I got invited by Short Bus Racing to race on their UMRA 24 hour team...
Silly, fun - and yeah, we're all seasoned racers and will probably get our asses handed to us by the teams with 12-14 year olds but hey, this is gonna be FUN in a month!
quote:
Short Bus Racing is proud to announce that we will be fielding a team in the UMRA 24hr race held at Grange Motor Circuit Sept 12-13 2015. We will be riding a 2014 Honda Grom provided by Peak Moto Racing.
The team riders are Andy Kenefick Tania "The She Wolf" Davidson Steve " Father" Slaughter Chris Page Tommy Bednash Roderick "Peak Moto" Saito
Its not to late to put together a team and join in the fun.
Info can be found on the UMRA Facebook page and on the UMRA 24HR event page
Just installed the JRI 4-way adjustable shock for testing last weekend. Ohlins forks internals not yet in hand.
Bike is amazing on controlling rear wheel spin on mid-turn and exit but the front is crap! We'd all push the front and it'd chatter badly. Trail braking was hard with almost no front damping.
Testing again in 2 weeks with new front and exhaust and some other bits and pieces removed and race tires. Traction on the stock tires was impossible.
This is SILLY great fun!
24 hour team race on 12 and 13 September! Got a good team together.
A FUN day Saturday! I'd like to announce that the Grom WORKS!
With the Ohlins internals and race rubber we could push the little beastie hard enough to make some REAL suspension adjustments. Andy Kenefick (team Manager/racer) ended up doing a couple tweaks to the JRI shock (reducing compression and increasing rebound damping) to where both Josh and I felt GOOD. The suspension and tires are amazing. Last time, we'd constant lose the front end - sliding while accelerating and serious wobble with the underdamped forks. Could only push is so hard, there was only so much that could be asked of the JRI shock with stock tires and forks.
When you consider that there's a solid 50 pounds difference between Josh Tootell and me, the suspension is now a good compromise for "Fat Man and Little Boy" (to steal from that movie by the same name). This is good because Joshua Tootell is a remarkably FIT triathlete... and Slaughter is remarkably... well, um... remarkably comfortable sitting in the shade, eating salty snacks... but the Grom handles really sweet for both of us! 24 hours?! BRING IT!
(Message edited by slaughter on September 07, 2015)
(Message edited by slaughter on September 07, 2015)
24 hours later, Short Bus Racing raced the equivalent mileage from LA to San Francisco and back - on 10 HP - averaging almost 40MPH on an exhaustingly technical track.
After my third shift in the saddle I attempted to lie down and sleep on the air mattress in the truck.
The rain started falling about 00:30 on Sunday and I couldn’t sleep – just ASSUMING that we’d start crashing and I'd be needed to help repair or fill in for injured rider. I thought I’d get out of bed but my arms weren’t working and legs were burning sore so I crawled and rolled over the edge of the truck bed and attempted to get my socks on… and just HURT. I finally got out of bed and went back to the pits to suit up and waited my next shift. I got the sunrise transition hour and fortunately the rising sun was obscured by the cloud cover and the rain had stopped an hour ago. They had to change the rear before I mounted up (pic in previous post) We’re talking a SHAGGED tire!
You really SHOULD consider mini-racing as CHEAP and incredibly fun! Check out UMRA
(and here I'd thought I had quit racing last season)
(Message edited by slaughter on September 14, 2015)
What I'm sure will come out in following articles is the problems they had with spring binding in the forks. They had to go back to stock springs in a pit stop and then because the front end was so much lower, they borrowed our STOCK rear shock so their bike wasn't so twitchy. All done DURING the race.
(Message edited by slaughter on September 26, 2015)
Posted on Saturday, September 26, 2015 - 12:07 pm:
The article did mention that the forks were "tweaked" in a practice crash so they had to go back to the stock springs (the aftermarket ones kept binding).