'Sup everyone! Sorry for the lack of progress on the blog, but I've been working a ton on finishing the bike and having it ready for the season opener, which was last weekend. Click the Bike Build link above for the entire build. Below is the report from the first race!

So yeah, Round 1 of the UtahSBA, Masters of the Mountains race series was this past weekend and it was pretty awesome. The new CBR has been a lot of work to get into race trim, so I was incredibly psyched to ride it. Being a brand new bike, I took Friday to break the engine in, taking it easy and just running through the rev range. I was on totally shagged tires (a set of Pirellis that had last October’s UtahSBA round, and a trackday that I was riding both A and B groups!). Just after lunch, the rear was spinning so bad (the left side literally looked like a slick), I had to bail out and throw another, less used tire on. I put about 120 miles on the engine Friday and did an oil change. Here's the clock minutes before the first session when I was warming the bike up, zero miles--I still can't believe it:

Saturday I started the cold-ass morning practices with the take-off rear and the same front from October (which was still pretty good, actually). Jason Eldridge from Corporate Suspension was on board and in the garage today, so I went out for the first session to warm the suspension and came back in and we set sag, and did a little bounce-test to get the dampers in the ballpark. Then I put a fresh set of Pirellis and we got to work on the chassis geometry. Jason made a few changes and we were pretty close. But, as with last year, I was shredding the rear tire. At the end of the session, the rear was moving a lot—under neutral throttle and on the gas. Jason was on the wall and we tried 2-lap stints with changes to damping, preload, and ride height on the rear to get some more grip in the rear—which never really appeared, the changes just messed up the rest of the handling. At that point, Jason and I moved on with improving the bike as best we could from a suspension perspective and I’d work with Scott and Spencer to deal with the tires. I felt pretty comfortable with the suspension and, with the tires limiting my confidence, didn’t push hard enough to really highlight suspension issues. At this point the bike was really fun to ride, because I’ve never really been able to spin a rear. My R6 had such a narrow powerband that, when the engine was putting out enough grunt to finally get the rear to let go, the power would build so quickly that it was hard to control and quite scary. This Honda is awesome and builds power much lower in the RPM and is way easier to control the slide. After just a little time on the bike, I was getting so much better at opening the throttle sooner and harder, even with a messed up tire that was spinning. Coming out of Turn 6 (west track), I was actually “steering with the rear”. I was getting the bike to square itself up next to the curbing on exit. It was a good feeling, but I wasn’t turning fast laps. But whatever, it was really fun!

Then the racing. Oh jeez. I had a bunch of really cool peeps in my garage; Carrie, Jason, Jason’s dad, Tarik and Mike from Honda Suzuki of Salt Lake all showed up and it was awesome to have them there. My first race was KOM-U and I was on a fresh set of Pirelli SC2s (yeah, trying the same thing over and over, but expecting a different outcome is insane, right?) Anyway, I got a great start and was pushing hard to stay with the leaders. It became quickly apparent that I didn’t push hard enough during practice and that my front end wasn’t how I like it on corner entry and mid corner at race pace. I wasn’t totally comfortable and gave up a position to my friend Chad Swain, but it wasn’t a big deal, I was still going OK. Then the real problems started. At the end of the 2nd lap, the rear started to squirm. From there, I just went backwards. The rear was sliding so bad, my friends told me they could see the bike moving all over the place from the grandstands! After a little before half distance, the tire progressed from spinning to full on “drifting”. Out of Turn 1, out of 2, out of 3 all the way through 4 (which is a crazy fast turn taken over 110mph), out of 5, out of 6, into and through the Triple Ds, then between turns 8 and 9, and out of 10. It was thrilling, for sure—a mix of slight fear and lots of excitement. I have never able to do that stuff comfortably on a road bike, much less lap after lap. It was incredibly fun, but the novelty wore off near the end of the race as my competitors had ridden away in the distance and I started to wonder how long I could keep the thing upright. I did manage to keep it upright and never felt out of control. But, I wanted to be closer to the lead group in the next race.

For my next race (Midweight Superstock), Jason made a small change to the forks to help me feel a little better. And, the big change, we stuck a softer Pirelli SC1 on the rear. Scott was frustrated with the DOT Pirellis tearing and was pretty much willing to try anything—and having lots of respect for Scott, I was willing to do what wanted. I stuck it in, set the pressure to what felt least-bad on the SC2 and went for it. The other guys on the slick version of the tire were having success with the SC1, but aside from that, the tire should NOT have worked (most other Pirelli DOT riders went back to the older version). But it seemed to stay together much better. I had very little tearing after the race. It was weird. Jason’s change to the front end made it feel better, but we didn’t go far enough (we need to make some internal adjustments at this point, I guess). I was able to stay much closer to the lead group and dropped almost a second from the KOM race. I could have dropped more, but my brain was still stuck on the feeling of the sliding tires and exited every corner thinking “I could have opened the throttle earlier and sooner”. I finished the weekend about a second slower than my personal best West lap set last year—which, considering it is an entirely new bike to me, no slipper clutch, no off-season riding, and only one day of setup (on messed up tires), is pretty awesome! Jason and I are going to work on getting the front end totally dialed at the next trackday, so I’m pretty hopeful there’s a lot more time for me to drop. Plus, I’m going to give that SC1 a fair shake and see if that (contrary to what we’ve always though) will stand up better to MMP. If I can’t get that thing to work out, I’m going to give the Michelin slicks a try.

So the weekend went really well. The bike is super fun and much less taxing to ride than my R6. Having Jason help me out with suspension was really cool and we made some good progress. I feel like I should very quickly be able to get totally comfortable on this bike and start improving my personal best laps at each configuration! I want to be up with the lead group and I think I can get there. My friend, Austin finished 2nd in my races (he’s about >1 sec/ lap faster right now), so I’m feeling good about getting there. He’s a great guy and really motivating when we ride together at trackdays—I just need to step it up to be able to race with him.

A huge thanks to all the people around me that help me out with this whole thing. Carrie being numero uno, Jason, Scott, Tarik (Honda Suzuki of Salt Lake), Mike (also of Honda Suzuki of Salt Lake—if you don’t know this dude, you gotta go in to the shop and meet him; he’s hilarious), Danny and Harth for being cool garagemates, and Dave for letting me talk him into joining us for dinner afterwards.

Anyway, things are on the up and up. Maybe a podium in Round 2! We’ll see.

Cheers,

-jerry