RAC4IT
Needs a job
Bergie
Posts: 3009
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posted April 02, 2003 05:11 PM
 Edited By: RAC4IT on 2 Apr 2003 17:21
Maxton Race Report
Team Don't Be Scared Racing.com Race Report
Introduction
Unfortunately the domain name resolution for my website is temporarily out of service so I have delayed composing a race report for last week's East Coast Timing Association Championship Land Speed Racing event. Well it looks like it may be another 48 hours before the DNS entries are propogated but I don't want to wait any longer because the topic will get stale if we wait too long. As an alternative our Maxton photos can be viewed at the following address: http://host42.ipowerweb.com/~dontbesc/ecta/032903
For more information regarding the standing-start one-mile ECTA land speed racing events visit their website at http://www.ecta-lsr.com
For your reference I have posted the motorcycle related content only of the ECTA 2003 RULEBOOK on my website here:
http://host42.ipowerweb.com/~dontbesc/ecta/rulebook
Disaster Strikes During Preparation
As most of you already read last week was a rough week. In preparation for Maxton I took the green 203rwhp ZX12R to the dyno at Champion Motorsports in Herndon VA for a quick dyno-tuning session on the wideband to get the fuel mapping sorted out before the racing coming on the weekend. Anyway after a couple pulls it all of the sudden sharply dropped power (almost 16rwhp) at 11,200rpm like a falling off a ledge.. Then a subsequent pull yielded another 45rwhp loss. So we called it quits assuming 90% chance of bearing failure and that it's probably one-pull away from massive or catastophic engine failure.
Was I pissed? Not really. This engine has been thru who knows how many bottles of nitrous, dozens of near 200MPH or faster standing-mile runs at Maxton, over 650+ dragstrip runs from last season, got it solid in the 8s in the 1/4mi, and achieved virtually every goal I had expected with the bike since the engine was built. I knew it wouldn't last forever. It also survived almost eight thousand street miles! Anyway I'm just glad this problem became visible on the dyno not at 200mph.
Time Crunch!
Feaing the engine lost I was in a time-crunch to transfer over the necessary safety equipment (safety wiring) and electronics from the green bike to my spare Silver 2001 ZX12R. This spare bike is 100% stock ZX12R including stock exhaust (with the catalyst remaining) and stock air filters.
Muzzys To The Rescue
I posted on the messageboards my concern that I would have a 186mph speed limitation for the weekend since the 2001 and up ZX12Rs are limited.
Coming quickly to the rescue was Doug Meyer and http://www.muzzys.com who provided a Bonneville Box to remove the top-speed limitation and they overnighted the unit to me so I could install it for the race weekend! Thanks for their support! I completed the installation and posted a step-by-step installers guide with photos for the Muzzys Bonneville Box on my website here: http://host42.ipowerweb.com/~dontbesc/photos/muzzysbb/
I also had to install and configure the new Acumen Digital Gear Indicator provided by http://www.actionstation.com and http://www.riderstation.com. I also completed the installation and posted a step-by-step installers guide with photos for the Digital Gear Indicator on my website here: http://host42.ipowerweb.com/~dontbesc/photos/digigear
As you can imagine I had a very busy Thursday and Friday trying to get things ready to travel the 7 hours (one-way) to Laurinburg North Carolina for the weekend!
Had to Modify Plans
Two sets of plans for the weekend both had to be modified. First since the big-horsepower nitrous-assisted green ZX12R that I normally race was now no longer functional I had to set aside any plans for any record-breaking runs on that bike until we can get it repaired. I anticipate having the engine in the green ZX12R repaired within 6 weeks just in time for 60" ProSportBike drag series! With the loss of the green bike I had a set of original backup plans to use our Silver 2001 ZX12R. Those original backup plans were to run the bike 100% stock on Saturday in P/P-1650 (production 1650cc) class. The reason I intended to run in 1650cc class vs. the 1350cc class is that the record was more likely attainable (187mph vs. 191mph). Everything on the bike was 100% production stock including the airfilters, gearing, signals, windscreen, exhaust and engine. The only mods to the bike was the Muzzys box to remove the speed limitation.
