| Author | Message | ||
     Revelation320 |
Hi All, I'm new to the site and just wanted to say hi and introduce myself. My name is Chris and I just purchased my first Buell. To make a long story short I started working with Keith Thrash a couple of months ago, went out to Oak Hill Raceway and watched him have some fun on his Buell, and two weeks later I have a XB9R. And yes, Keith is as nice as he seems to be, he's garaging my bike until I move and get a garage of my own. Blake's a good guy too, hey Blake how ya doin? Anyway, the point of my starting this thread is to document my treck back to the track, I used to do a little racing on a Yamaha (am I allowed to use that kind of language here?) So, I have my bike, am starting to accumulate my gear, and will soon start on prepping the bike. I'll be posting pics when I can and tracking my expenditures so you know what it really costs. The overall goal is to spend as little money as possible, have some fun, win some races, and give all the glory to the Lord. If your interested in seeing an almost 50 something fat man give it another shot then check back once in a while and see how its going. I don't expect to enter a race until next year, but hoping to make a few track days before then. Appreciate your reading my post. God Bless You. | ||
| Babired |
Hey Chris I used to ride a Yamaha Seca 2 and before that an old Yamaha Virago it was the one the starter would wind up and down making me the last one to leave the parking lot. Good choice on the XB9R, if I had a dedicated track bike that would be it completely stock") I ride the Ulysses and an old X1 tuber and occassionally an XB9SX. Welcome K | ||
| Reepicheep |
Welcome Chris! Tracking expenses huh? That's scary.  My first bike was a Yamaha Radian. All in all, nothing special about any of the pieces, but all in all a pretty neat bike. I have a Kawasaki in the garage next to the XB9SX now... actually two Kawasaki's if you count one that is in a bunch of little zip lock bags. Good luck with the racing! Track days are a great safety investment for street riding, even if you never enter a race... Dirt bikes are in the same category, but cheaper then track days  . | ||
| Skully |
Chris is being way too modest. He drove more than an hour one way to help me go faster. His efforts paid off with a reduction of more than a second in my lap times. I'm within a second of my best time on my race prepped Honda F3. Thanks Chris! Keith | ||
| Revelation320 |
Thanks all for the nice comments. Here is a quick update: I haven't had a chance to touch the bike. Busy with work and were moving this weekend. Thanks again Keith for keeping the bike at your place and keeping the battery charged. I did make it to Oak Hill Raceway to get my racing license. Since I have previous racing experience they just let me take the written test. I had to get my license so I can ride the track when some of us locals rent it out. Hopefully we'll get out to the track in late October. Watched practice on Friday afternoon, looking forward to getting back out on the track. Plan for the first race date will be Feb 2010 at Oak Hill. Here are the costs so far: 2003 XB9R $3,200.00 gas to get the bike $100.00 racing license $50.00 Leathers (new) $231.50 ebay/Trackskinz Boots (used) $55.95 ebay/Setup gloves (used) $25.00 ebay/Icon Helmet (new) $140.00 Joe Rocket/Motorcycle Superstore Back Protector (new) 42.91 Total so far $3845.36 So far not too bad. I am very happy to be able to get all of my riding gear for less than $500.00. Not top of the line stuff but having tested riding gear (crashing) at a few racetracks I think that this gear will work out fine. The leathers were a real surprise, much nicer than I thought they would be. If you need some leathers give trackskinz a look. What's next: Need to fix a leaking fork seal, going to upgrade the fork springs at the same time. Would like to revalve the forks but we'll see how the stock valves work first. Work stands, front and rear. Strip off the lights and other street stuff that I don't need on the track. Safety wire, lots of drill bits. The plan is to get the bike track ready and take it out for a track day and see how we do. More concerned with handling than horsepower right now, especially at Oak Hill which is a tight track without a long straight. Check back for more updates. Appreciate y'all. God bless. | ||
| Skully |
Chris, Hopefully we are still on to rent OHR on the 24th! Hopefully, the weather will cooperate. Keith | ||
| Skully |
Well, Chris got started Saturday morning by tearing the XB9R down and stripping off every non-essential item. It would be interesting to weigh the box of parts and see how much weight was removed.  He planned on replacing the fork springs but the news ones don't seem to be the correct length or ID.  At any rate, we are headed to Oak Hill Raceway Saturday morning for a shake-down. It looks like the weather is going to be perfect! Keith | ||
| Skully |
Saturday, the weather here in East Texas was perfect! Mid-40s in the morning and mid-70s in the afternoon. This is a typical day at Oak Hill Raceway:  If you are a licensed road racer, you can rent the track for $75/day! After a few laps on his new Buell, Chris made huge strides with lower lap times:  DarkHorseMoto sliders really do work:  *sigh* Only in Texas:  Keith | ||
| Revelation320 |
