Chaz Davies Saturday at Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari

Chaz Davies Saturday at Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari

Qualifying comments from Chaz Davies from Imola.
Good luck in the race Chaz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My kingdom for a horse.

My friends Ray and Rhonda have a new addition to their stables.

Mother and daughter doing just fine.

Road trip............Washington, DC

Michelle and I recently returned from a fantastic week long vacation to Washington, DC. We took the popup camper and stayed at the Pohick Bay regional campground in Lorton, VA which is about 20 miles or so south of DC. This turned out to be a great place to stay as it was wooded, comfortable and only 15 minutes from the metro station. Above is the only photo I took of our campsite and it is not in good focus for some reason. I've either got to have a new camera or learn to use this one better because several of my vacation shots are fuzzy like this.

Day one: Mount Vernon, Arlington and monuments by moonlight tour.

First stop on Monday is Mount Vernon, home of George Washington. The grounds are very well kept and the scenery is beautiful. The mansion is on a hill overlooking the river, so beautiful. Here are some more photos.

So what have I been up to lately?

Next year I plan to return to motorcycle roadracing and trackday riding. To help motivate me to get ready I decided to take my oldest trackbike apart and rebuild her to her former glory.

She's a 1997 Yamaha YZF600R. I really love riding this old bike. She's "old school" all the way with a heavy steel frame and carburetors (my enemies). Bikes from this era were easy to ride and easy to work on. They are very basic in their electronics, unlike today's techno-box sportbikes. This is a very good entry level track bike. It is powerful enough to pull out of corners but not so powerful as to spin up the rear and high side you off. It's fast enough to be fun but not so fast as to scare you too much.

Yamaha made this exact same bike from 1997 to about 2007 so parts are cheap and plentiful on the ebay. OEM parts are also easy to come by from any number of online distributors. I usually order from ronayers.com.

So step one was stripping the bike down to the frame. Taking things apart is always easier than putting them back together so I was careful to mark all the parts and store sub-assembly parts together in trays or bags.
After a thorough cleaning I realized that the frame was just too beat up to ever look good without painting so I sanded down the frame and swingarm and repainted them black. I know that powdercoating would have been much more durable a finish but this is an old trackbike and I didn't want to spend that kind of money.

Step two was to reinstall the swingarm, forks and shock so I'd have a rolling chassis. Here's where I ran into problem number one. I discovered that a bearing was bad on the shock knuckle (part of the lower linkage on the rear monoshock). Fortunately I had complete spare shock linkage assembly in a box of parts I had gotten years ago from ebay. That linkage was in fine shape so I greased it up and installed the shock. Now I've got me a rolling chassis. Time for the engine.

I don't have any experience at all with internal engine work and this power plant was running fine last time out so all I had to do was regular maintenance items. She will be getting a new chain and sprockets and a good cleaning on the carburetors.

These old 4 cylinder engines are heavy and I'm working alone so the only way to manouver it is with some kind of floor jack. I used a motorcycle jack with a piece of plywood to support the engine and she lifted right into place.

So here is how she sits now.

Really good video.

http://vimeo.com/13159991 from Henrik Hansen on Vimeo.

Things heat up in the Barber pits as the AMA circus comes to town.

Camping at Fort Toulouse

We had a great time camping at Fort Toulouse National Historic Park over the 4th of July weekend. The campground is located in Wetumpka, Alabama just north of Montgomery.

Fort Toulouse is a small campground with about 30 sites. It is located by the Coosa river near where the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers come together to form the Alabama river. Unfortunately, there aren't any campsites with good views of the river. You can go for a walk and see lots of river views.

I got in lots of bicycle riding and the food on the 4th was great. Overall a great time. Here are some more photos of Fort Toulouse. http://picasaweb.google.com/wera154/FortToulouse#

Jim

Aprilia launch 2010 World Superbike team

And so it begins........World Superbike testing at Portimao

Shakey takes his Althea Ducati for a test run.

Hodgson returns to the British Superbike Championship with Rob Mac Racing

Crash.net is reporting that Neil Hodgson, the 2000 British superbike racing champion will be returning to the series with Rob Mac Racing. Neil will be riding the Yamaha YZF-R1 which is the current production racing weapon of choice having won the 2009 British superbike championship with Leon Camier and the 2009 World superbike championship with Ben Spies.

In an ironic twist of fate Neil will be taking the seat vacated by 2000 British superbike runner-up "The Stalker" Chris Walker.

I really enjoyed watching Neil race in the AMA superbike championship for the past several years but a combination of injuries and the under-funded Honda racing effort this past year meant he was never really competative but managed to run near the front a few times.

