92max
Active Member
Anyone going this year? Been about 9-10 years since I went. Wondering if anyone besides Sean was planning on being there.
It's still sore and swollen but the bruising hasn't set in completely yet.
Nice pics! You'll have to email em to me at some point so i can file em away.
What a great weekend. You all missed out on some crazy shit.
Sat morning went as expected with a flurry of loading up, getting all the crap we thought we might need, getting gas, ect... Got to the track without incendent and got a nice place close to the front (as close as reasonably possible anyway). Drug out both bikes and the 4 wheeler. Set up the canopy and started getting ready. Brought Staci with me that morning and met up with a local guy (Andy) and even had Jim and Shayla make it in with their gen 2's.
Got geared up and went to go make the first pass on the Suzuki. Bike did it's thing until maybe 4th gear. Seemed like I had run out of breath or was hitting a rev limiter on it. Wasn't sure what. Got back and didn't really do much thinking it was a fluke deal. Made my first pair of passes on the vmax next with the bored out carbs and it just didn't feel like it was pulling well. Was running 11.60's or so and crappy 60' time and not spectacular mph (112-114). The bike wasn't idling well which we knew about and are working on. It would bog pretty bad trying to launch though the first pass had a great wheelie that I rode out (Shayla caught it on video). Went ahead and got back and decided to change the jets larger on the vmax to see if that would help the top end pull.
Went up for the second round of runs and this time we had put a light weight kid on the Suzuki to see what it would do. The bike would barely do a burnout and he actually killed it. Got it restated and he went up to launch the bike and it barely got moving. He missed the shift (forgot to turn on the air shifter). Sounded like shit so figured we'd look at it when he got back. The vmax ran about the same and still unimpressive. Mph was worse so I decided to go the other way with the jetting (which I had suspected anyway). So, we started looking at both bikes. Jetted the Vmax down two sizes from the original settings and set it aside for the next rounds. Got over to the Suzuki and started trying to figure it out. Checked spark and looked like the plug wasn't firing. Swapped plugs around and it worked fine on the other cylinder. Swapped wires next with no change. Took off the coils to test them and maybe swap those around and could not find anything wrong so moved to the next step. The carb on #4 wasn't sucking in any pressure when trying to throttle it up. The other cylinders would about suck your hand in. This one was dead. Shit! took the long screwdriver and at least the piston wasn't able to be pushed around in the bore (seen the tops of them break off before).
So, on to the valve cover removal and see if we had something more serious. BINGO! There it was. Half of intake rocker arm number 4 was laying in the valley! At least these are built to catch the debris and it was a clean break off the shaft mount. A quick tour of the guys there told me no one had one on hand. Bummer! I did find one local racer said he might have one at home in a storage unit and he would bring it in the morning.
Jim and Shayla both got out there with the Gen 2's and had some fun. Took a bit to get used to the "pro" tree (all yellow at once then green) so the initial reaction times were a bit slow. Still had fun and was glad to see Shayla get in there with us. She was a bit shy at first but we convinced her we weren't going to make any fun of her and just get on out there!
The good used rocker arm showed up about 10:30 Sunday morning and the boys got right to work replacing it. We set the lash on all the valves while we were in there since some where tight and some loose. About an hour later or so the bike was done, sounding good, and sucking like a new born on momma's breast! Bike wasn't fixed for the last round of "pro" qualifying but I did get to run it in the bracket qualifying. The bottom qualifier in the top gas open was 8.15 so I would not have made the cut anyway. With the now fixed engine we lined up and the bike ran an 8.75@148 with 1.23 60' on the first pass (and best pass of the day)! I ended up in the bracket 1 against 80 bikes I believe (had 6 rounds of eliminations though it should have been 7)! Ended up winning in the end! Most of the runs I had let off just a little since I was out front and didn't want to break out. We started out dialing 8.80 and ended up at 8.90 towards the end. All the runs were a little over 9.0's due to letting out. I think it would have run the 8.80's dial on most of the passes. The 60' time was getting a little slower though and had dropped to 1.31 by the end of the day.
On the Vmax I swapped carbs back to the original set and it was running MUCH better. Found some stuff that was wrong with the bored out set so I may try those again at some point. Had the battery take a complete shit on it while I was in the last round of time trials. Was sitting there warming up the bike and all of a sudden the bike just died when I tried to rev it. No headlights - NOTHING! Checked fuses, checked the harness from the key switch, and still nothing. The boys pushed the bike back to the trailer while I made the time trail on the Suzuki. Ended up that the battery has 12.5 volts when sitting there with the key off. With a load applied, (just the load of turning on the key), the battery voltage plummets to 1.5 volts. So, it developed a damn direct short! We stole the battery out of the 4 wheeler lol! Fired right up then! Had to shove a big rag in there to take up slop since it was such a small battery.
BUT, taking out the battery out of the tow vehicle left us in a quandary. Now I had to ride the dragbike back which puts a lot more heat into the engine. Then when the elimination rounds started they had us doing back to back passes. We thought we'd try to push the bike back by foot with Andy's vmax. He met me down at the end and we swapped bikes. That didn't go over so well. We knew we had to hurry since they were waiting on me to run the Vmax in the other bracket. In the process of trying to push the damn thing we both ended up wiggling too much and I was nice enough to drop his vmax over on the dragbike pinning my leg in the wheelie bars in the process. Was a big cluster fuck.
He jumped off the drag bike and came back and partially lifted the vmax off me (I could feel the leg flexing and had I not had the gear on, it might have broken it). If he lifted it all the way up it would have dropped the drag bike! So, he lifted the vmax a little and I managed to free the leg. I jumped up and hobbled to the drag bike letting Andy lift his bike the rest of the way. We limped back about half way with him pushing and me on the drag bike. We pulled over just past the timing shack and I jumped on his max and rode quickly up to the front just in time to get on my Vmax and make the winning pass in the final. After the dust settled we checked out Andy's Vmax and the only damage was to the Cobra's and the very bottom of the footpeg on the drivers side. Since my leg held the front half of the bike up we didn't have any other damage other then my leg and some pride! Of course I'm going to make it right with him and we're going to shit can the Cobra's anyway! He did well and was able to get his bike in the high 11's a couple of times.
Best pass on the Vmax was 11.30 @ 118 but all the remaining passes I had to dial 11.51 since that was the fastest allowed time in that bracket. Every pass was faster then that but I "peddaled" it just right to run 11.52-11.53 to take the wins! having the better reaction times on most of the runs made that easier. The final I run an 11.45 which would have been a "break out" pass but the other guy broke out far worse trying to sand bag on me with a much faster bike. Most of the passes in eliminations on the vmax were 1.6xx 60' times so it was doing quite well. No strapped front end but of course I do have the extended swingarm. We need to get that vid from Shayla she took on Sat. Was a very nice launch and wheelie on it but I am not sure what the 60' was on it. Most of my passes kept the front end a lot closer to the ground.
Anyway, I had two more rounds to go on the Suzuki and managed to hold on for the win! Wasn't limping too bad until towards the end! The payday make it all worthwhile though!
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