A Good Season Opener at Roebling Road!

Its been a little while since the last post but I have not been idle.   A little client work and some volunteer machining for the Cooper Union FASE team has kept me a little busy.  I did manage to get a race weekend in and am getting back on Hypermono design ASAP.

After the past couple of events with the bike not running, I was a little reluctant to pack up and ship out to Roebling Road, near Savannah, Georgia, for an early season race weekend.  The bike has been troublesome lately.......  Since Peter's Dynojet dyno was back in working condition, a little dyno work on the injection maps was little more than wheeling the bike 20 feet to the dyno room.  For the first few runs it was running bretty badly.  The AF sensor was out of range and the bike was not cooperating.  A little imagination, some internet searching, and some excel cut and paste got me to a decently running map.

The bike still breaks up here and there but in general it was a big improvement on the previous map with partial mapping not being a light switch anymore.

The long ride from NYC to Savannah was pretty uneventful with Jamie taking driving duties while Kerry and I swapped out co-piloting and pointing out Cracker Barrel locations.

Thursday morning we were greeted by a cold rainy day.  I usually don't mind wet riding but when temps are in the 40s I have to draw the line.  We all rescheduled our practice day to Friday, I did a little fiberglass patchwork to repair transport damage, and they we hit the road back to our AirBnB.  Had a good diner followed by some drinks at the Pinky Masters with some of Kerry's friends, who made another appearance at the end of the weekend.

Friday was also cold, but no rain so we waited out the cold and did a few afternoon sessions to shake the cobwebs out.  Unfortunately, I had lots of cobwebs and would spend the rest of the weekend trying to get out from under them.  Jamie's mother arrived midway through the day and was a welcome paddock guest.

Saturday greeted us with a layer of frost on everything in the pits.

Morning practice was again written off as we huddled in the sprinter with the heat on.  Lunch was provided by Jamie's mom, which was greatly appreciated.  The afternoon warmed up a little and as I lined up on the race was ruing my lack of practice.  The race was uneventful but as the laps wound down felt better and better on the bike.  Roebling is a weird track, there is not much braking, and none of it hard.  I was coming to the end of the main straight at about 125mph or so and hitting the brakes, then realizing that I didn't have to.  Lap after lap this went on as I struggled to get into a decent groove.  All too soon the race was over and I was left wanting more.

Sunday was pretty much a carbon copy of Saturday.  Cold, cold morning and slightly better afternoon.  Did some more laps feeling slow, then a couple that were maybe not slow, then the checkered flag flew and the weekend was done.

Overall, I was satisfied to finally get the bike on the track for some trouble-free running.  If not for the cold weather, I would have had a lot more track time and had a better chance of getting back into the racing groove.  As it is, I was satisfied to have done both races with no bike problems.

I was so happy with how the season opened that as we met up with Kerry's friends at Riverside Tattoo Parlor I decided a tattoo was in order.  There was no peer pressure involved.  Lauren did a great job slightly adapting my logo to a tattoo and inking it on my skin forever.

Now to think of what tattoo #2 will be.

Will have some more posts on the Hypermono coming soon, finalizing some main engine parameters and ordering long lead-time parts.