Best of luck Neil. I'll be watching.

Toseland and Crutchlow take over at Yamaha

James Toseland and Cal Crutchlow take over for Yamaha World Superbike. They have tough shoes to fill with the dominating performances from Ben Spies this past season.

Definately should be an interesting 2010 season for sure.

Experimenting with Windows Live Writer

I’m trying out the windows live writer software to do my blog editing/posting. So far I really like the interface as compared to the standard Blogger interface.

To see how it works with photos I’m including a picture from a recent camping trip that my friend Michelle and her sister Beverly made to the Joe Wheeler state park in northwest alabama.

I really like how you can move the picture around and resize right in the preview window. Very slick.

 

There is a feature to add thumbnails from a photo album. The actual pictures are stores on a microsoft live photo site.

View Full Album

College football season.....finally !!!!!!!!!!!!

It's September and that can only mean one thing, the start of college football season. People take their football seriously around here as witnessed by this tag I saw driving to work this morning.

Back to school fail!

I work at a University. The fall semester recently started and unfortunately this sign was spotted in several locations around our university center. An epic fail for sure.

Author/racer Mark Gardiner on Jay Leno's Garage

I recently became acquainted with the work of author Mark Gardiner. Mark is a motorcycle journalist and sometime motorcycle racer who has written a book about his experience racing at the Isle of Mann.

Mark was interviewed recently by Jay Leno for a segment of Jay Leno's book club. Click on the title of this post to view that interview.

Mark's book can be found at www.ridingman.com

You can also follow Mark on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Backmarker

Sad news from England

Very sad news out of England today as we learn of the untimely death of young F2 racer Henry Surtees at Brands Hatch.

Henry was the son of racing legend John Surtees.

We mourn for Henry's family and friends. Godspeed young racer.

Great car tag spotted on campus.

I spotted this car tag yesterday on an Infinity parked on campus where I work.

I am so happy for Larry Pegram

Larry Pegram won superbike race two at Road America this past weekend. Think about that for a minute......Larry Pegram beat Mat Mladin straight up in a fair fight. I can't wait to see this race on the delayed coverage.

I do not know Larry personally but I have followed his racing for some time now. I first met Pegram, sort of, at Barber a few years ago. He was sitting in a golf cart talking to Kevin Schwantz.

I approached and Kevin immediately knew I was going to ask for an autograph, he even had a sharpie out and ready. I handed my cap to the world champion and asked politely would he please sign it. After he handed it back to me I looked at Larry and also said politely, "Larry could you please sign it too?". He smiled and signed but the look on his face said it all. He could barely believe that I even recognized him. He seems that genuinely humble and even grateful.

The next time I saw Larry in person was also at Barber this year but under remarkably different circumstances. There was a tornado warning at the track and everyone was searching for cover. Michelle and I decided to hide out in the second level restrooms which seemed at the time to be the most sturdy building available.

As the rain and lightning got heavier and the tornado got closer more and more people crowded into that building. About this time I noticed Larry, his father, wife and daughter were all there as well. In spite of the threat of weather it seemed a happy family moment for him. I couldn't help thinking how satisfying this season must be for him. He has his own team, he's competative again and he has his family with him.

Little did he or any of us know that in just a few short weeks from then he would be standing atop the superbike podium at Elkhart Lake.

Good on you Larry. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Jim

onthethrottletv's TweetMic recording

onthethrottletv's TweetMic recording

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onthethrottletv's TweetMic recording

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Nashville Superspeedway WERA Round 2

Nashville Superspeedway played host for round two of the WERA Sportsman Mid-Central race series. This was my first time at Nashville so I didn't really know what to expect. On hindsight I should have gone over and done a practice day but money is tight now so I decided to just do practice and race on Sunday....big mistake.

This was my first visit to a track with garages and they do make setting up your pits much easier than an open paddock for sure. Also there is power which is a nice luxury for club racers. I shared a space with Scott Padgitt, expert 365. Scott runs heavyweight twins on a Suzuki SV1000. Next to us was Gill Cutchen, expert 105 with his SV650 and Triumph 675.







This is the strangest track that I've ever been to. It is a roadcourse built inside an oval so part of the lap is tight, twisty infield combined with the high speed tri-oval section of the oval. Not an easy place to learn, especially for a relatively inexperienced novice like me. First practice was an absolute cluster but by second practice I was getting the hang of it. Unfortunately second practice got cut short when I mis-judged the entrance to the back stretch chicane and had a little excursion into the grass. Well I managed somehow to not fall down but I did hit the ground with my right foot pretty hard so I decided to pit in and check it out. No real damage done except to my pride.

