The Intentional Destruction of Laboriously Engineered Artifacts

Part 3

Three days after we broke our second career crankshaft I was procrastinating at work with a game of Quake (quake.13x.com) when an email arrived from a mysterious Johann Gastruder. Apparently Johann has been following our pathetic attempts at motorcycle racing and was sympathetic towards our plight. Johann is the owner of Iguanaland USA inc. and an avid fan of the WERA National Endurance Series. He is interested in the endurance series because as a boy growing up in California he read about 24-hour races and longed to make le mans starts but, being a sickly child and a poor runner, would never have been able to safely escape the pits from faster running competitors pulling into pit lane proper and heading for the funnel-shaped pit exit. He is currently excited by the potential for such collisions presented by the new WERA red flag procedure.

Johann wanted to make sure that we didn't take the intelligent route marked by putting away the dump tank and dedicating our collective lives to physical hedonism. Instead he offered to lend us a box stock GSX-R 600. The complex architectural plans I had draw in my head for the hot tub and sub-tropical garden for the back yard evaporated as I saw that instead I would continue to pour my disposable income into the gas tanks on the van.

There was only two weeks between the crank breaking episode at Road Atlanta and the next round at Hallett. We had decided that, with the arrival of Arclight into the class, the championship was settled before the first flag had been throw and we were going to take each race on a best result basis instead of worrying about accumulating points. With the equipment we had on hand (the Suzuki was not going to be available / ready until IRP in a month's time) we didn't think we could get a podium finish at Hallett, so we skipped it.

Sharkskinz are the only other team racing a YZF 600 this year. Their crank broke at Hallett.

Since putting race bikes together is a rather complicated process we decided to not rush the preparation of the Suzuki more than necessary. This philosophy required the rushed rebuilding of the Yamaha with another crankshaft (stock stroke, thank you). The cases had managed to escape the trauma without undue scathing so the process of motor rebuilding was more tedium than heartbreak. The forged pistons were back ordered from Yamaha so we returned the one that had been slam dancing with the head back into service. If good mechanics everywhere were feeling a disturbance in the force that day, now you know why.

Strangely enough, the bike made about the same horsepower with the stock crank at 600cc as it did with our stroked crank at 650cc. Granted, it didn't have the power lifting midrange that makes quick laps come easy, but it was spinning up to 98 bhp or so.

Our team can only leave as early as the least flexible job. That being the case we usually arrive at the track after an all night drive in time for registration and, sometimes, the first practice. For the 850 mile drive to St. Louis we had specified a Thursday, 2:30pm departure time which should have placed us in St. Louis in plenty of time for Friday practice. I received a call from John Donnelly, returning from Santa Fe on a cross country trip, informing me that, although he was standing at the entrance to the track, his aunt had stroked and he must travel to Virginia post haste. Sometime real life intrudes unavoidably.

Our trip to St. Louis was made more memorable by seizing up a front brake caliper on the van about four miles into the trip. Since we had all the tools with us there did not seem like much point in returning to the house so we turned Julian, our pit rhino, loose on the rusty pistons and soon we were traveling again. However, we quickly surmised that somehow both sets of keys to the trailer had been safely ensconced in the toolbox that was securely locked in the trailer during the excitement. A hurried trip back to AOD central to apply the oxy-acetylene heat wrench on one of the trailer locks liberated one set of the oppressed keys and we were able to continue on the rest of the trip without event.

Gateway, for those who are lucky to not have been tested by its unpredictable traction and unyielding walls, is another car track where motorcycles can run at their peril. It is some oval thing with an infield section. The infield is fine (the only excitement provided by the water periodically seeping through the pavement) but the banking is only 12 degree (compared to the 30+ at Daytona). The 12 degree banking means that its more of an on camber turn rather than a straight. Once we really got cooking it was fifth gear, 11,000 rpm and the motor cover gently caressing the pavement. All with a very permanent wall thirty feet away. Predictably, a few racers were seriously injured that weekend.

