that single race I destroyed another sprocket. Something was defiantly wrong, and it will take some investigation to find what. For next week, I’ll change out the chain and replace the sprocket once again.

Our next race will be September 11th at the Legion Speedway in Rumney NH. See you then.

Bear Ridge Speedway, August 20, 2011. Back to my favorite track to race at, least favorite to drive too. Why, cause it’s 2.5 hours away. The last time we were here, I finally got my car to hook up well, and if it wasn’t for the excess moisture in the air, I would have pushed things a bit further than I did. With a respectable 3rd place finish, I was looking to repeat that luck again this week.

During the week leading up to race day, I was able to get a new fuel map for the stock engine and felt pretty confident that last weeks problem would be solved. I was also able to better square up the engine to get rid of some of the chain binding I was experiencing. To be sure, I would just have to wait till I could get on the track to find out if the changes were right or not.

Turns out, the day started with the same issue I was contending with last race at Canaan. The engine was shutting off when I gave it too much throttle or raised the RPM to race range. No, it wasn’t the rev limiter. The rev limiter has a distinct rapid bounce in revs. This was more of an engine shut down, until I backed off the throttle. It was blatantly obvious in our hand full of practice laps that running the heat was going to be quite challenging. With less than 15 minutes between the practice and the heat race, I was going to have to deal with it for now.

I started on the outside pole for the heat, only to drop back to 7th out of 9 for the checkers. Throughout the race it was a struggling balance of managing throttle position and struggle to keep up. I wasn’t the only one dealing with issues. Drew started 3rd and finished 5th, and was having his own issues with handling.

Between races, it was an anxious struggle to figure out what was causing the problem. I tried changing fuel maps once again, but could now here the cut out while reving the car in the pits. With a little help, we started scouring the wiring harness to see if there was something apparently wrong there. Sure enough, we found that the mass air sensor plug had come disconnected. The way I have my wiring in the car, it was hiding behind the engine and was not easy to find.

Come feature time, we gained a tenth car and Drew and I started on the front row, Drew to the outside this time. The green flag dropped and I was wide open, problem solved! Heading around turn 1 and 2 I caught a quick glimpse of the #05 car of Scott Preston looking to the inside as we exited turn two and then it was clean air as I lead the first 7 laps. While entering turn one on what would have been my 8th lap, my temperature warning light started blinking. When I exited turn two , the car bucked a few times and gave off a puff of smoke as I blew a coolant line.

The last time I blew an engine at this track, the engine seized and locked up my rear end bring me to an abrupt stop. That thought being my major motivation to get out of the way as quick as possible, I drove a straight line down into the infield and around the light post on the grass. What I didn’t know untill after the race was that Rich Crooker in the #21 car was working his way up to my inside when I drove down to the infield. Crooker had to take action, and lost two places to Spencer Allen in the #22 and Lowbed Johnson in the #12. My night, now over, it was up to Drew to pick up the slack.

Pushing hard, Drew ended up spinning in turn 2 not to many laps later. From my water? Maybe. Maybe not as I found later that I didn’t drop all that much.  He would then spend the rest of the race trying to recover position. He was given one more restart when Preston and  Brian Cunningham’s (#99) entangled in turn 3 to bring out the final caution.

Rounding up the night Drew placed 5th and I ended up 9th.

We’ll have two weeks off till our next race in Rumney, NH. Till then, I’ll have to investigate the damage done to my engine. Hopefully none. With new gauges in place, I definatly had a quicker response to issues with the engine. The new gauges may have just saved me from loosing a second engine this year. I’m now using 2 Elite Glowshift gauges. One for water temperature, the other for oil pressure, both with attached warning lights. Both gauges are programmable to flash the warning light when values are too low, or too high. They also both have a peek recall. Very useful to gain incite on the max temps your reaching during a race.  The best part is that you can get both gauges for under $160. At that price, I don’t know why I didn’t install these gauges sooner.

With only one week leading up to the next race after blowing my engine in race 5, the hunt was on to find an engine that could get me through the rest of the season. After much frantic searching, I was able to find one, though without history. It was already out of a bike and I wasn’t going to be able to hear it run, but it was my only option. It was 2.5 hours away and I drove up on Thursday after taking the day off of work. On the way, I encountered issues with my truck, and broke down a few times. Thankfully with a little help from my uncle of Patriot Fuels out of Canaan, I was back on my way. I didn’t get home until around 9:00 p.m.

Drew and I immediately tore into the job of swamping engines for the next day. With time not on our side, we were forced to open the new engine 3 times and removing the clutch twice before addressing all of the internal issues with the new engine. In the short, there is a tab that holds the gear shift from falling into the engine. That tab was broken and could have caused havoc the first time out.

Finishing the assembly by 9:00a.m. the morning of the race, we went to sleep till 12 to get a few hours before the 1.5 hour drive to Canaan. After sleep, I finished a few things on my own and loaded the car and all my gear. As I drove out of the driveway, I got the call that the race was canceled for rain. That would have been Race 6. The following race 7 was also canceled for rain.

