Re: What did you do to your Race/Track Bike today - 2015
Ya maybe you shouldn't race the 1000.
Actually, I've never had the brakes fade on the 1000. I should have taken it out in the AM 1000 race. Just didn't want to adjust my riding that much after being on the 600 so often over the weekend. I had it out for a laugh (no, really, the 600 class is what I want to be in) and qualified 4th in the AM 1000 race with a tire that had been to three - maybe four track days and a freezing winter in my race trailer. It was all good fun until it went sideways twice in the chainsaw and again in 11 ... when those Dunlop slicks have done their best, they go off in a big way... had somewhat the same experience at Mosport when a tire was worn past the wear markers, the bike tried to come around three times in one lap. A fresh tire showed no inclination whatsoever.
Anyway, I think the infamous Suzuki rotor issue has crept up, my rotors have years of race and track use and I was sacrificing lap time by Sunday trying to use the brakes less hard. Nothing seemed to work, was boiling the fluid in the calipers after about 6-7 laps. I didn't ride my best overall, but still the brakes really hurt my lap times. The Suzuki rotors are thin and don't soak up much heat thus the heat goes into the calipers rather than wheel or rotor - perfectly fine for street use or even track days, but racing is a whole different level of stress obviously. So I'm going to swap my BrakeTech ductile rotors off one of my spare set of wheels for my 1000 (I should sell a set, I have three), put in some RBF 660 and give that a try. I've also heard of people shimming the brake rotors a bit out off the wheel with Suzukis to get more air past the rotor, may give that a try if I can't solve it another way.
Also had some bad fuel, I don't know exactly how but as I was filling up the 600 for the last race, there was literally water droplets forming in the funnel. My best guess is that the U4 soaked up a lot of humidity, my friend was helping crew and I told him to keep the cans airtight and in shade whenever possible. I noticed when I got there in the morning (i'm 25-30 minutes from the track) that the vent cap was open and never thought about it again. As I used up the last of the can for the race, the funnel was literally beading up all around it with water - not just a little bit, so I was fuelling, wiping the funnel, fuelling, wiping ... it was either that or miss the race. Naturally the bike ran even worse than it usually does at anything but full throttle but this time couldn't even catch Mike H. down the back straight despite his bike missing at high RPM. FML.
Like I said, sophomore jinx?
