Willow Springs International Raceway / AMA
04/15 - 04/18/99

Event Final Tech Info

Race Times / Results:

Notes:

We missed the first two rounds of the AMA National series this year due to the new-bike-blues and I was damned if we'd miss round three at Willow Springs. Curt Jordan applied his considerable talents to tuning the motors, Louis Novoa fired up the CNC machine to one-off some footpeg relocation brackets, Dave & Steve worked almost four weeks straight between the March WSMC event and this AMA race to get things ready.

Using a Dynojet Stage I kit, new head pipes and 49-state cams, Curt pulled enough horsepower out of the F4 motors to have us all grinning from ear to ear. The usable power comes on around 10k and delivers until 13k and everything  below 8k is dead. Such is the power band of a race motor.

Since we wouldn't have the footpeg brackets until later Thursday afternoon, Steve and I ran around the track in the 1.30's, scraping our pegs and getting used to the power delivery of the bikes. The brackets put the stock peg position back 2" and up 1.5" and really made the difference on Friday. Steve & I both shaved two seconds off our times, getting into the 1.28's.

During our second practice session on Friday I started experiencing some terrific rear wheel power slides around T2 and exiting T4 and T9. Very controlled slides, but it put an end to accelerating until we got out of the turn. That problem would plague us the rest of the weekend. Keep in mind that we've never ridden a bike this high of a power to weight ratio before, so things like dial-a-slide had never really been a problem. We worked on it as best we could, after determining that it wasn't a tire or operator problem, but never completely solved it.

Qualifying went well, with Steve earning a 44th grid position for the 750SS race and 43rd for the 600 SS race. I got a 43rd and a 41st respectively.

We rolled out for our warm-up lap for the 750 SS race at about 4:30 on Saturday afternoon. My motor died as I rolled around T1 and I pulled over into the dirt while the rest of the grid got ready to race. I knew I had a fuel delivery problem. I checked the fuel line quick-disconnect first, which was fine, then the fuel petcock, which was pointing at OFF. It took a while to get my gloved hand under the tank and flip it over to on, then cranked the motor for a couple of minutes until it fired. By then the crash truck had come over and they guys told me to wait until the race got underway before I could take off. As the last racer screamed out of T1 I took off in a cloud of dust and rocks, on new, now cold tires, and gave chase. The race only lasted three laps before a red flag came out and we had a 12-lap restart.

I bogged the motor off the line, but still got out ahead of five or six guys heading into T1. I held my position for about seven or eight laps, running comfortable 1.28's, until the rear-wheel-slide-monster raised its ugly head in a sideways omigod slide coming out of T9 cost me four positions. The next lap around I missed a shift coming into T9 and free-wheeled it to the apex before popping it back into 5th, then 4th, then 3rd trying to get the revs back up. I lost another position to that blunder and that's where I finished the race. Steve, on the other hand, had an excellent race, clicking off a host of 1.27's.

The 600 SS race the next day started well for both of us. Steve took his classic outside line around T2 and gained about four spots (including me), then stuck it into the middle of a pack of four more riders with an inside attack on T3. It was beautiful! Steve took off and that's all I saw of him for the rest of the race. My rear-wheel slide problems played a big part in keeping my lap times in the 1.28's again.. The pack in front of me was clicking off 1.27's and slowly pulled away. I settled into consistent 1.28' / .29's and ran my own race.

On the whole, it was a good weekend for Aramel Racing. We ran consistently faster lap times than ever at WSIR, qualified for both the 600 and 750 SS races, and Steve gained two national points in the 600 SS race.

It was also a weekend that showed us that we have a lot of suspension development work to do on the bikes. Discussions with both GMD Computrack LA and Curt Jordan have given us some things to try out at Sears Point next week. We'll see how it goes.

Bob.

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