The first round of the NZSBK Nationals is only 90 days away and we are full into pre race preparation.
Barry Sheen TT Festival is approaching fast. 330 bikes entered already, so I will have some fierce competition.
Testing today on the Aermacchi 350 at Hampton Downs with the Delacys’, stay tuned.
Blayes.
We wish to send our condolences to the family of Mark Brehaut on hearing of his tragic demise at Manfeild. We should also like to extend our thoughts and best wishes to Brent Nelson who suffered a nasty injury and to Dillon Telford who also was injured, get better soon Dillon, if you repair as fast as you ride it will not be too long before you are back on your Kawasaki.
Injury and sometimes death are an integral risk in our chosen sport, we choose to face these risks freely. Given the amount of joy and thrills to be had from the sport the risk element is absolutely wort it. May our right to choose thus, be forever preserved and the arbitrators of the ‘nanny state’ fail miserably in their futile endeavors to squash freedom of choice.
We had fantastic weather for the weekend at Manfeild park in Feilding. Feilding is definitely “Friendly Feilding” everyone we met were so pleasant. We set off on Friday for the six and a half hour drive with my self and Blayes sharing the driving in two hour stints.
No dramas on the way down. We stayed at a little bed and breakfast run by Kathie and Vernon at Oak Tree Bungalow Bed & breakfast, which is a short walk from the track. Convenient, comfortable and very amiable hosts. It made a plesant change from sleeping in the van, and we get a hot shower and a cooked breakfast as well.
Saturday we were testing and Blayes was getting to know the track. For some unexplained reason the bike decided it did not want to live up to its previous horsepower performance as recorded on the dyno and was so down on power that even SV 650’s were able to pass it on the straights. Although Blayes was somewhat frustrated we decided to concentrate on race craft especially in the area of entry and exit points to bends. On the forth session selecting a false neutral mid corner resulted in an off and a punctured raidiator. We performed a temporary fix on the radiator and added a detent wheel kit to our shopping list which will stop this from happening in the future.
Saturday evening we headed off into feilding in search of a decent resturant and quickly realised that this was not a priority in this part of the country, we ended up at Murray’s Irish bar and enjoyed an excellent burger in a pleasant and freindly atmosphere.
Sunday we were at the track early and met up with a number of fellow racers and met some new faces, the atmmosphere was relaxed, friendly with an underlying good willed competitiveness. Blayes qualified with adiquate times of 1.21 which he was not too pleased with. After some suspension tweeks and invaluable advice from Simon Banks and Daniel Kempthorn, Blayes was able to bring his lap times down by four seconds which was amazing considering the bike was running like crap. Well done Blayes and thanks a million to Simon and Daniel. We also ran with a Metzler K1 tyre instead of the K2 on the rear which gave a lot more grip in the prevailing conditions, thanks once again to Daniel who supplied it and to Scotty for tyre changing facilities and much appreciated help..
Thanks to all the people who helped out. The wonderful thing about this sport is the camaraderie amongst rivals, great friends off track and adversaries on. Of course there is the inevitable miss information spread about but this is all part of the fun, however when anyone is in need of genuine help, it is never too far away even for newbies like us.
Blayes finally achieved a 10th place in F2 and a 9th place in BEARS partaking in only three rounds.
Now we have the off season for winter testing, bike set up and the job of raising sponsorship and putting a team together for the next seasons campaign.
Bring it on.
Bob Nesbit of Classic Cycles Ltd in Upper Hutt called me a couple of weeks ago to tell me that the Norton was all go and in fine fettle. With the carburettors overhauled bored out and re seated, the head sorted, exhausts sorted, new stanchions and the forks rebuilt to Bob’s exacting standards; a new race throttle fitted and the engine tuned beautifully, I can feel a race experience fast approaching.
Blayes and I decided to do a road trip and headed off to Wellington early Friday morning. It was a good trip down and an excellent evening was had in town. We arrived at Bob’s on Saturday morning where we had a good jaw with Bob about all things British Bikes, especially Nortons. Bob ran over the details of his work and we looked at some further modifications to do with rider positioning and then we fired the bike up, it ticks over perfectly, sounds and feel wonderful, I can’t wait for the autumn classic at Taupo on the 28th and 29th of this month.
The 2012 Motorcycling New Zealand Superbike Road Race Championship . Round 5 Taupo Raceway Taupo March 24-25.
At 5am we were heading off to Taupo in the dark avoiding hedgehogs along the windy lanes full of excitement with the prospect of three full days of messing around on motorcycles ahead of us. We were prepared for the prospect of a wet weekend, as we approached Taupo the verges and fields were strewn with the debris of fallen trees, obviously there had been a significant storm in the week. We arrived at the track in the rain, conditions were cold and a little windy, but there were signs it would clear up later. Terry and Jamie Gallway were already set up in the pit garage and helped us unload and set up in somewhat of a relaxed manner. There was a friendly buzz in the air and the excited anticipation of the arriving teams, as they stepped from their vehicles, was palpable.
A quick brew and then down to business, trye decisions, warmers on, fuel up and then team talk. See “Heat Exchanger Update”
The weather dried up and Blayes was out on track, the bike was running well after a week of fettling. Blayes was running lap times in the 1:45 bracket on 15/48 gearing racetech tyres at F27, R29 with the stock pipe, Mobil Racing 4T 10W40.
