Race Report

Round 6 of the WMRC Series saw us competing on a Wednesday, which was weird. But I guess it’s a little hard to book Mission Raceway on weekends during the summer, so a Canada Day Wednesday race it was to be. I had just taken the lead in the championship the previous round, the weather was set to be excellent, and my GSXR has been running well so I was stoked to do some racing.

Since my wife Christi wasn’t able to come down for the day I figured I’d just camp out in my trailer for the evening. Luckily she still had influence though, as she suggested I take a second blanket on my way out the door....... and I needed it. How did I survive this long without her?

I was also on my own for running the wrenches for the day too. It was a pretty open schedule for me though, so it wasn’t too hard to keep up. Morning warm-up went fine enough, giving me a chance to remember which way the track went, and blowing some cobwebs out and all.

Pro Superbike race #1 was first up for me. I was starting from pole position as I was the current points leader and got off the line decently. However, on the run to the braking zone I had the GSXR-1000 of Ken Lalonde start to motor by me on my GSXR-750. Just as he got his handlebar in front of mine he started to pull in front of me and immediately hit the brakes! I wasn’t planning on beginning braking for the first turn for another little while, so we clashed handlebars quite violently with him on the brakes and my throttle wide open. It was of no consequence though, as we both kept the bikes upright. I managed to get into the first turn in the lead and started up setting the pace. Part way through the race though I started to chase the front wheel around. I recently have changed tire compounds on the front, and was wondering if Mission Raceway and my front Supercorsa Pro weren’t cooperating. I had to back off my pace a bit to make sure I kept the bike underneath me, but still managed to limp it home for the win.

For race #2 of Pro Superbike I decided to make the switch back to a tire compound I was more familiar with, in hopes it would return the front grip to what I was accustomed to. I managed to get the holeshot once again, and started out the race in the lead. Right away this time all the symptoms of the poor handling front end were there, and worse. It was literally unrideable on the brakes, with the rear wheel hopping and bouncing around going into every turn on the track. I can’t count the number of times I slid the front through the middle of the turns, sometimes more than once per turn! It was an incredibly frustrating race, one that I knew I had a very slim chance of winning, despite holding onto the lead. There was no way I could leave my competitors behind, so they were all over me just waiting for me to make a mistake. Late in the race I missed a shift and that’s all it took. I managed to hang onto second to the line, but there just wasn’t anything I could do to work back into the lead. Any passing at Mission Raceway has to be done on the brakes, and that’s precisely where my bike was handling poorly.

After the race I noticed that the travel indicator of the fork was showing that I wasn’t using the last 35mm of travel, and normally it is right down at the bottom. I was seriously perplexed, and more than a little concerned as my next event is up in Edmonton for rounds 3 and 4 of the Western Canadian Championship. As I wouldn’t be back in the states prior to then I wouldn’t have a chance to get my forks to GP Suspension to have them checked out. My buddy Geoff Klassen here in Kamloops has the proper tools and knows motorcycle forks fairly well, and suggested we pull them apart to see if anything was wrong.

As soon as we go to pull the first cartridge out it was immediately obvious something was very wrong. Turns out the bottoming rubber bumpers got crushed from me bottoming the forks so violently so many times. Normally they attach to the dampening rod and move with it in and out of the cartridges through the travel. When they crushed they mushroomed out and got wedged into the cartridges on both forks. Now the dampening rods were sliding inside the bumpers causing some serious resistance and friction. That was the cause of the pushing front end through the middle of the turns. And because they were wedged in place they limited the fork travel to only about 60% of its normal stroke. That was the cause of the ill-handling chassis on the brakes. So we turfed the rubber bumpers and put it back together without them. We’ve installed them with some extra fork oil level in hopes of keeping them off the bottom for the races in Edmonton, Alberta.

I’ve got to say a huge thanks to my buddy Geoff. Although there was nothing we could do about the lost chances in Mission, at least I’m not travelling up to Edmonton with the forks still buggered like I would if it wasn’t for him! Despite my mechanical challenges my finishes of 1st and 2nd in the championship deciding classes helped to build my lead. Considering what I went through, and how badly the bike was working, I’m very happy to have added to my lead through it all. I expect a much improved result next time out.

I’m off to the Western Canadian Championships in northern Alberta now. I’ve never seen the track before. In fact, I google’d it today to figure out if it went left or right! We’ll see what I can do there. I understand it’s a very tight and technical track that’s quite hard to pass at. I’ll have to start from last as I’m only a visiting rider, so it could be a pretty interesting first few turns. I generally get pretty good starts, so I’ll be counting on drawing on that come race day. Stay tuned and wish me luck!