Providing having the time necessary to make back-to-back runs I had planned on performing velocity stacks and air-filter testing in stock production form. Then Saturday night we had planned to swap over my Muzzys titanium exhaust with carbon canister that I pulled off of my 200hp green ZX12R for some comparison runs to be conducted on Sunday.
My previous best on our similarly prepped Red 2000 ZX12R was 192.5 MPH (this was with the stock engine 169rwhp w/Muzzys pipe w/o filters, no PC3, stock gearing).
Also time permitting I intended to make some runs on Sunday without bodywork to shoot for some records in those cclasses using Vincent Hill's homemade ram-air snorkel bracket.
Of course as with any set of plans something always happens! Hence the term "shit happens!" and as you will read these plans will had to be changed because of the weather....
Delayed Departure
I had planned to leave early Friday morning to drive down to Laurinburg NC with plenty of time to spare to have the bike tech inspected Friday evening before the event on Saturday morning. Of course the drive is approximately 7 hours for me, so in order to do this I would have to leave the house by 10:00am. Well that didn't happen. I found myself still working on the bike in the garage until 6:00 PM Friday night! Having never actually fitted the silver bodywork on this spare ZX12R I did not realize that it would be a nitemare to get the panels to fit properly! As many of you know I had picked up this bike as a salvaged piece and made repairs myself not realizing the upper fairing bracket was slightly bent nothing would bolt up properly! I spent nearly 2 hours trying to remedy this and I still had to drive an hour out of the way to pickup the ram-air bracket that I was borrowing from Vincent Hill! Long story short by the time the truck was loaded and we were on the road it was 9:00PM FRIDAY NIGHT!
Late Arrival
Trailering at 80mph down I-95 was cake in the 8.1L 2500HD Crewcab. This put us at the hotel in Laurinburg around 3:00AM, about an hour earlier than expected. Sleep would be in short order since the drivers meeting is at 9:00AM and we like to be at the track before 8:00AM.
Rain Overnight
Of course to make matters worse it was now raining outside. We hoped for the best and after a quick breakfast and talking with some of the other racers we headed to the track (the Maxton/Laurinburg airport) which is about 10 minutes away. It was already 8:30AM by the time we arrived.
Saturday - Finally at the track
At the track it was crowded. Apparently everyone like to make the first ECTA event! This would set back our "testing plans" somewhat because based on previous years a crowd like this really cuts back on the number of runs you can make in one day. The weather was cloudy during the drivers meeting and you could see rain off in the distance. Everyone unloaded and setup "camp" and started the tech inspection and registration process. Following the drivers meeting the rain set in again and it poured down for an hour or so the let up slightly but the point is the track was now wet. Finally around NOON the rain stopped and the ECTA Officials did their best to get the event going. Everyone with a truck, car or tow-vehicle was asked to ride up and down the one-mile track to assist in drying the surface! Even the Ambulance and Fire crew were helping! It was quite a sight to see two-way traffic out on the runway. I don't think the surface have ever seen this much use! Believe it or not it was actually working! I rode our new 2003 Yamaha Zuma pit-scooter provided by http://www.championmotorsports.biz down to the starting line to catch a glimpse of what was happening and found that racecars and motorcycle riders were beginning to line up at the starting line! So I grabbed my gear including my new Bohn bodyarmor back protector hurried over to finis up with tech inspection and registration! Let me also mention that the Bohn ProRacer series back protector provided by http://www.actionstation.com/bohn.html is an absolute work of art! The fit and function is great and I wouldn't race without one! The Bohn Proracer fits nicely under my leathers and is comfortable enough to use in a full-tuck situation such as that encountered land speed racing, road racing or drag racing. For more information check them out at http://www.actionstation.com/proracer.html and also be sure tell them Dont Be Scared Racing.com sent you!
Helmet-Cam! Now with Audio!
