ASRA Thunderbike rule changes........

[Chris G.]

I know I had a great time at the last two Summit rounds being the closest track to me and my first expert year. Building my Sport Classic Ducati for fun and to offer another appeal on the grids and the paddock after looking at the same thing on a different day every year after running SV's and GSXR's.

I only hope Eric and the rest look at small guys like me trying to get others involved with CCS because of the current rules. That said,  I found I had more fun with CCS, then WERA in the classes I can run my air cooled Duc with laced spokes and all, and there seems to be more Ducati's there as well which for me is nice to share similar things with.

I run for fun, no money, no contingency-and just enjoy being there-shoot, just having Arnie in front of me, Kern, Estok, and the rest last Saturday...being as slow as I am- my dreams already came true.


Oh, and Arnie... you rock

[PJ]

An SV 650 is not competetive with a Buell.

Umm. Apparently, somebody forgot to tell Mr. Ed Key this. I'll bring it up with him this weekend and see if he can slow it down a bit. Maybe add 150lbs. of ballast or something...

::)

[benprobst]

I hear ya PJ. but the truth is, Ed has THE fastest and best sorted SV in the whole damn country and maybe the whole damn world for that matter. He is also undoubtedly one of the 5 best LW riders in the country. He also weighs 125lbs in the wet, with his leathers on  And yes he has been competitive even dominant at times, but it seems the Buells have been slowly getting there act together, closing the gap on the hp/weight limited class and are now maybe a little too good for the sv's to run with under the current rules. I mean look at this year, Ed has had rough year, he probably isnt at 100% post being Nate'ed at Daytona. All it takes is him being off his game a little and he cant quite get the job done. If the rules make it so 4 above average guys on above average bikes (vs. other buells/bmws) can run competitivly every weekend while one of the best guys on the best bike (vs. other sv's) needs only a hiccup to drop out of contention what does that tell you?

[Ducmarc]

I guess the permier class dave isn't that st which most of the current bikes would be legal? I don't have the rule book.

[benprobst]

I guess the permier class dave isn't that st which most of the current bikes would be legal? I don't have the rule book.

motost rules would be a MILE off. in moto st, sv's are the bottom class, buells are the middle class, and bmw's sv1000 and prillers are the top class. you would have to add hundreds of pounds of balast to make the sv meet the class rules for the bmw and the bmw would need to shop a cylinder and half its frame off to meet the buells rules. none of the class rules work for cross over, not even close.

[ahastings]

Umm. Apparently, somebody forgot to tell Mr. Ed Key this. I'll bring it up with him this weekend and see if he can slow it down a bit. Maybe add 150lbs. of ballast or something...

::)

I do pretty well on an SV myself. I have run 3 ASRA rounds this year finished 3rd , 5th  and crashed out of 2nd . I weigh 170 lbs and don't have an SV the caliber of ED's I am sure. I ran under the old Thunderbike lap record at Summit last weekend, but the Buells still sucked the paint off me going down the front straight. i am not complaining, Buell supports the class very well. I would just like to see the horsepower level lowered a little to help even the playing field so it doesn't cost so much to be competetive. How much money do you think is invested in those fast Buells and Nate's BMW and Ed's SV ? Thunderbike should be a low budget class that doesn't require that kind of an investment to be competetive.  Even the stock Buells arent even close. I don't have the budget of the Buell teams and the purse sure doesn't really pay anything.

[PJ]

I do pretty well on an SV myself. I have run 3 ASRA rounds this year finished 3rd , 5th  and crashed out of 2nd . I weigh 170 lbs and don't have an SV the caliber of ED's I am sure. I ran under the old Thunderbike lap record at Summit last weekend, but the Buells still sucked the paint off me going down the front straight. i am not complaining, Buell supports the class very well. I would just like to see the horsepower level lowered a little to help even the playing field so it doesn't cost so much to be competetive. How much money do you think is invested in those fast Buells and Nate's BMW and Ed's SV ? Thunderbike should be a low budget class that doesn't require that kind of an investment to be competetive.  Even the stock Buells arent even close. I don't have the budget of the Buell teams and the purse sure doesn't really pay anything.

Yep, you've done well on an SV Arnie, which I assume is CCS LWSB spec legal. So did David Yaakov and Darren Danilowicz a couple of seasons ago. Mike Barnes won the Thunderbike race at Daytona on a mildly tuned SV. Derek Keys, Mike Mills and Brian Lacy were also competitive on CCS-spec SVs in F-USA/ASRA Thunderbike. It can be done.