That brought us to Race 8 and my limp to the finish. While I was packing the car, I tried to fire it up and make sure it ran ok. It wouldn’t start. Then when it did start, I couldn’t keep it running. I traced an issue back to the starter fuse assembly but couldn’t find a new one while calling the local motorcycle shops. I was going to have to find a way to get this one to work. I tried a wire tie and duck tape to hold the assembly together where I thought it needed to be. While idling, it seamed to work just fine. During the heat, Drew and I started the front row. Drew on the pole, I was to his outside. On the green, my car fell flat on it’s face, with the pack of cars maneuvering around me. I struggled to keep it going until I was almost lapped. At that point, the car started skipping real bad and I pulled into the infield before the leaders were on top of me. With the car running the way it was, it was only going to get me into trouble if I stayed on the track.

Before the feature, I was able to fix the fuse assemble where there were a couple of leads that had loosened up. I also found that my cam sensor harness had pulled apart. I reassembled it and and the car would stay running just fine now.

The feature would start us in the same order in front. At the green, my car fell flat on it’s face once again just past the start finish line. I stayed high to allow the other cars to go under me. As I lifted off the throttle, the power came back. ??? It would seem that there was a sweet spot where the car would run, any more throttle than that, it would bog right out. So I continued to search for that sweet spot for the rest of the race and trailed at the tail of the pack. With a few restarts and one or two spin out for Drew, I finished 7th, and Drew 6th out of 10.

Without much time before the next race, I was going to have to get these engine issues under control. Considering the only time they present themselves was under load on the track, it was going to be hard to do. The only thing I could think would be the issue, is that the fuel map for the engine I blew up was for a CBR636RR overbore. This would be a stock CBR600RR. Maybe it was flooding under full throttle.

I would have to find a new fuel map and take my chances in the next race.

With Race 4 canceled, race 5 brought us back to Canaan on July 22. Hot with excitment from the last points race at Bear Ridge, and a great time at Boondocks Raceway in Skowhegan, ME, it was time to work it hard.

What was extra nice about this race, was that we had a volunteer to run the video camera in the stands. A special thank you to Deana for taking some great footage!

You can view the heat race footage at this link. The start of the heat, Drew and I would lead the front row, Drew on the pole. On the first lap, I was off to an early lead while Drew lost position to Spencer Allen in the white #22 car. Lap one was then quickly followed by a caution and we restarted.  But that wasn’t going to disrupted the good run I was having. On the restart I maintained the led. Drew struggling with handling issues dropped back as the race went on.

On what would have been the completion of lap 5 I was surprised when my engine shut off coming out of turn 4 and I quickly drove it to the infield as I lost speed to get out of the way. What I didn’t realize was that I unplugged the charging system early that morning to change the oil. It was in the way. The mistake was that I forgot to plug it back in. The battery could only carry the car 5 laps plus uncounted caution laps.

For the feature, which can be viewed here. Drew and I once again started on the front row, Drew on the Pole. At the start, the hammer dropped and I grabbed hold as my car did a little dance. A bit scary when your feet come out from under you, and you know there is a pack of cars on your heals. There was a patch of slick clay coming out of turn 4 for the green flag, making my car dart sideways. I quickly chopping the gas and then right back on to get the car straight again. Catastrophe averted.

With that, Drew took the first lead and I struggled to catch back up. A quick caution brought us back together and gave me another chance to beat my brother to the line. Though it wasn’t going to happen that way. Drew managed to pull away from me again to maintain his lead. With that first lap after the restart, I looked to go around Drew on the high side. That turned out to be a mistake as I opened the door for two cars to get under me.

For the next few laps, Drew struggled to hold the two cars, Rich Crooker #21 and Dylan Menditto #29, off. On lap 4, a second caution brought us back together again.

Drew now 3rd, and myself 4th, we took the green once again. Drew looking to the inside of Crooker tried for the pass in turn 4 while I looked for a similar path. Drew succeeded for only one lap, and Crooker took second back. Meanwhile back in 4th, I searched for the proper groove. By lap 8 I had found it, and pass Drew to take 3rd place.

Crooker had almost a full straight away on me by now, and leader Menditto was half a track away. By lap 14 Menditto had taken his first lapped car who Crooker, running second, didn’t pass until lap 16 and I didn’t catch at all.

Then, while taking the white flag, my car started to skip exiting turn 4. I got off the gas a bit hoping to make that one last lap, but before I could even think about it, one of my connecting rods shattered through the engine case ending what would have been a solid 3rd place finish. With that, I finished 8th, out of 10.

Drew, on the last lap, got caught in my oil making it hard to stop, got tangled with another car’s bumper, and tipped over on his side. Drew landed a 5th palace finish.

With a blown engine, it will be hard to be ready for next weeks race. But that doesn’t mean we wont try.