Prep & Mods (thru 04/04/98)

Prep & Mods
thru 04/04/98

Steve and I had three weeks between the Willow Springs / Formula USA event and the upcoming Champion Cup Series (CCS) event at Buttonwillow to get some work done. Steve dropped the trailer off at Sport Trailers to get some modifications (higher output heater unit and front levelers), my bike went back to Jordan Engineering for a valve adjustment and servicing, and we installed a Factory Pro Tuning pro shift kit and changed the oil in Steve's bike.

Since the trailer isn't insulated and we've been experiencing lower than normal temperatures at the tracks overnight, the original 25,000 BTU heater wasn't enough. Kenny at Sport Trailers installed a 35,000 BTU unit that almost works too well. The trailer stayed toasty warm during the low-40 degree nights at Buttonwillow, but it also sucked up propane at a pretty good clip. We had brought along an extra tank just in case - good thing, because we ran out in the middle of the Saturday night. The front levelers were added to provide four points of stability to the trailer.

Steve was experiencing too many false neutrals during the Willow Springs event last month, so we installed the Factory unit. The trade off is it's tougher to find neutral, but as Curt Jordan said, you don't race in neutral. Steve had no problems at Buttonwillow (with shifting, anyway).

Trick Enterprises, makers of Trick Racing Fuel, is a contingency sponsor for the WSMC this year. We picked up a 16 gallon drum at the local distributor and will run Trick exclusively in our Super Bike motors this year. Very good stuff.

With all the rain we've been having on the West Coast this winter, we started looking for racing rain suits in January. Steve even called some shops in England and Spain, but wasn't having any success. Imagine our surprise when Larry at Art of Racing suggested Motorport in Carlsbad, Ca. Steve picked up a couple of their Samoa one-piece suits. The suit has a more tailored-type fit than the run-of-the-mill street rain suit and looks like it'll work out fine.

Steve picked up a heavy duty Exide battery charger at the local Kragen Auto Parts to try and cure our out-of-juice problem with the total-loss system on my bike. The charger has a setting for 2 and 6 amp operation, while the Super Smart Battery Tender that we had been using ran at 1.25 amps. The Battery Tender is a great piece of work for maintaining the charge on a battery. It watches the status of the battery and applies either full charge or maintenance charge depending on the condition of the battery. The down-side of the Smart Tender is it doesn't supply the amperage that we need for a quick full-charge between races. The Exide unit provides a full 2 or 6 amp charge to the battery, but it doesn't have the monitoring circuitry to turn itself off when the battery is fully charged. It does have a meter that tells you the status of the charge, but you have to keep an eye on it. The Exide charger worked fine during our weekend at Buttonwillow.

Bob