Ben is right that Ed's bike is probably better sorted than any other SV on the planet. Hell, he has to add a bunch of weight to make it legal for ASRA Thunderbike. Try racing him in CCS-spec trim with a LWSB legal Buell!

Nate's BMW and Danny and Dave's Buells are pretty well developed too (congrats on winning the championship Dave!). I don't believe their Buells are LWSB legal due to displacement, but Nate's BMW, I think, is. These bikes are pretty exotic weapons.

And that's the point, I guess. The ASRA Pro Thunderbike series is supposed to be a national, professional class, not a low budget class. If you want to run up front, your bike, no matter what brand you're on, is gonna need development and lots of it. That gets expensive, which is why Buell offers a $10,000 purse per event, plus a championship winning bonus.

[PJ721]

I'm guessing we can have different rules for ASRA T-Bike and leave CCS T-bike as is?

The ASRA T-bike race at Summit last weekend was probably the best race of the event....if not all season..

just look at the lap times...

http://laptimes.dorightsoftware.com/laptimes/scripts/Laptimes.aspx?competitorID=-1&raceID=722

sort out by clicking on "laptimes" until fastest lap is at top...

[Team Spalding]

I'm with PJ721, leave the CCS T-bike as is. The guys racing CCS T-bike are also using the same bike for the LW classes and currently in the Mid-west there are very few(maybe one Buell) that are leading these classes. Most current class leaders are on SVs. So saying that it is "mostly a Buell show anyway" is just not true. Actually it is just the opposite, at least in the Mid-west it is the SVs that are leading almost every class including T-bike. The guys racing ASRA T-bike are using highly modified bikes and race mostly ASRA not CCS.

[ahastings]

Yep, you've done well on an SV Arnie, which I assume is CCS LWSB spec legal. So did David Yaakov and Darren Danilowicz a couple of seasons ago. Mike Barnes won the Thunderbike race at Daytona on a mildly tuned SV. Derek Keys, Mike Mills and Brian Lacy were also competitive on CCS-spec SVs in F-USA/ASRA Thunderbike. It can be done.

Ben is right that Ed's bike is probably better sorted than any other SV on the planet. Hell, he has to add a bunch of weight to make it legal for ASRA Thunderbike. Try racing him in CCS-spec trim with a LWSB legal Buell!

Nate's BMW and Danny and Dave's Buells are pretty well developed too (congrats on winning the championship Dave!). I don't believe their Buells are LWSB legal due to displacement, but Nate's BMW, I think, is. These bikes are pretty exotic weapons.

And that's the point, I guess. The ASRA Pro Thunderbike series is supposed to be a national, professional class, not a low budget class. If you want to run up front, your bike, no matter what brand you're on, is gonna need development and lots of it. That gets expensive, which is why Buell offers a $10,000 purse per event, plus a championship winning bonus.

That is why it is dominated by Buells, there just isn't any money in it for an SV rider . And Barnes won on an F-2 not an SV , that is why they changed it to 5 lbs per hp for 4 cylinder bikes. As far as Ed having to add weight I wish mine had that problem. My SV weighed 365 lbs and dynoed at 76 hp on the ASRA dyno. Which means my bike could have dropped 65 lbs or gained 15 more hp and I still would have been legal. But to get that much more would have cost me as much as I have in the bike right now and for what ? a chance to win an extra $200 maybe. Just not worth it.

[Super Dave]

Barney did win on an SV once too.

I don't think the Buell's are necessarily cheap to run.  Racing is expensive.  I don't think the BMW's have any extra contingency either. 

But I think the tire bills are still less than what it is on a 600.

[ahastings]

I don't necessarilly agree about the tire bills being cheaper. And saying because Barney won on an SV means they are competive is really not a point , that is just him. You are right the BMW has no contingency that is why there is only one running and it is well funded by a large dealer. Another thing about the suzuki contingency is that all the other SV paying races are under SS rules except Thunderbike, so you would have to have a bike built just for that that you couldn't run in any of the other Suz contingency races or the Suzuki Cup. I would love to be able to run a national series , but unfortunately there just is no money there to be won unless you are on a Buell, and even then the front running Buells are built so much to the limit that it costs a fortune to keep them running. I would be curious what the DNF percentage is on the Buells due to this. That is why I feel changing the pwr to weight could make the class a little more affordable and maybe bring in more competitors. Dave , you going to run the Suzuki Cup on your SV 1000? That race alone would pay for your trip to Atlanta. There are 3 races that weekend that pay for the SV 1000.