Thanks for the pix Keith! Well, we rented the track at Oak Hill on 10/24 and it was awesome. What started out as a cool foggy morning quickly turned out to be a fantastic sunny fall day with temps in the 70's. Keith brought out a set of his very nice DARK HORSE MOTO sliders for my rear axle. I fit these up right away so that I could use the spool feature with my T-Rex stand. I would explore the further uses of these sliders later in the day. There was just three of us riding at the track for the whole day, myself, Keith, and another friend Steve who has like a million laps at Oak Hill. We were joined in the paddock throughout the day by various friends, Blake even made it by for a while. Keith, Steve, our friend Kyle and his kids went around the track in Steve's pickup to sweep off any dirt and make sure the track was in good shape. While they were doing this I took the opportunity to do some last minute checks on my bike and get my gear on. A minute after they pulled back into the paddock I took the Buell out on the track. No excuses, I was dog slow all day. But I had an absolute blast! I had hoped to be right back up to speed, but that just wasn't in the cards. I guess that with ten years without being on a bike at all it's going to take more than one day to get back even a bit of the old form. So, there was a lot of tweaking on the bike suspension and tire pressures. I hadn't bought new race rubber and in retrospect maybe I should have. I was also having a lot of problems coming to grips with the front brakes and forks. The old fork seal leak may have put more oil on the rotor than I thought, the front brake was pulsing really bad, but it did improve as the day went on. The fork seal leak came back and was oiling the right side of the front tire. We decided to tie wrap a paper shop towel on the fork tube and this kept the oil off of the tire and brakes for the rest of the day. Third session of the day and finally I feel like I'm starting to get down to business, at least I quit getting lapped by Keith every other lap (at least that's what it felt like). So my man Steve, who is riding a ZX6 slows down to tow me around the track and show me the fast line. I pounce on this opportunity and immediately start missing shifts, brake markers, turn points, and everything else I had tried to learn so far this day. While I'm trying to hang with Steve I decided that the best way to repay Keith's kind offering of his sliders earlier in the day would be to give them a test. Here's the set up, coming out of turn 6 the track bends slightly to the left and is uphill to turn 7, which is a decreasing radius left-hander that ends up being a very tight (read slow) corner. I had been approaching turn 7 a bit aggressively using a classic double apex (read Twist Of The Wrist if you would like more detail). This lap, I hit the first apex and whack the throttle harder than I had been to get to the second apex. I had been trail braking pretty heavy into this apex already and as I approach the turn it looks to me like Steve has parked right on my line. I know this was just an illusion on my part, but I was also sure that if I tried to power out of the corner I would certainly collect Steve's rear wheel. I didn't like the idea of standing the bike up and running off the track because I didn't think that braking on the grass would allow me to stop before the tire barrier. So, I turned in harder and applied more brake. The front end tucked so fast that I was testing the hardness of East Texas asphalt with my faceshield, chest, and palms before I knew it. I slid less than twenty feet and ended up off the track in the grass just in front of the bike. I hopped up really pissed at myself. I waved at Steve as he went by on the front straight going the other way then turned around and gave Keith a thumbs up as he idled by. My hand hurt so I looked at my gloves and the extra padding on the palms of both gloves had been torn off. I took the gloves off and there was not a scratch on my hands. I tried to pick up the bike and I couldn't. Steve stopped on his next time by (he still had his sidestand on his bike) asked if I was OK and helped me with my bike. A couple of pokes at the starter button and the Buell started right back up as if nothing had happened. I jumped back on and slowly went down the track and back to the paddock. We put the bike on the pit stands to assess the damage: Bent left handlebar, ground down some of the shift linkage hardware, slightly bent shift lever, scratches to the upper fairing, minor nick on the frame (no frame sliders, stupid of me), and really ground up the nice new slider that Keith had given me. If you don't have a set of these sliders get em quick, they will save a lot of expensive parts on your bike. See the Dark Horse Moto link on Bad Web. I scuffed up all of my gear expect for my back protector, so much for new gear. It all worked great, I realize this was a slow speed crash, but dive face first out of your car at 20 MPH and see how it works out. Well, the curse is off my gear and bike now. I retightened the slider (it had spun loose a bit from being drug on the pavement) and pounded the left handlebar end back in place. After that it was out for another session. I didn't push that last session, just needed to get back on the horse. A handful of laps and I was happy again. So I left the track Saturday evening with three thoughts: 1. Oak Hill is a fantastic racetrack. If you think that you are fast come to Oak Hill. Not extremely high speed, but very technical, and a real thrill to ride. It will test your skills by throwing a bit of everything at you. 2. The Buell XB9R is a really neat motorcycle and just exactly what I was looking for. Not overly fast or powerful, but reasonable, and it will be just fine for the classes I want to run at Oak Hill. I have owned more than a few motorcycles and once I get the handling sorted out I believe the Buell will become my all time favorite replacing my FZR 400. 3. If you've seen On Any Sunday you'll understand, If you haven't go get a copy and watch it. Whether it's on the road, trail, or track. Riding with friends is what it is all about. Until next time... |