Saturday AM, dive into the shower, great to have hot clean showers on site, thanks to Taupo Motorsport Park. Breakfast cooked on the side of Terry’s trailer, bacon butties with HP sauce and hot tea, wicked. Blayes went out for first practice with a grin on his face and was quickly back scowling.For some unknown reason the bike had decided to go into Limp mode and would not rev over 12000 so we swapped to the Gallway’s 2007 bike. Blayes Qualified with a 1:41.416 It was a successful day and Blayes was happy to be constantly improving his performance.
After diving into Taupo for a takeout we returned to the pit garage to spend a wonderful evening with friends chewing the fat, listening to an array of amusing race stories from the people who drifted in and out of the garage during the evening and finished off seated around the laptop watching the 2011 Ulster Grand Pre with all of us exclaiming at the antics of Guy Martin and the Dunlop brothers. Then unable to stay awake any longer we bedded down in the back of the van, listening to the hypnotic drumming of the rain on the roof We finally surrendered to erehwon .
Sunday Am, awoke to abysmal weather, we were definitely looking at a wet race. On with the wets and a 2 lap scrub in which Blayes enjoyed. The rain poured down for the first races and by the time we were out on track it had subsided and there was blue sky on the horizon. The boys went out on a wet track. Jamie was doing fantastic moving up to 5th place ahead of Jaden Hassan and then the track quickly started to dry out which took it’s toll on his tyres and he slipped to eighth. Blayes was running really well and thoroughly enjoyed being out in the wet on the Dunlop wets which gave amazing grip. Race 2 was dry Blayes had a good race and finished happy a little less tired this time bringing the bike home with no incidents yet again. Unfortunately our team mate Jamie had the unfortunate and very frustrating experience of his heat exchanger blowing on the first lap. Fortunately due to the fact that the boys re-sited his catch bottle on Saturday evening he was able to see the problem occurring and managed to pull off track avoiding a crash and spilling an oil hazard all over the track, well done Jamie.
All in all a most enjoyable way to spend a weekend, we made some good friends and are looking forwards to next season with our bikes sorted.
The official points showing Blayes’s placing after competing in two rounds only.
| Superstock | |
| Jake Lewis | 217 |
| Johnny Small | 179 |
| Dan Ornsby | 166 |
| Mike Lee | 107 |
| Dan Kempthorne | 58 |
| Blayes Heaven | 30 |
| Cameron Jones | 29 |
| Stewart Smart | 26 |
| Paul Koot | 22 |
| Andy Stewart | 13 |
We were racing at the Nationals here in New Zealand this weekend and one of fellow riders, Jamie Gallway had a heat exchanger blow, in the second race, the same thing happened last weekend at Hampton Downs, he was riding a 2011 bike which is supposed to have been modified to prevent the problem. This was very frustrating and disappointing as Jamie was doing well in the first Supersport race.
“Last year Triumph said they had a kit to fix the heat exchanger problem, they also modified all the 2011 onward bikes. The kit never came out as it was deemed to expensive!” ” (Si Westwood, Triumph Race Support”)
Terry Gallway decided to test the oil pressure after the oil pump and found it to be well over 100psi, at 8000 rpm. These tests were on two, 2011 bikes and one 07 bike which is running the engine from Paul Dobbs bike ( engine No: 6278677). The recommended pressure is 75-80psi which is what the Japanese bikes are running. Subsequently the oil temp on our bikes was ranging from 112 to 200 celsius after a 15 lap race. After a lot of discussion with some vert technically savvy people we concluded that the problem is oil pressure not the heat exchangers themselves. It appears that the Factory knows these bikes are making too much pressure because the oil pump outputs oil too fast, and I am told that the Factory solution is to offer a replacement gear and chain to slow the pump and reduce the volume and pressure output. It is rumored that sometime in 2010 the Factory was close to recalling all the 675 bikes.
In our opinion it is a design fault recognized by the factory and therefore should be their responsibility to rectify the problem before someone is killed.
It would be sensible for all the owners who are experiencing this problem to group together and make a presentation to the Factory.
There is a lot of talk on the forums about this problem:
http://www.triumph675.net/forum/showthread.php?p=804747#post804747
Racing this weekend : http://www.eventfinder.co.nz/2012/new-zealand-motorcycle-road-race-championship-rd5/taupo
The 2012 New Zealand Superbike Road Race Championships heads to Taupo Motorsport Park to decide one of the tightest championships in years , all but one of the championship classes will be decided this weekend. The Superbike , 600 Supersport , 600 Superstock , 650 Pro Twin , Prolite 250 and 125GP are all up for grabs , and many of the class placings could go a number of ways. (words: M1 Motorsports
Pic: Andrew Bright Championship Digital)
We are up on power and torque this week and with the improved suspension set up it should be an interesting weekend of racing.
The Triumph has been running drasticaly down on power since we purchased it. After fitting the Yosh slip on and dumping the cat: see the chart.
This week we took the bike back to Holeshot and asked them to help improve the performance. Winston the mechanic replaced the stock muffler and dumped the butterfly valve, the results are much better:
We are looking forward to testing on Friday at Taupo Motorsport Park. A 16.7 increase in hp and 5.01 increase in torque.
teamamadora 