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I created some mounting brackets for the belly pan to replace the falling-apart safety wire that was holding it on, put on a new chain, and tried to figure out where the oil leak was coming from. I rode the bike around a little on the street, but couldn't get enough oil to leak out to figure out what was going on.
I changed the oil and, unfortunately, found what seems like lots of black and some shiny grit in the bottom of the drain pan. I guess I have to hope it's nothing too important that is destroying itself...
Gustavo and Lizbeth were my hosts this weekend, and we met Tony at Nicholas' Lebanese Restaurant for dinner. The food was good, but we had a long wait for a table and poor service.
Saturday started out being overcast and comfortably warm. As the day went on, it slowly cleared up and heated up, but never got too hot.
I used one of the Dunlop contingency certificates I'd earned from the last two race wins to get a new front tire from EDR. Their friendly service included tire changing, and Eric Dorn also brought out his serious chain tool to make sure my new chain was going to stay on.
Almost at the end of the first practice session, my clutch lever suddenly had about extra inch of free play, and hardly seemed to be working. I pulled in to the pits and was able to shift down to neutral, but something was definitely wrong.
I pulled off the countershaft cover and got two pieces of bad news: the end of the clutch cable had moved around within the clutch actuator (the mechanism that turns clutch cable movement into a pushing motion on the clutch rod); and my oil leak was back.
The oil leak seemed to be coming from the neutral sensor switch, and I had cleverly ordered a new o-ring seal, as well as all the other seals in that area. So I replaced the o-ring and thought my oil leak should be solved.
The clutch actuator was a puzzle, though. After some work with pliers to force the cable to stay in the correct position, the clutch lever would sometimes feel like it was working right, then suddenly go back to having a bunch of slack. I called my trusty Advisor For Things Mechanical, Les Green, over for some advice. He noticed that one of the thin metal tangs on the end of the ball bearing cage had fallen off, and one of the two remaining tangs was partly broken. So with some help from Les' impact driver, I took the actuator off to take a closer look at it. It seemed like the tang wasn't really an essential functional part. After all, as long as the actuator isn't turned very far, which in normal operation it is not, it shouldn't really matter whether the tangs were there or not.
So I put it back together, and now it seemed like the clutch actuator needed to be adjusted. After struggling to loosen the adjustment bolt, I went back to Les' pits where he pulled out the electric impact wrench and the bolt submitted. With a little adjustment, everything seemed to work out fine.
With all this mechanic-ing, I missed the second practice session, and just got things together in time to go out a minute or two late for the third practice session.
I'd taken it easy in the first session in order to scuff in the new front tire. The clutch "fix" seemed to be working fine, so now it was time to try to get back up to speed. But I couldn't seem to put a clean lap together, and I could tell I was missing some details after the long break in racing. I was forgetting to blip the throttle on the down-shifts, I wasn't getting off the bike before braking for turn 7, and lots of other little things. I tried to keep the list in my mind and start getting them all done each lap.
At the lunch break, I took the countershaft cover off for the what might have been the 10th time that day to see how my oil leak "fix" had done. Unfortunately, there was again a sheen of oil on the surfaces around the neutral sensor. But it still seemed to be coming from the neutral sensor, not from any of the other seals around there. Not sure what else I could do about it, I spent the rest of the weekend checking and occasionally wiping off the area.
There were two more practice sessions in the afternoon. I worked on details and felt like I made some progress.
Another warm and sunny day, the temperature eventually got above 85 degrees.
I did OK in the 450 Superbike qualifier, and I won the 450 Supersport qualifier.
I don't know if it was the steadily increasing sun and heat, or the long break from racing, or something else, but it seemed like nearly every race had several crashes, and there were, unfortunately, several long delays while the ambulance crew stabilized injured racers for transport to the hospital. From the news I heard, none of them will suffer permanent damage, which is good news. But our afternoon races were over an hour behind schedule, and I started to worry that my 450 Supersport main race, scheduled for 5:08, would be pushed past 6:30, and might not be run due to noise ordinances.
In the 450 Superbike main I had been erroneously assigned a grid position on the last row, so I was nearly at the back of the pack going in to turn 1. I passed a few bikes early on, then Rick, Rocky, and I all ended up together -- three FZR's in a row in the middle of all the SV's. After a couple laps, Rocky and I both passed Rick, then Rocky waved me by on the front straight.
I enjoyed some open track for a couple more laps. Then on lap seven I saw a couple SV's ahead and managed to catch and pass them. However, they must have been from the GP Twins class, not from 450 Superbike, because I only finished 13th of 19.
I felt like I got an OK start in the 450 Supersport main, but arrived at the braking markers behind Rocky, Geoff, and Rick. I passed Rick on the brakes and went underneath Geoff between turns 1 and 2. I followed Rocky for a few laps, then passed him on the back straight when he seemed to get a bad drive out of turn 4.
I pulled a gap on Rocky, and the rest of the race should have been an uneventful matter of staying ahead of him. Instead, on lap 6 the lead guys from the 650 Supersport Twins class began passing me. Three of them went by at various places on the track, then on lap 7 one of them nearly took me out in turn 1.
I had entered the turn on the normal racing line at my usual speed, unaware that anyone was close behind me. Just as I got the bike fully leaned over, a red SV streaked by on the inside of the turn on a near collision course with my front tire. Fortunately, he missed my tire by two feet or less and proceeded to run really wide. It all happened so fast that I didn't have time to get his number or anything, but there was a red SV parked outside turn 1 on the cool-down lap with the rider apparently "up and alright." I sure hope it was the same guy, getting the slide across the grass that he deserved for pulling such a bone-head move.
Thanks to Les Green for all the bike-fixing help. Again.
Thanks to all the OMRRA turn workers, registration folks, and other volunteers who made this OMRRA race and practice day possible.
Our neighbors the Palmers came out from Oceanside to watch the races, and gave Julie a ride. And Tony finally came out to watch a race! Unfortunately it was such a hot day and the ambulance delays were so long that it wasn't the best day for spectating.
Also, the Palmers took care of feeding Whisper when they returned to Oceanside, since Julie and I did not get back until almost ten o'clock.
Thanks to my sponsors Dunlop Motorcycle Tires, Inside Line and Lockhart-Philips USA. Thanks also to Eric Dorn of EDR Performance, and Ben too.
My most special sponsor is my wife, Julie!
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