While in the pits waiting on the rain-delay I had prepared the helmet camera and microphone to record video capture during the run. My Sony MiniDV camera is mounted in the trunk and a wired remote control gives full on-off and start-stop record capabilities without having to open the trunk. I will be posting the video captures on the website very soon! Be sure to check http://www.dontbescaredracing.com/video this weekend for the updates! Hopefully by then the domain-name will be resolving correctly world-wide.
3:00PM 1ST RUN - 180.509 MPH
It was almost 3PM by the time I finally reached the starting line. By now the weather was absolutely picture perfect and beautiful!! By glancing at the skies you could not even tell it had rained! I was now ready to make my run. Notibly this was the very first time I'd ever run this bike wide-open! Basically it went straight from salvage to my garage then onto the trailer to Maxton! I had only tested it only briefly on the street to 100MPH and it appeared to ride very well but I had never actually "launched" the bike as of yet. Being totally stock this bike is roughly ~100 rear-wheel horsepower LESS than what I'm used to riding so I figured I would whack it nice and hard right out of the gate! The first run I wheelied pretty good which was surprising (no traction problems like on a 250rwhp bike) and I also accidentally grabbed for 6th gear twice because I blipped the throttle too quickly and it didn't take the first attempt. These two screw-ups reduced the potential speed for the run and I went through the traps with an official average of 180.509 MPH. Remember the only mods were the Muzzys http://www.muzzys.com Bonneville Box, I had previously removed the screens from the ram-air snorkel, and of course the mirrors were removed as required by the rules. The bike was not even lowered or taped up and still had turn signals on it!
5:00PM 2ND AND LAST RUN - 181.862 MPH
After the disappointing trap-speed on my first run I buckeled down to concentrate for my next pass. I moved the helmet camera system to the lower side fairing for effect so we could see the front wheel on the next run. Because of the large number of participants at the event and the rain delay the lines were very long in the staging lanes. It was 5:00PM by the time I made the starting line for my second (and final) pass. I came off the line hard but slipped the clutch to reduce wheelies on the stock-wheelbase bike. It felt like a perfect run; every gear change was crisp and very near the limiter. I found myself cursing the bike somewhere around 5th gear "C'mon you POS! GO!" I'm not sure why maybe because I'm used to a faster bike but it just "felt" slow. None the less it also felt much faster than the previous run or at least that was my perception since I didn't screw up! It felt like my tuck was perfect as I crossed the finish line and I held the throttle until at least 50 yards past the cones just to be sure. As I approached the tech area for my timeslip I knew the record was 187 MPH for the P/P-1650 "production class" and this didn't feel like 187 MPH so I wasn't even concerning myself with impound. For those who don't know "Impound" is the area you must proceed directly to in order for the bike to be tech inspected after a record-breaking pass. I picked up the timeslip and read 181.86227 MPH... very disappointing. I thought to myself how can it be that you screw up twice on one run then bust off a near-perfect pass and only pickup 1.3 MPH? Nature of the game I suppose! Maxton is one tough beast! By this time the staging lanes had closed- they were not allowing any more riders to jump in the lanes because it was getting late in the day. So I headed back to the pits to pack it in for the day and hope to return Sunday for more runs.
Sunday - More RAIN!
Even though the weather was perfect as we packed up and headed back to the hotel on Saturday evening, it was not meant to be. Sunday night storms set in on the entire Eastern coast and ruined our racing weekend. By the time we woke up Sunday morning the winds were strong and the rain was steady putting an early end to the first ECTA event of 2003. Since it was raining we decided to sleep in late, after all the previous night was short! When we finally work up we loaded up the truck, headed next door to get a good breakfast/lunch and then began the 7 hour drive home!
Dragbike.com Maxton Monster Hayabusa?
