Witchkraft Racing: The Search for Speed

Home » General » The Sun Chasers

The Sun Chasers

A fitting title for the weekend. My dad and I were watching the weather all week to determine where we wanted to ride. It was between Grattan and BeaveRun and as Friday afternoon rolled around, we were faced with a dilemma. Grattan's weather forecast looked like rain on Saturday and clear skies on Sunday. BeaveRun looked like clear skies on Saturday and rain on Sunday. What to do? "Why don't we do both?" my dad suggested. Brilliant! So we decided to make an extensive road trip out of the weekend and hit two tracks in the course of two days - a first! BeaveRun on Saturday and Grattan on Sunday.

We got to Wampum, Pennsylvania around 12:30pm Friday night and into our hotel room by around 1am. We grabbed about 5 hours of sleep and were up and off to the track. With sunny skies and temperature in the mid-70's, the day went fairly well. Both my dad and I were riding and put in a good number of laps. The track sure felt bumpy in a few spots and my hands were sore afterwards – indicating that for whatever reason, I was holding onto the bars way too tight. For the varying pace of riders at a track day, I was relatively pleased at putting in consistent low 1:00 lap times through the afternoon; only a second off my best lap time around the track. 1:00.015 was the quickest the lap timer showed, but I would have felt a whole lot better by at least getting that missing .015 seconds in one of those laps before calling it a day.

Packing up and heading back west to Michigan, we drove 6 hours and landed in Greenville, Michigan at around 11:50pm. Into the hotel and up 6 hours later, we were at track number two – Grattan Raceway. Sunny skies and another great day, both my dad and I put in more laps. Throughout the day I made a series of suspension changes to the bike – some good, some bad. All new things in regard to learning about the bike though. The stiffer (and now correct) spring we put on the back of the bike after Putnam Park was definitely the right spring – as we got our base sag numbers spot on, and now had the bike finishing the corner better. However as I was finding out, it was going to require some other changes as the ride was now a little harsher and unforgiving. Whether it needs a damping, preload or ride height adjustment, I'm not sure. The one thing I was able to figure out was the front end. It started out too soft and plush and as the day progressed, felt better as I stiffened it up, which was very similar to what we had found at Putnam a few weeks earlier. I was also able to confirm this with another quick R6 rider, Mike Books – who seemed to be of similar opinion.

Towards the end of the afternoon, my dad was done riding and was able to help try out a series of changes during one session, which was a big help. By the time we had figured out we needed to do something with the rear of the bike, the day was over. I would have really liked to have been able to ride another day at Grattan. I wasn't happy with the 1:24 lap times I was doing and had really gone into the day hoping to be in the 22's without a problem. That's the way it goes sometimes though. I definitely don't want to take away riding from my dad, but having him there to help dissect what I'm thinking and work on steering the bike in the right direction is just an invaluable resource. It will take some adjusting on my part to get used to him racing again.

Overall, I had a good time this weekend visiting two tracks and roadtripping it with my dad, while seeing some old and familiar faces as well. Hopefully the riding done the past two days will pay off as the season gets underway ..

Monday, April 21st, 2008 | POSTED AT: 6:27 AM
FILED UNDER: General