Daytona '99

Last year I got it into my fool head to take a lemming picnic to the beach with a trip to Daytona in March to enter, and presumably run, the Daytona 200. As the plans of lemmings and men often go astray, so too did my Daytona dreams gurgle and die from a fuel line quick connect that wasn't, a crash truck that never arrived and a disqualification for taking responsibility for my own mechanical problems by riding back to the truck. Thus ended our 1998 adventure.

I figured I would wise up over a season of endurance racing and that any sort of desire for an extra event on top of WERA's widespread national events (including the budget draining 24 hour at Willow) would have dissipated along the miles of interstate travel.

However, as the time of year for Daytona 200 planning arrived, and with it a nice new diesel van to wear out, the die seemed cast to take us back to the bowl of heartbreak.

My 1996 motor was starting to sound looser than the already loose that GSXR motors arrive from Nippon. At the same time a business associate paid off some debt with what was supposed to be a fresh '98 motor. Through various misunderstandings what arrived was not a motor but instead a large box of motor parts which had three of some things and none of others.

I figured that the daunting prospect of building a motor out of such a jumble was beyond my modest mechanical talents and, with Tim busy building our '99 season 600 bike, I guessed it was time to cancel the campground reservations in Florida and try to figure out how to spend the extra $2,500 in my pocket.

Then Lee Shierts called.

I had met Lee once on a previous trip to Daytona and knew him more for his reputation of building extremely fast motors than anything else. I had also ordered motor parts occasionally from his shop when the dealers were back ordered.

Lee, however, was not calling to see if I needed anymore 600 rings. He had read about the bhp we were getting out of our motors and was calling to inform me that he could get better. A discussion ensued, a parts list was developed and a large box was shipped from my garage to his shop.

Three weeks later I finished a conference call planning a legislative agenda, drove 400 miles to Lee's shop and slept in the van next to my well worn 750 chassis. This trip was required so that Lee could watch the installation, output and jetting of the motor before it leaves his watchful eye. I had never been to Lee's shop but judging by visits to other performance shops I figured on a cramped garage tucked away somewhere. This was completely and utterly wrong.

Lee's shop is the kind of bike shop that exists in every café racer's dream. It is huge. There is a sign on the wall that says "We do not work on bike older than 1986" and another that says "This is what happens when you install nitrous wrong" next to what looks like it might have been a carburetor in a previous life. There are stacks of heads waiting to be ported. There are guys changing out broken cranks from 200 bhp motors. There are two dynos. There is a showroom full of extended swingarmed, lowered, pumped-up sport bikes. There is Lee's personal bike that weighs 400lbs has 200bhp and both a drag swingarm and a roadrace swingarm. There are no cruisers, there are no scooters, there is no apparel department, there are no salesmen and there is no financing.

The signs say it all

Note the rear suspension that is integrated into the swingarm brace.

Lee lent me his lift to install the motor and after various false starts and four hours of twisting things, the motor eventually started. We were short a couple parts and had to make a couple things work including a couple of scrap engine covers. Lee was worried about me replacing the scrap covers with good ones at home in the event that replacing the covers would result in a leak for which he would be held responsible. I marveled at both his attention to detail and paranoia. A couple parking lot heat cycles and the bike was strapped to the dyno for a couple of ring seating thrashes. Prior to arrival Tim had cut open the air box, yanked the Dynojet jets out of the carbs and installed MJN jets instead.

I had told Lee this was a low budget effort so there wasn't the money for cams, valve springs or pistons. Even so the motor made 125bhp, up from 117bhp from the year before. A jet change to increase the mains saw the line pushed up to 133 with torque to match. Lee pulled up a few other GSXR 750s for comparison and mine made about 6 more than most.

When asked "Why?" Lee shook his head and said "You don't ask why when you get a good one", helped me load the bike into the van and pointed me back towards the Interstate.

Once back safely in the AOD cave Tim, Melissa and I assembled the rest of the bike. We raked through all the parts boxes and disassembled motorcycles and put together a 750 with Lee's motor, some Traxxion Dynamics forks, PM front wheels pirated off one of our endurance bikes, a fresh Penske straight from Max's work bench, a dual dry brake gas tank, WER (crash resistant, which I figured I'd need due to my recent full impact riding style) steering damper, some botched together bodywork and an extra rear rim. In the event we are long on tasks and short on time we recruit the AOD elves for various fabrication tasks. The elves once again pulled the long hours and, when the time came to load the trailer or cancel reservations, we had tie downs to cinch.

Our event was almost ruined by a book on tape called "Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea"; the documentation of the recovery of gold off a lost ship. This engaging tale meant nobody wanted to sleep as long as it was playing on the tape deck, and, if nobody slept, no one was going to be able to drive at the end of the trip not to mention function at the track the next day. An uneasy treaty in the van called for the tape to be turned off and we transitioned smoothly to swing shift driving and music. The tapes sat on the dashboard and occupied every moment we were in the van driving around in Daytona.

