Willow Springs International Raceway / WSMC
03/19 - 03/21/99

Event Baseline Tech Info

Race Times / Results:

Notes:

Damn, it's good to be back. After a long off-season of five months, Steve & I were a bit rusty, but really excited to try out our new F4s. It's been a long, slow process getting the F4s into any kind of race-ready condition. Parts are still scarce or non-existent for Honda's new bike, so we ran almost bone-stock bikes this weekend. (Check out the Prep & Mods section for the list of changes made to date).Our two California-spec F4s were only making 86hp, the 49-state-spec bike made 96hp. We weren't looking to set any records this weekend, just get acquainted with he bikes and try out some suspension parts.

GMD Computrack LA set up two of the bikes w/Penske shocks and Race Tech gold valves & springs up front. The 49-state bike was set up by Race Tech with a rebuilt stock shock and Race Tech goodies up front. Race Tech and GMD are of two different camps when it comes to suspension setup. Race Tech goes with a plusher setup without giving away the control you need on the track. GMD sets up a more firm ride while trying to maintain some comfort. The chassis geometry for all bikes was set up by GMD.

Since the stock Honda shock has no provision for ride-height adjustment, I knew we wouldn't stick with it. I wanted to run back to back comparisons between the GMD and Race Tech parts and try to glean the best of both. The Race Tech bike did feel really plush and offered good control until we pushed the bike down into lower 1.3x lap times. The harder we pushed, the more it wallowed. The GMD stuff was really stiff until we started pushing it. As we knocked off the seconds, it came into its own and started working really well.

Could the Race Tech stuff be tweaked to work at a faster pace? You betcha. The damping curves were there - a few clicks of the adjusters would have kept it under control as we pushed harder. The GMD bikes were a lot closer to ideal, and since the Honda shock can't be adjusted for ride height, we parked that bike and concentrated on the GMD suspended bikes.

The F4s were very, very good on the track. They weigh considerably less than last year's F2s, so although we gave up 15 horsepower to last years rides, the F4s really moved. The lighter weight and more radical steering geometry made turning the bikes a dream. They turned so fast that we had to push our turn-in points up to avoid running off the inside of the corners. You should've seen the corner worker in T4 jump out of the way the first time Steve went through there!

The new four-piston brakes on the bikes are awesome! We ran the bikes on the street for a couple of days after we first picked them up from Escondido Cycle Center and the brakes were pretty damn good then. Honda claims that the flex of the OEM rubber lines are part of the progressive feel that they designed into the system. I didn't care for it much as it made them too vague for race track duty. We installed Goodridge stainless lines all around and it improved the control and feedback.

The entire F4 package is incredible compared to the F2s. So much so in fact that they gave us more confidence to try things me may not have on the F2s - like pushing farther into the turns before rolling off, trail braking into the fast T1 at Willow without worrying about washing the front, slapping the bike down hard and fast into the turns. You had to wrestle the F2s to try these things - the F4s asked for more.

Tom Sera's FasTrack Friday session was a good opportunity to get used to the bikes. Steve and I swapped between all three bikes each session and just rode around. The motors already had 150 street miles on them, but we took it easy the whole day, running down into the low 1.3xs. It was immediately apparent that the stock footpegs would be a problem in getting the bikes leaned all the way over - they scraped everywhere. It's a good thing they fold up! We didn't touch a thing on the bikes the whole day. Just ran them around the track and had a lot of fun.

Saturday we started to get down to business. The day started off late, as we awoke to rain clouds and cold wind. The rain started coming down about 7:30a and kept the place damp until about 10:00a. It never really rained hard enough to wash the oil and crap off the track, so we put up our canopy and sat out the morning until the track dried.

We took the first two sessions easy, nailing down turn-in points and brake markers. Then we started to turn up the heat. The wind was really blowing all day. It was blowing hard enough to unsettle the front a few times through T8, so we cranked up the rear ride height two turns (5mm). That helped a lot and didn't make the front end too twitchy. We were still scraping the hell out of the foot pegs, so we were stuck in the low 1.30's. We worked on different body positions to try and keep the bike more upright without sacrificing speed, but there's only so much you can do.

After Saturday's lousy weather, we were surprised to find Sunday bright and almost warm. The wind stayed away until after lunch and it was a great day. Steve and I lined up 17th and 16th of 20 starters for the 650 Super Bike race. Down on horsepower and short of ground clearance, we hoped to run in the front half of the pack. We got decent starts and after a lot of dicing, we finished 7th and 9th. Not too damn bad! Steve led the attack on a pack of about six racers. He worked his way through them and got to the front as I caught the tail and began picking them off one-by-one. By the last lap I was right behind Steve on the track and had a drag race to the checkers with two other riders. One got me by about 1/2 a wheel, I got the other.

After a decent showing in Super Bike, we were encouraged coming into the Formula II race. I was gridded 6th, Steve 7th. Nothing but fast guys in front and quite a few behind. Steve got out in front again, though I kept him close. We ran around the track in that order until he bobbled going around T8 on the 5th lap and I went by on the outside. He tried showing me a wheel in T1 later, but I shut the door. I saw him on the outside of T2, but he couldn't get past. I put my head down and stayed out front, finishing 6th to his 7th.

Considering we were running almost bone stock bikes in two of the fastest classes at Willow, I felt very good at the end of the day. Race pipes, 49-state cams and some rear sets will let us uncork these babies and get back to our race pace of last year. If we can get the cams in place and other stuff ready in time, we'll be out for the next WSMC event in April. We start our full AMA tour with the Willow event the following week.

Bob.

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