Guy Caputo was at the event on the Dragbike.com purpose-built bike dubbed the "Maxton Monster". If you read the article http://www.dragbike.com/features/maxton then you already know this bike has exponential amounts of horsepower (over 200rwhp naturally aspirated) and of course loads of nitrous oxide! Of course all this power doesn't necessarily guarantee that you will break the magical 200-MPH mark at Maxton. There are too many other factors aside from power involved notibly rider ability, traction and atmospheric conditions just to name a few!! I know http://www.dragbike.com did not want to go home disappointed again... but rumor has it they couldn't break 200MPH even with the new big motor, big nitrous and big sponsors behind the project. Like I said it's much easier said than done! Ask any ECTA 200 Club Member!
Meeting with the Gang
It was nice to meet with new ECTA member Mark (LUCKY12) out on his 1270cc ZX12R who managed to get in his ECTA license passes and one "all-out" attempt that yielded 190+ MPH. Congrats to Mark and I hope to see you out there again soon shooting for more! Also it was good to see Team Millholland again the entire crew including Dan (OLDKAWBOY) and his sons Zack and Chad who both managed awesome 201+ MPH runs on their 1361cc ZX12R! Not enough for the record in the class they were shooting for but still very impressive given the humidity! I had a great time meeting with folks in the staging lanes and the pits and sharing stories and experiences and I look forward to seeing all of you again. I also encourage more people to come out to the next ECTA event on April 26-27!
Summary
Had the weather held out better I'm sure we would have had a lot more fun! But we will have to wait until next month to try again! I felt lucky to have made the two passes I did on Saturday and despite the long hours of prepartion, the long-distance travelled and the heavy expenses incurred to just to race for one afternoon IT WAS ALL STILL WORTH IT in my opinion! There is nothing better than going flat-out as fast as you can so in a safe enviornment and sharing that experience and company with friends and family. We will be back!! Thanks again to our sponsors!
EVENT PHOTOS
Page 1 of 2
http://host42.ipowerweb.com/~dontbesc/ecta/032903/index.htm
Page 2 of 2
http://host42.ipowerweb.com/~dontbesc/ecta/032903/index2.htm
END: Team Don't Be Scared Racing.com Race Report
  
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VincentHill
Needs a life
Posts: 6520
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posted April 02, 2003 05:24 PM
Great Post Bergie, What Magazine are you writing for  (Only 2 passes!!)
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Made History @ Daytona and still one fast old man!!
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RAC4IT
Needs a job
Bergie
Posts: 3009
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posted April 02, 2003 06:13 PM
Vince- Me? Write for a magazine? Hell no, way too many spelling errors for that!! Unfortunately I typed in the report and posted here before running it through a document editor, and then when I did run the spell-check on it for the emails I sent out there were at least 15 errors! LOL I don't have time to edit those changes here! Too lazy!
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LUCKY12
Expert Class
Posts: 198
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posted April 02, 2003 07:30 PM
Rac4it Great post When you get time please call me 1-865-947-4454 home or moble 1-865-389-2069. Thanks Mark
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wannabe
Pro
Posts: 1931
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posted April 02, 2003 09:02 PM
Great post, Bergie!
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VincentHill
Needs a life
Posts: 6520
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posted April 03, 2003 05:14 AM
We do not care about no stinking spelld words, we want the eyes in the Pits and you told it like we were there!
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Made History @ Daytona and still one fast old man!!
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RAC4IT
Needs a job
Bergie
Posts: 3009
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posted April 03, 2003 10:23 AM
Thankfully our website is now resolving the domain name properly, so now you can view this race report and others online at http://www.dontbescaredracing.com/news
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entropy
Moderator
Posts: 8671
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posted April 04, 2003 01:29 AM
WOW! Great post, Bergie.
Maxton is way-far for me, and my big butt isn't exactly conducive to setting top end records, but every time I read one of yr Maxton reports I get the itch...
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This moderator uses moderation in moderation
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VincentHill
Needs a life
Posts: 6520
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posted April 04, 2003 10:59 AM
Mine either, but to be "Areo" the big end needs to go first! That is why I am learning to ride the bike "BACKWARD"
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Made History @ Daytona and still one fast old man!!
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BA
Pro
Posts: 1592
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posted April 05, 2003 11:56 AM
Great post and description Bergie! Enjoyable reading. One day I'll do the ECTA run.....
BA
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