Photo-BrianJ

Last year's trip was made more difficult for all involved by my crashing the bike in my first outing onto the track. I promised myself that I would not let myself grow frustrated with handling or traction to the point where I would push when the bike said "No". The front wheel was skating around in the horseshoes so I back off. Then my foot started skating around on the peg. A visual check in the run off area of the chicane revealed that Mobil 1 lubricates foot pegs as well as it does engines.

In the pits the cause was quickly determined to be a bolt on the starter cover which we had changed had not been tightened up. Lee's premonition proved accurate.

While Tim changed the gaskets I started messing with the suspension, then let Tim mess with it some more. We were starting much closer than were we had been the year before but the 750 doesn't handle like the scalpelesque 600. I don't know if it is the length, the wider wheel or just chassis settings but my 750 was ignoring my desires where the 600 would have been catering to my every whim.

Three month prior I had been stopped on the very same bike on a local parkway by Park Police Officer Mace. At last count there are something like 30 different police departments operating in the DC area. Of all of them the worst to run across are the Park Police. They are federal cops which mean big jurisdiction, lots of training and shiny fascist uniforms. They also really don't have much to do. Officer Mace took his job of policing the speed limit much more seriously than I did. Usually the Man delivers the "tired of scraping bikers off the street" lecture, Ofc. Mace had thought that he had caught public enemy number one tearing at the very fabric of decent society with a 70 in a 45. The moral of the story, the AMA's radar suggests, is that with a 165 mph top speed; don't stop.

165 mph, on the pre chicane banking, where I was only pulling 12,000 rpm. That puts the bike at over 170 across the start finish where it was pulling up to 13,000. Lee's motor was very, very fast. I reflected on this as I pulled into the pits and then noticed an alarming impact sound coming from the front of the motor.

To the paranoid ears of an AOD rider, all motor noise sounds terminal; however, my logical V-8 brain suggested an exhaust leak. After removing and replacing the Yosh pipe for an M-4 pipe, taking off the valve cover to examine the valve train and various other futile diagnostic endeavors I had a vision of Mark Junge being disqualified for removing air injection equipment off his bike. But I didn't remember seeing any emission stuff to remove on this motor. "Check for holes in the head" I suggested to Tim. I started the bike, he stuck his hand up in the motor and then got out a tap to put bolts in the air injection holes where the weld had blown through from the inside. Problem solved.

Raise back end

Drop front

Raise back end

Drop front

Soften

BrianJ

I finally got down to a 2:03 which is my best times ever around that track but I didn't feel like I was riding fast, I just felt like the bike was unhappy doing what I asked it to do. Tim measured the frame and found the front wheel was a bit out of line with the rear but nothing short of a large press was going to do anything about that. It was easier to turn left than right which is hindering progress out of the horseshoes and chicane and affecting my confidence that the bike isn't going to just do something really weird, perhaps next to the wall.

We practiced some pit stops to the amusement of our Japanese neighbors. They were quite impressed (I think) at our 23 second rear tire change but perhaps less so when we showed them the crudely installed devices that allowed the fleetness of airgun.

Women are such bad judges of distance because men like this are always showing them that this is ten inches. P-Some Donnelly

We assessed the wear on my cool ass ultra trick Michelins and decided that, not only could we finish the race on a single front. We could probably run the race on the front with which we were practicing and qualifying.

Melissa, Walt and Tim. Yup, there they are. P-Scott Carpenter

We eventually qualified in 62^nd place. This is an improvement of 14 places from the 1998 trip and on the same row as WERA nemesis Scott Harwell and long-time sponsor Devin Battley.

While we watched Josh Hayes spit in the soup of AMA-Pro racing we totaled up the known list of motors sacrificed to the Daytona banking this week.

Tapeworks blows one.

Stratton blows one.

Lickwar blows one, well, it was self-inflicted.

Tapeworks blows another one.

Needless to say, a slight vibration at 170 mph started freaking me out a little.

To assuage my speed rattled nerves Tim drained the oil to look for any tell tale flecks of metal. To my very slight consternation, there were some flecks of aluminum.

"Fresh motor swarf" says I, "Fresh motor swarf" says John D, "Fresh motor swarf" says Tim, "Fresh motor swarf" says Melissa.

Just to get a professional second opinion I took the metallic sample over to see winning 750 rider Josh Hayes's mechanic Barry McMahan. Barry took a look and said "strip the transmission, valve head, and all motor covers, look for a rod interfering with something, look for the clutch touching the cases"…long pregnant pause…"or just run it some more, drain the oil and see if there is more later." We took his advice and ran it some more; no further metal flakes.

