Brian's Race Report from Las Vegas Classic

4/30/05 - 5/1/05 Las Vegas, NV

Well, a lot has happened since the last time I rode or raced my motorcycle. Specifically, two months passed and 3 race weekends I had to miss. That meant that out of my teammates, I was the most out of riding shape. I knew this weekend would be a challenge, but I really like the Vegas Classic Course track and wanted/expected to do well there.

Before Vegas, I wanted to do some work on my motorcycle. Specifically, I wanted to finally mount the new bodywork I got from Cheetah, and I wanted to buy and install a slipper clutch, which I had been saving for a long time to afford. I planned to paint the bodywork myself with rattle can paint, but that paint job turned out terrible despite my best efforts. You could see stripes all over it. I decided to suck it up and have a professional do the painting, so I called up Taz at Slow Poke Paint Works in Las Vegas. I have seen some of his paint work on Dale Kiefer's bikes and really like it. Taz was nice enough to trade me tanks so I could keep my tank and use it (i.e. ride my bike) while Taz was painting my bodywork and his tank. I shipped my bodywork off to Taz the Monday before Vegas along with specific design instructions on how I wanted it to look. More on that later.

The other thing I wanted to do was install a slipper clutch and test it at the TEAM Arizona track day before Vegas. Mike, Tom and I bought slipper clutches from JTR Corse USA for our bikes at a great group buy price, but the Suzuki clutches did not fit at all (Tom's was fine). We had to return them and Mike and I scrambled to find slippers elsewhere but none were in stock anywhere. It didn't look like I'd have a slipper clutch in time for Vegas :-( Despite the slipper clutch not coming in, I had already committed to work a corner with Gary, so I rode 2 sessions as well. Man, I was OUT OF SHAPE and riding terrible. I don't like Firebird West, but I still wasn't riding well at all. Not a good sign for Vegas.

Mike and I decided to try and save some money and stay in his RV at the track in Las Vegas (the jury is still out on the saving money part -- gas is expensive). I was glad to do this as I think it's much more convenient and effective to stay at the track on race weekends....less distractions. Tom and Pat were staying at a hotel with the guys from Section 8 Superbike (Jason and Matt -- flew down just to race with us!) and Rian (who was working in our pits again thankfully). Mike and I planned to leave at noon on Thursday to make it to Vegas in time to get good sleep before the track day on Friday, but work kicked into full gear that morning and I made us late 1 hour in leaving. Oh well. The good thing was that Gianni was able to track down 2 slipper clutches from Yoyodyne for us, and Fred from Yoyodyne agreed to ship them overnight to Vegas! Thanks Gianni! You are the man! After 5 1/2 hour drive, including a food and RV stop, we made it to the track and took up our position in line outside the track along with Tom Boge, Gianni, Ted Rich, John Jewett and others. A big key to having a good race weekend is to get a good pit spot. Being first (or near the front) in line really helps, so Thursday night sucked as we played the inch forward game vs. the security guards in an effort to be first in line without getting kicked out by security. After sneak attacks at midnight, 2 am and 4 am, we were 2nd in line.

Friday morning we got into the track and started setting up our pit. Things didn't exactly work out as planned for reserving pit spots, but there's only so much you can control. I had finally bought a 2nd set of wheels, so I immediately took my wheels to Dale at Racer's Edge pit to have new Michelins mounted. I was going to ride my existing used tires for 1/2 the day and then put new rubber on for the 2nd half + racing Saturday. I immediately felt much better on the track than I had the weekend before at the track day, which was good. All my mental preparation helped. I rode around and didn't really go fast, but I felt good. I was still about 2 seconds off my fastest time from last year on my RC51 (a slower, heavier bike). While riding, I started noticing a problem shifting my bike. I tried changing the shift lever angle, using the clutch, and other things. Nothing seemed to help much. Around noon, Taz showed up with my freshly painted bodywork, and it looked great....exactly as I had asked him to do it. I was excited, but decided to wait until after the track day to mount it.

At about 3pm, I left the track and drove to Racer's Edge to pick up our Yoyodyne slipper clutched that had been overnighted. When I got back to the pits, I took a while and traded gas tanks with Taz (gave him my old one in exchange for the one he painted for me) and mounted my new bodywork. AWESOME! Then, after some BS'ing with the other racers pitted next to us (like Gianni, Boge and Ted), Mike and I started on the job of installing the new slipper clutch into my bike. I have to give a ton of thanks to Mike for essentially doing all the work. I helped, but he's the one who knew what he was doing and led things. That Yoyodyne slipper clutch is so awesome that we had zero issues getting it installed, except for one small deviation. We assumed that the clutch pack should be installed per the OEM specs from the service manual, so we put the new Vesrah clutch pack in as the manual said. No leaks and the bike passed it's parking lot test, so I assumed I was good to go. Only thing left to do was figure out the issue with shifting.

Saturday morning, I got up and went out to first practice...the only practice of the day. The clutch felt AWESOME! I LOVE that thing! After practice, I got a call from Fred at Yoyodyne who explained that the order of clutch plates should be changed around because the 2 steel discs can fall down between the hub and basket when it separates (i.e. slips) if you do it per OEM specs. Once again I had to take the clutch apart to switch the order of the clutch plates. Luckily it was much simpler this time as the hub didn't have to come out. Unfortunately, I was in too much of a rush trying to make my races that I put the case cover back on and tore the gasket. I saw the leak and bought Mike's spare gasket, fixed it up and got everything together without a leak with plenty of time to spare. The shifting problem was still there but I started debugging exactly when/where and figured out that it was only when going into 4th gear, and usually only when coming onto the front straight where the RPMs are maxed entering 4th gear. Still, I had no idea what that meant...