The senior superbike race wasn't until very late in the day so Michelle and I decided to go over to the big grandstands to watch some of the early races that Gill and Scott were in. Unfortunately, Gill had a bad highside wreck on the last lap of his lightweight race. The bike isn't damaged too bad but he landed right on his face. His helmet was really messed up and he has some marks and bruising on his forehead. Anytime you hit your head it is scary but fortunately his wife was there to drive home and he seemed to be relatively ok.

Finally it came time for Senior Superbike. I was gridded inside second row just behind Art Spence and next to Joe Barton. I've raced with both of them before many times and they are close to me in speed so I knew if I could hang on to them I would have some fun out there. Usually I'm a really good starter but this time I was a little slow and also got a big wheelie that hurt my start and both of them were ahead of me going into the very tight turn one. Coming out of one Art had a big slide and Joe and I checked up but it put me about a second behind both of them heading onto the back stretch. I was able to keep them both in sight but couldn't make up any time so the race finished in that same order.

All in all it was a good time but I can't say Nashville is ever going to be a favorite track. The facilities are fantastic but there just isn't any flow to the track at all.

Should Mat Mladin go to world superbikes?

Recently I started following Mat Mladin on Twitter (twitter.com/MatMladin).

I have always been a fan of Mat Mladin's racing abilities but only recently have I been able to relate to him on a more personal level. You see, Mat has always been a bit of a rebel. He isn't afraid to speak his mind and at times he can come across as somewhat of a jerk.

His "less than friendly" image hasn't been helped by his open hostility towards the current AMA/DMG rules package for superbike racing in the US which he clearly regards as "a joke". So, if Mat is so unhappy racing here would he pack up and leave when his Suzuki contract expires? I say, extremely unlikely and here's why.

I'm convinced that Mat is #1 a family man and #2 a motorcycle racer. His priorities are to provide a good life for his family and he's doing that quite well by racing in the US. Even though he doesn't like the current rules package it has made the racing closer so far. Tommy Hayden, Neil Hodgson and even Larry Pegram have been able to run with Mat at times and they are sure to get closer as we now get to racing on real tracks like Road Atlanta and Barber. Mat loves competition, we know that.

So even though Mat might yearn for the real competition of full blown world superbike racing and running against Ben Spies again I think that at this point in his life his priorities are family first and ego second and I respect that. So I don't look for Mat Mladin to go world superbike racing.

Picnic at Mt. Cheaha

Video from Barber

Well I recently learned that a nice guy named Kevin was taking video this past Saturday at Barber and it turns out he was riding behind me in one of the early sessions.

Kevin was nice enough to allow me to link the video on my blog. I was riding behind my friend UAJEFF from Birmingham. Jeff has really improved since I first rode with him a couple of years ago. I really enjoyed riding behind him for this session.

Thanks again to Kevin, B group number 51 from Lawrenceville, Georgia.

Finally back on track - NESBA at Barber - October 2008

After a long summer layoff I made it back to the track finally for a NESBA event at Barber Motorsports Park. After several years of doing 10 or more track days this was only my second one for 2008 and it felt great to be back out there.



We setup our pits in our usual favorite location, the bottom of the hill just to the right. Michelle loves this spot because it is quiet and close to the tower so easy access to everything.




Barber was lovely as ever with lots of flowers still blooming and just a hint of fall color. I'm sure it will be even better for the November event in a few weeks.

I had not ridden my bike since I did cornerworking for the California Superbike School back in July and to my surprise there seemed to be something in the fuel or carburetors that kept the bike from running smoothly. I finally got it to start but there was no low speed idle, I had to keep the revs up or it would stall. I filled it with fresh gas and let it run a long time and as the day went by it got more and more normal so my riding wasn't entirely ruined but it sure made me a bit nervous.

I managed to make a new friend this weekend and that pleased me. Pitted next to us was a really nice guy named Brian from southern Michigan. Brian was riding in intermediate on a big Kawasaki. He stayed with us for lunch and we had a good chat about riding and Michigan football.

It was also good to see some old friends like Joel from Nashville and Jeff (UAJEFF on the boards)from here in Birmingham. Also, my friend Gill Cutchen was there to do some control riding and get some laps on his new Triumph racebike.



There was a large group of riders there from Mississippi that were pitted across the paddock from us. I didn't get to meet any of them but they sure seemed to have a good time.




I also met a nice retired couple from Florida who were there with some really "old school" race bikes. As usual, half the fun of a track day is people watching.




Here are a few more miscellaneous pictures taken during the event.





Can't wait till November.

Jim