On Thursday, the inevitable happened. I threw the bike away in Turn 1 at PIR.
The story has several unfortunates, and several fortunate points.
To begin, we were at a recent track day with the intention of determining if a gearbox issue existed and if possible to get some good laps in to drop my laptimes and spend time riding with friends. The former hasn't been determined yet, but doesn't look good.
The latter did happen and, due to the low turnout, we were allowed to ride in multiple groups.
We all improved our times and got significant practice laps in despite the crash and the weather.
On what must have been the third A session of the day, after some good laps following one of the faster guys in the organization, disaster struck. I decided to cool it down a notch when he fell in behind me to evaluate my lines. Only seconds out of the brake zone, after executing the countersteer and tip in, the front let go before I could roll on the gas.
Just that fast, I'm sliding next to my bike which is throwing impressive sparks off of the hard parts. My slide had me in a slow rotation and soon I found myself sliding headfirst off the track onto the grass in an open run off area. I came to a stop and heard my bike running nearby.
I jumped up, ran over and hit the kill switch and began to evaluate the damage on the bike to see if it was ridable. Keith Pinkstaff was the first to my aid and helped me push it out of the impact zone to the tirewall. There we tried to start it and determine the best way to get it back to the pits. A stuck throttle cable decided that route, so I got a ride back to get my truck and tow it back.
Upon returning it to the pits, I surveyed the damage to my bike and my leathers.
The bike had broken sections on all three aftermarket fairing pieces, missing brake lever, bent left and right handlebars, the right peg was ground down to half of its original length, and the pavement refinished the bottom corner of my titanium can and aftermarket timing cover.
Dan Wilson had a spare set of bars. So Sven Bohringer, Dave Wallway and I settled in replacing what needed to be and repairing what could be. Long story short, I had the bike re-teched and back on the track after lunch.
My leathers fared much better. The slide off the track was relatively short, so the only thing that took any form of damage was the right forearm and the right knee just above the kneepuck. Some cosmetic piping was ground off and two very small areas had stitching break.
I came away completely unscathed save a bruise on the inside of my left forearm.
After a few days to slow the crash down to a mental frame by frame to see where the mistake was, its still hard to determine exactly what led to the lowside. I wasn't on the brakes, I had slowed even more prior to entry than on previous laps, it wasn't raining yet, nor were my tires worn or cold. I had been dealing with a downshifting issue which I was working on the shift linkage to sort out. I'm not sure if I had successfully made 4th gear prior to tip in.
If I were in 5th and rolled on, the power might have not been there as expected, which would explain why the front was still unusually weighted. I've since pulled the GP shifting conversion cam and am running standard shifting. I need a break in the weather so I can have one final testing day before I crack the case and start replacing forks and gears.
I was really hoping the bike would last until the end of the season.
I hadn't expected to graduate from Novice so soon, so I had planned on riding this one in Novice and possibly make Expert next year. Well, its not in the cards. I received my graduated license on Thursday. I've got to get the bike back in working order for next month to run with the big boys. Look for a report next month if I'm able to get the gear box sorted, and all the crash damage repaired in time.
Ciao!
-Dale at 737Racing.