In my Saturday races, I had some great battles with Eric Pelley, who is really stepping up this year. He was riding well. He nipped me to the line in 3 of my 4 races for the day, so I was frustrated with that. I was also pretty annoyed that I was only able to improve my times from last year by 1 second. Tom was kicking my butt and Mike was nipping at my heels, while Pat was recovering (mentally and physically) from crashing in New Mexico. By the end of the day I felt like I was riding better and harder, but going slower. My tires felt like mush, so I switched out the rear for the last race of the day, and once again dropped my times, but still only 1 second faster than last year. I was stuck at mid 1:25 times. These new Michelin PR2/PR5 tires are awesome, but they don't seem to last very long. I can't afford to go through tires like that. Maybe this is a symptom of getting faster, or maybe it's the new PR2/PR5 tires. I heard that they are great for one race and then fade, but I don't know how true that is. In addition to the tire problem, I could not get into 4th gear at all. I think I made it into 4th about 2 times out of 8 laps. I talked with a few people and all of the knowledgeable people I asked seem to think I have a bent shift fork. That really sucks because if I let it get worse, the dogs on the gears will start rounding and the bike will pop out of gear. Also, it's a lot of work to replace a bent shift fork. At the end of the day, I talked with Chris Gilbert who recommended that I short shift going into 4th gear and use the clutch. I decided to try that Sunday and try riding the bike through it.

On Sunday, I mounted a new front to go with the 1 race old rear from Sunday and hoped for the best. I figured I'd push hard in the first race while the tires were in their prime. Unfortunately, in the last race of Saturday, my friend Eric went off the track in the 140mph knee down sweeper and messed up his bike. He would be unable to match his times from Saturday and left me all alone on the track with no-one to battle. I tend to do worse when I don't have a carrot in front of me, or the impending doom of someone catching me. I was not able to even match my pace from Saturday, which was probably 1/3 to do with the tire situation, 1/3 to do with the shifting issue, and 1/3 to do with my mental issues. Chris's idea about short shifting into 4th gear seemed to work about 1/2 the time, so I was able to get into 4th gear 1/2 the laps, which helped lap times. In one of my races, I was all alone and wanted to save my tires, so I rode easy on them only to find out that Mike almost caught me (I still had faster times ;-p )! I think that was the impending doom scenario I needed (no offense Mike), so I really kicked my own butt for the last race of the day. I mounted my 3rd rear tire for the weekend and went out there to set the world on fire. I ran my best times of the weekend, at the 1:25.2 mark. Still not my goal, but a good note to end on. Thanks for kicking my butt into gear Mike!

In the end, I ended up with a bunch of 6-9th place finishes (I did 8 races). In my best race on Saturday, I actually ran 1:25 times (respectable) and took last place!! I didn't realize last year how competitive the expert ranks were in the big bike races! I'm going to have to step up if I want to get out of the basement. The next expert I needed to catch was probably within 1.5 seconds of me.

All in all, this was a great weekend minus the bent shift fork. No-one from our group crashed, and I don't know of anyone at all getting hurt this weekend (although I'm sure I didn't see all the crashes). Kane Lasky had a spectacular crash on the start/finish line where he looped his bike while in the lead, but I didn't see it as I was in that race. He immediately mounted his backup bike (a 600) and spanked the field of 1000's from the back row on the restart! (he was DQ'd later) Brian Short had a wheelie issue of his own on the start (pics in the gallery). Brian Land was freakin amazingly fast out there, especially as a first year expert. Josh Herron put on a show and proved he's going to be a force in racing (he's only 14 years old!) by beating Kane in a close battle and then persevering through an incident later where he got ran off the track, came back in last place (by like 1/2 a lap) and got back by most of the racers (including the guy who shoved him off). Mike had an amazing weekend, winning 5 or 6 races, including ALL of his races Sunday!!! I watched 2 guys crash right next to me, 1 run off the track at 140 mph, and saw Tom pull a crazy endo to avoid rear ending a guy at the beginning of a race right in front of me. Tom also had a great save when his tip over sensor fell off causing him to run off course, and he witnessed an attempted "punt". It was a fun weekend, but I was glad to finally be going home to my wife and my baby boy.

I want to give a HUGE special thanks to Mike for driving us there, letting me sleep in his RV, paying for 1/2 the gas in that beast, putting up with me, helping me install my clutch (2 times!), and pushing me on the track. Thanks man! You dominated out there!

I also want to thank Tom and Pat for towing our bikes there and all the other stuff they help with race in and race out. Thanks to Rian for the pit work. Thanks to Gianni for not snoring in the RV. Thanks to Tom Boge for the midnight phone calls (PUNK!) and stickers. Thanks to Jason and Matt for not wadding up Pat and Mike's bikes. Thanks to Tom for spanking me on the track (you're the carrot now old man). Thanks to Kane for the freakin hilarious stories! Thanks to everyone else who came by and said hi, hung out, etc. (Stone, Embury, Rich, Eric, etc)

Lastly, thanks to the sponsors who help us out. Vesrah, Vortex, Motorex USA, Sidi, VaporBlue, Desert Truss, Savoca Construction, LP Team Privateer, Chicken Hawk, Speedymoto, Section 8 Superbike, All Out Graphics, Helmet Harbor and Pipe City.

On Thursday, we fly out to Barber for 2 days of track riding, so I am super excited! I am going to try and ride through the bent shift fork issue and then I'll have to figure out when/how to get that bent shift fork fixed.

Cya later.

Brian Kirkland #34