"Don't look at the wall. Don't look at the wall. Don't look at the wall. Don't look at the wall" Wall in upper left. P:Julian Woods

This is 1:00pm on a summer afternoon in Misery. Sam and Julian have obviously lost their minds. -P:Amy Pickering

 There is a paragraph on every race entry for every organization which basically says that the racers have to determine if the track is safe for themselves and choose to sit out, compete or slow down. From my safe bleacher seat I humbly suggest that the racers duty is to go as fast as they can at all times. Walls, Armco and seeping water be damned. This makes it the responsibility of the sanctioning body to make sure the track is safe before scheduling the event.

Ominous clouds blowing in off the Mississippi greeted us in St. Louis. Big dark green clouds. We got one semi dry practice before the deluge began. On a scale of 1 -10, I'd say this rainstorm was a ten. We had six people holding onto tarps, bikes and toolboxes trying to keep water from hydrophilic equipment. When the lightening started we bailed out of the pit looking for safety in numbers.

After three hours the track had desiccated to the point where the bikes could use slicks save for the fifteen-meter wide, centimeter deep river flowing unimpeded across turn one. This added an interesting feature to the entrance to the infield. The Yamaha threw another curve at us. As we had not raced with the stock crank and black box we did not anticipate the tach not working without the throttle position sensor hooked up. Not only does the TPS have to be connected, it has to be moving for the tach to register RPM instead of an error code. After much cogitating we used the black box from a '96 YZF and eliminated the troublesome circuit altogether.

Around 5:00pm the rain started again and we went in search of Indian food and lodging.

Imprudent dicing at the six hour mark. "Nothing could go wrong now." P-Amy Pickering

Some timely efforts on race day by the track workers stanched the flow across turn one but a few areas of the track remained damp, and slick, due to capillary action from puddles either next to or under the track. The wet spot that was to claim the most victims was in the second to last turn of the infield; a decreasing radius turn with a heavy load on the front tire. The puddle was directly on the fast line and modifications had to be made to avoid washing the front. Traffic sometimes made it all a little tricky and five bikes were to crash with congruent footpeg scratches.

We missed the tire wear implications of the bowl. When the 45 minute red flag came out for a horrible accident on the bowl we could see from the pit wall that the front tire was not going to last two hours, much less six. I had failed to bring many fronts tires with us so I went hat in hand and begged a harder front tire from Team Suzuki's Keith Perry. (Thank You Keith!!) 

While Jim finished the front tire that I started, we prepared for a front tire change. Although Tim, Amy and Cici could change a rear in thirty seconds, they had never changed a front in anger. As it turned out, 180 seconds. Not bad considering we had no quick change provisions on the front end but slow enough to allow all the other teams to take a three lap lead.

The rest of the race sort of blurs into an ordeal of pain. The tight infield, the lack of a resting spot on the front straight and anxiety induced by the wall made for extremely pumped forearms and tight neck and back muscles. After 100 minutes on the bike the asphalt under our canopy never looked so good. I remember they hit the rear tire change in 25 seconds, I remember Jim pulling in early and having to ride the last hour instead of the last twenty minutes as planned. I recall a spectator pleasing ten lap dice with Mark Ianuzelli to the checkered (although he was two laps ahead) and I remember taking fourth place behind Arclight, Ten-40 and Tapeworks III.

Returning from Gateway we were faced with the task of converting the pathetically streetable, very stock GSXR 600 in our garage into something we could endurance race. Forrest Kerns made us another big gas tank with dual drybrakes, I mucked about with the suspension, Tim did the quick change modifications to the swingarm and wheels. I painted. We changed brake lines, added a steering damper, replaced the bodywork, and tightened up the clearances between the head and pistons.

All of this usually takes months over the winter. Not afforded that luxury, we worked with many blue labeled pieces and very late nights. We mounted the shock (upon arrival) two hours before the bike went into the trailer for the trip to IRP and ended up painting the tank at the track. It was a frenzied time.

