After a really difficult season with the fueling on the bike, I was really ready for the season to be over as I packed the trailer to head to the racetrack. The weather was cold most of Saturday, so i went out in endurance as practice for a bit. I put my head down and tried to work on entrances a bit. I chased Tim on his sv for several laps before i caught him, and then had burned up all of my energy. I put in a decent time catching Tim and was happy with that. Sunday morning was cold, but warmed up in the afternoon. By the time the Heavyweight race came around, it was warm enough to have pretty good grip and the rider wasn’t cold while riding. This was my last race of the last weekend of the season, and I needed to beat Mike Hawkins in order to beat him in the championship. We were racing for second place since Dave Peterson had put in a fairly flawless season. It was one of the most fun races i have ever had.

I got a mediocre start, and chased Nick into T1, with Hawkins way ahead. I chased Nick for about a two and a half laps, and then got him going down the hill to Agony and Ecstacy. I slapped my leg and the tail of my bike like a maniac on the way up the hill to the attitudes. I didn’t want to get held up battling with Nick, and i knew if we put our heads down we could catch Hawkins.

I put my head down and tried to make up as much time as I could to catch Mike. Nick tagged along for the ride and came back by me going into Tooele turn. Olsen scooted by me exiting Tooele, but he was racing Sportsman so not a big deal. Those boys both took off and I chased as hard as i could, unaware that James was behind me on his 675. He was attached with a very short piece of string for about a lap, and i have some great video of him in my rearview cam.

James finally went by me and lead me around for about a lap before having a spectacular highside exiting T5. He flicked himself off and rode sidesaddle into the infield. I rolled off, worried he was going to rejoin traffic exiting the corner. Once i knew he wasn’t on an interception vector, i went back to the gas and got Olsen and Hawkins! Mike was not having any of that, and dove back across me entering the double left. Him in front means a tie, but since he had more wins against me he would win for the season.

I put my head down and chased him for the last 5 corners of the race. I ran up on him in Clubhouse, but didn’t have the confidence on entry to get him. Almost out of chances, i tried to get a good run out of Windup so i could outdrive him through Release to the finish line. I entered Release, got the bike pointed and got the throttle open as quickly as i could to drive out of the corner. I grabbed several bike lengths on him and crossed the finish line in front. I secured second place for the season in heavyweight and rode the cool down lap in to reflect on my season. I congratulated Mike for a well fought season and packed up my gear with a smile on my face.

I got a mediocre start, and chased Nick into T1, with Hawkins way ahead. I chased Nick for about a two and a half laps, and then got him going down the hill to Agony and Ecstacy. I slapped my leg and the tail of my bike like a maniac on the way up the hill to the attitudes. I didn’t want to get held up battling with Nick, and i knew if we put our heads down we could catch Hawkins.

Before round 5 i dove into the fueling system for the 675. Starting at the tank and moving component by component to the engine. The injectors and throttle bodies were ultimately identified as being the issue and were replaced. A trip back to Proformance Dyno Tuning verified that the bike was healthy, and they put a slightly adjusted tune in to compensate for the new injectors and throttle bodies. The bike was now a rocket ship, i was out of excuses!

Saturday practice had me scared of the bike. With the fuel issue resolved the bike was now rocketing out of corners. It wanted shifts quicker, reached higher top speeds at the entry of corners and generally was an animal. I focused on getting my head around this new speed and making adjustments accordingly.

This was by far my favorite WERA event of all time. Instead of the typical 6 hour endurance, they had opted to make the schedule a double header weekend. Points for USBA would only be issued for sunday’s race finishes, so we only had to race sunday but with limited practice. I spent most of the day Saturday supporting my friends who were racing and visiting with riders that we only get to see for WERA weekends. I ran into Preston from Proformance Dyno Tuning saturday afternoon and he offered to put the 675 in the dyno truck for some diagnosis. We spend the rest of the day removing and adjusting things only to come to an unfortunate diagnosis: the fueling system is not delivering fuel properly for large changes in throttle position. I would have to just ride it as-is again this weekend and diagnose the issue after the race weekend.

Sunday’s racing was great, and my schedule had me free most of the day. I got to help out the boys at RickDiculous Racing on their new 675 effort. I made some small changes to the bike and checked some pressures, kept the tank full. We sent Mario out for his race and heard shortly thereafter that he had crashed in T5. The bike came in on the truck and i immediately started trying to put it back together. It was in pretty bad shape. Mario’s dad let me know that they were transporting Mario to the hospital, so i stopped trying to get the bike going for his next race and instead focused on getting everything packed up and secured for the night.

Round 3 was our first time on the east track this season, and i struggled quite a bit. I was unable to make it to friday practice, and club issues took up much of my saturday morning. Saturday afternoon i got some practice in to remember which way the east course went. My coach instructed me to work on exits, specifically to try and get the throttle open all the way once pointed. The data from the previous round had shown that i was getting to 2/3 throttle and stopping for quite a while, and that there was time to be had there.

I struggled with this for most of sunday practice. It seemed that when i dropped my head and opened the throttle the result was unpredictable. At the end of the day i finally identified that there was a problem with the fuel map when making large throttle position changes. Without access to a dyno i had no real way to fix it, so i had to fight through it on sunday.

Round 2 has come and gone and I am pretty happy overall with my progress. I posted another personal best time on another course. 2:15.66 on the perimeter is several seconds faster than i have gone before. It’s still not quite fast enough to qualify for the AMA SuperSport grid, but quick enough to dice a bit with my buddies. I got a lot of really good data from the GPX lap timer and the GoPro so i have some great information to drop some more time.

The trackday on Friday allowed me to get my brain back up to speed on the Perimeter track, which was nice.  I even got to take the SV out for a bit. That bike is such an absolute giggle to ride! Confidence inspiring, and the boys from STM Suspension have it set up really well. I did identify an issue with the fueling, which we sorted out Friday night with a fuel pump.