A few months ago, I attended the Yamaha Champions Riding School ("Extra Credit", Jan. '10), not only to improve my skills, but also to ride the famed Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, Utah. As inevitably happens at these things, conversations are struck with fellow classmates. Usually these conversations are just idle banter. And usually the rapport ends there. As it turns out, during the course of my school I befriended Mark Bigelow, a fellow student who lives near the track and had just started club racing with the Masters of the Mountain series, inspired by the fact that a world-class racetrack was now an hour's drive away. During our conversation we exchanged information and I uttered "If you ever need a teammate, let me know," thinking that nothing more would come of it. Boy was I wrong.
What Bigelow didn't tell me was that his intentions were to go endurance racing, and the six-hour race held in conjunction with WERA in late May had been circled in bold red ink on his calendar for a while. He even went so far as to draft Dave Lewis, a multi-time class champion at Miller aboard his Bud Light Lime-sponsored Yamaha YZF-R6 to come ride with him. It was Lewis' influence (and his buckets of spare parts) that convinced Bigelow to buy an R6 of his own. Then, serendipitously, he found my business card in one of his pant pockets. Remembering our conversation at the school, an email was sent my way and my bluff was about to get called.
I'll admit I've been spoiled lately, with my recent racing forays coming at what was seemingly full factory support (or close to it) and everything handed to me on a silver platter. The thought of going endurance racing already had me booking my plane tickets to Utah, but oddly, knowing I'd be riding on a completely privateer team, on what was essentially a standard R6 made the decision that much sweeter-I'd be going back to my roots, pre-magazine days, if you will. With the amount of things that could go wrong in an endurance race, the one thing I wouldn't lack is fodder for a story. What's to follow is a tale of triumph, despair, and maxed-out credit cards...
Friday Frustrations
Our fourth teammate, John Hopperstad, was also confirmed and Lewis called up his pal Shawn Atkinson to fill in as an alternate rider if needed. Friday's plan was to reacclimate myself to the track and get comfortable with the motorcycle. It didn't take long to realize that things weren't going to go as planned. With money being tight we decided to practice on the tires already on the bike-a set that had seen a 90 minute "sprint-durance" race the month before, as well as the few sprint races Bigelow entered the following day. With only a small budget for tires, the fresh stuff had to be saved until race day. Early on we noticed a distinct vibration coming from the front wheel, causing instability and headshake on corner entries as well as exits. We concluded the cause was a front tire out of round, but with the tire budget reserved for raceday our options were scarce. Thankfully, Lewis came to the rescue and had a spare wheel with a worthy tire. Instantly the problem was cured.
The crew (from left to right):...
The crew (from left to right): Shawn Atkinson, Mark Bigelow, Dave Lewis, myself and John Hopperstad.
As chaotic as it may seem,...
As chaotic as it may seem, we had everything under control...
Dave Lewis pits from fifth...
Dave Lewis pits from fifth place for the team's first pit stop of the entire weekend. That's Malcolm Bigelow on the rear stand, Paul Parrott catching Lewis, Jared Green with the gas can and Shawn Atkinson jumping over the wall ready with the fire extinguisher. Yours truly is waiting in the wings for his first stint. Note how nice bike and leathers are...
Later, Bigelow reported engine fluttering at high rpm and poor power, despite the throttle resting on the stop. As luck would have it, the bike is fitted with a Dynojet Power Commander III and the Dynojet race support truck was on hand giving free dyno tuning to anyone with their products. We figured at the very least they could diagnose the problem. Strangely, the fluttering wasn't replicated in the dyno, but after flattening dips in the power curve, the geniuses at Dynojet were able to coax 116 horsepower out of the '06 R6 and smooth the power delivery. Whatever was causing the fluttering problem earlier was gone as the bike ran flawlessly after the dyno tuning. Unfortunately, those two issues took most of the day to sort and Bigelow and I were the only ones to spin any laps on the bike.