Having done nothing but climb rocks all winter I was not really in shape for the high g pummeling and 750 wrestling. My neck was sore, I had blister on my hands, my chest was bruised and my forearms were pumped up.

The sort of skin you need for racing at Daytona. P-Sam

Conveniently, the next day was Supercross Saturday which meant we had nothing to do but sleep late, go for a walk, watch manatee, gar, alligators and armadillos, and find a place to drag race the Powerstroke van versus the 454 dually. I lost the first one driving the turbo diesel, but, since I won the second race, I blame the initial loss on impaired reaction time caused by the starter flagging the launch with a black brassiere.

On race day the crew schlepped a large pile of gear down the pit wall to our spot amidst the factory teams while I attended the rider's meeting amidst the factory riders. It was a little weird to be sitting on some old air fence with Jamie Hacking and Anthony Gobert while nodding a greeting to Jason Pridmore. I asked Gobert how his nerves were before the first race of his career-determining season. "Not too bad, it's just another race."

******

I want to take a brief digression from this story to fast forward ahead a month. The track is Talladega and AOD has its 600 gridded on the second row behind Glenn Szarek on an R1, Trey Batey on a GSXR 750 superbike and Brian Lantz on a GSXR 600. I get the hole shot, not once, but three times in a row. This brief indulgence in glory is necessary to put the following into proper perspective.

******

Tim grids the bike up in the second wave. I haven’t been in a second wave start since the last time I was at Daytona, and then, gridded in the back, was in no hurry to move forward. This year I was gridded next to not one, but two racers I have known for years. I wanted to be certain that I got ahead, and away from them, asap.

The first wave went off. I brought up the revs and stuck the clutch on the engagement point, I could feel the engine dragging on the clutch but I knew the lights would go green and I would stay with, or preferably ahead, of my row.

The lights don't go green

The lights still don't go green.

And they don't go green

I start thinking about pulling in the clutch as I am sure I am not doing the plates any favors but I reconsidered figuring that as soon as I disengage the clutch, the lights will switch.

But they don't.

And they still don't.

And then they do.

Sam smokes his row and the clutch. P-Melissa Berkoff

I got a great start. I leapt off my row and got most of the way past the next when I realized that the motor was no longer propelling the bike forward but was instead spinning impotently.

As bikes swept past me in turn one I tried to loosen the clutch cable hoping against hope that maybe a little free play would make this nightmare end.

It didn't.

I tried pinching myself but that didn't work either.

Instead of waking up on the morning of the race in the back of the van, I got to take a solitary lap of shame of Daytona.

I pulled into the pits much to the alarm of my prodigious pit crew. "Clutch is smoked. My own goddamn fault." Max McAllister, who has never seen a mechanical problem that he didn't want to fix, and fix it quickly, grabbed an air gun and started pulling the clutch cover. While Tim and Max stripped the smoking ruins of the clutch out of the motor a search began in earnest for a replacement. Melissa produced her extra set of friction plates and Max took a hammer to the warped, discolored and very hot steel plates. They actually got the thing swapped out in a timely fashion but a single lap suggested that the fierce winds in the pits had blown the cover gasket out of position during the reinstallation of the cover and thus, another oily foot peg.

"Are you sure that spacer goes there? Why do we have extra parts?" P-Some Donnelly

The offending organ after surgery. P-Melissa Berkoff

A second pit stop corrected that problem without drama and I went out at about the 28th lap to start my 200.

I took it a little easy for a few laps to make sure that the bike had stopped leaking oil, tried to clear my mind of the past hour's distractions and disappointments and then put my head down.

My determination was rewarded with a pretty scary slide coming around the pickle barrels from which the bike did not recover until it was very close to the wall. Obviously the fast boys do that every lap, but then, I wasn't being paid.

I spent the next lap trying to figure out what had happened and entered the turn a little faster so I could exit with less throttle, but the bike went sideways again.

Deciding that either there was something still wrong with the bike, something wrong with my head or something wrong with the tire I pitted for the last time with an explanation of "discretion over valor" for my disappointed crew.

We sat in the pits for the last few laps and watched Duhamel and Mladin's battle for the lead on the TV in the pits and accepted our 58^th place and ten laps. We were all disappointed but, because this time it was all my fault, it was easier to for the teams to externalize the frustration onto a single target.

I figured that we had all had enough of Daytona, but Walt, David and the rest of the Michelin guys said we had to come back.

The pit crew said they wanted to come back.

I'll mothball the motor and get the frame checked.

This article is dedicated to everyone who posted questions regarding our lackluster finish at Daytona on the armyofdarkness.com/bbs. Y'all can shut up now.