gateway oct 10th MCRA

[f3racer]

Well it was hell getting there but the race went well.

I took my new Pirellis (thanks Nihon and Rob) to a local shop here to have them mounted and balanced and they put some serious marks in the wheels and didnt even balance them. the tech tried to tell me you dont have to balance them anymore. i flipped a wig and they fixed the problem. I took the wheels home on wed and put them on the bike and fuck me if i didnt break a front brake line. i called rob and he sent me new brake lines and a +2 rear sprocket. the brake lines were the wrong ones. i called rob and he jumped out of his ass to fix the problem. i got my lines friday and spent all day sat getting the bike ready for sunday. sunday at 7am im unloading the truck into my paddock space. i get everything set up and i reach down about 5 minutes before the 1st practice session to feel my front tire warmer isnt working. so i go out into my 1st session nice and slow. i get back and my wife has managed to fix the warmer. she pulled it apart, found the break in the wire and fixed it. god i love her. session #4 and i get flagged off the track to see my oil filter o-ring has bulged and i spraying oil all over my bike. i get it fixed and re teched just in time for the last session to get my tires back into shape.  heres the race. the grid was huge. 5 experts and around god knows how many am riders one a 1 wave race. i am gridded 5th i completely botch the start and end up into turn one in somewhere around 15th place. 6 laps later im running awesome and we get red flagged for an accident and finish in 5th. the was creeping up on 4th place. so i managed to start 5, drop to 15th and work myself back to 5th in 6 laps.   id say not too bad for only my 3rd race ever.


thanks to rob and jason. rob with his awesome support and jason for dealing with my 500 text questions everyday and still giving me good advice.   the army is thinking about sending me back to south GA by the beginning of next season so i might be at the track with those guys next yr.

[GSXR RACER MIKE]

In the past the oil filter issues were usually the 'other than OEM' filters having problems, if that's the case in your situation it's definately worth the minor cost difference to buy the OEM stuff from the Dealer (or better if available and proven safe).

This is aimed at all new racers: If you compare the potential costs related to a crash from an oil leak vs buying the good oil filters it's not even close, you also avoid ending up on the shit list with all the other racers in the paddock from causing others to crash and/or get injured plus causing delays due to oil clean-up on the track. I remember my freind Jeff crashing in the old 'Kink' at Road America because someone had an aftermarket oil filter fail and covered the track with oil (ironically I believe the offender was on an F3 as well). Jeff was one of 7 racers who piled up into the concrete barrier on the outside of that extremely fast turn because of that other guys oil leak! In that situation I believe the offender didn't crash but several of the racers who did crash got injured and there was a massive delay because of the clean-up. 

[f3racer]

actually it was a honda filter. the problem was that i did not have a filter socket so i could not properly torque the filter down. i over torqued it and it caused the o-ring to bulge causing a small leak to occur. it was not a bad leak but enough to put out some smoke and get on my tire. i am on an 07 cbr600rr not an f3. but i completely concur with what you have said.

[gonecrazy]

well through all that, did you have fun? We run a pretty unique trackday. trackday mag did a big article on us last month

[f3racer]

i had a blast!