Darkness fell at 8:30pm at IRP in more ways than one. Ex-Arclight gas tank encouraged track rumors to abound. P-Amy Pickering

The GSXR 600 is not exactly a new model at this late date but I would like to recap a few of the details that we appreciate.

The aluminum frame - Shame we had to paint it black

 I used to lecture my Ducati riding friends about how Ducati had built a few cool liquid cooled bikes that garner attention and then they sell air cooled crap to the general public. I fell for the same con done by Yamaha. The YZF 750 has got 24 degrees of rake, aluminum frame, mag engine covers et al. The YZF 600 is a pig sold for street riding and only capable on the track in the hands of Billy Eisenacher or Glenn Szarek.

IRP

Word Problem: The GSXR 600 has got a couple of inspection plugs on the starter cover for checking ignition and crank position. One guy takes out the plugs and replaces them loosely in the cover for safe keeping. Another guy, two days later, picked up the cover and installed it on the motor at 12:30am without checking the torque on those plugs. How many laps in practice could you get before one of the plugs fell out and allowed oil to start smoking prodigiously on the exhaust pipes. Answer: 3. An interesting and un-foreseen consequence of having three black bikes sharing the number 99 is the collective black flagging.

Tim is very pleased with the solvent used in his new epoxy. Bag removed for the picture. P-Amy Pickering.

The Suzuki struck me as being more similar to my old FZR 400 in more ways than one. It was light, nimble and slow off the turns. Carrying speed into the turns and using the lean angles that the chassis afforded rewarded the rider with a quick lap. The bike is also very sensitive to suspension set up. Rather than chase my tail sending the forks off to be butchered in California, I butchered them myself.

The GSXR (affectionately named Chaos, inverse of Reason) turned and carved well enough to not require any raising or lowering of chassis parts. We ran out of time playing with suspension and never got rid of an annoying but predictable rear wheel hop on the brakes.

We switched around on practice bikes during the 30 minute endurance practice and lingering doubts about the suspension on Chaos were erased after wallowing around the track on the well refined Yamahas. IRP is just a really bumpy track.

The GSXR is sort of gutless in the accelerating department and we ended up one tooth too tall on the gearing. The first couple laps of the race made me really worry about the ability of the bike to get around the track fast but by really sucking it up and entering the turns fast I could just barely pull the tall gearing. There was no way the bike was going to make passes at the exits of the turns which meant being ruthless on the brakes. Remembering the consternation I used to cause Jim in 1990, I tried to use the violently hopping rear wheel as a psychological deterrent against riders on bigger displacement machines repassing me on the straight.

GSX-R and Michelins allow even mediocre riders to achieve photogenic lean angles. P-Shandon Cundiff

 Tim had put in the Herculean effort to finish a quick change setup for the rear wheel on the Suzuki. Technology can be a double edged sword since once you have it, you are tempted to use it. I pitted the bike and sent out Jim. Jim had some trouble living without the mid-range, exit of turn grunt that the Yamaha had and did not acclimatize well to the rear wheel hopping on the brakes. As such, passing was baffling ordeal for him and he got stuck in a slow group of riders unable to break clear for ten or fifteen laps.

The talk in the pits was a group think of worn tires. I was pretty sure that the tire on the bike was fine as we had chosen a compound known even by tree dwelling tribes in the amazon for its durability. The decision was made to change the tire but in the excitement of a real green flag tire swap we forgot that we could just look at the tire on the bike when it came in and decide then to swap it or not. We pitted Jim, we swapped off a perfectly good tire, it cost us twenty-five seconds. It probably didn't matter at the end of the race but it meant that we still hadn't gone a whole race without error. We took third in class and sixth overall.

The race went well for Arclight who inherited the overall lead from a crashing Grant Lopez on the TSE bike. The race went poorly for Ten-40 when they blew a head gasket and had to retire from the contest.

With only a week until the onerous eight hour race at Grattan there would be scant time to search for more power.