Round 3, HPR, June 11-12

Progress! I worked with Dave Rose all weekend starting on Friday to get the suspension set up right for the Continentals. I still had some trouble with the soft compounds, but I did get closer to the pace that I want to be running. Got second in Thunderbike on Sunday as well as a 4th in Heavyweight Superbike. Still got more work to do. My motor is done and ready to go in the bike, so it'll be in there for Pueblo barring any dyno mishaps... Some picks that Roberta took. Thanks Ro! Sorry for the short post...

Round 2, May 21-22, PPIR

Well, round 2 was at Pikes Peak International Raceway. A lot of people are not into racing this track as it's a NASCAR oval with a real short infield track. Last year I had a really good weekend at PPIR so my hopes were high. Unfortunately things didn't quite come together as I'd like. I struggled a little with grip from the rear tire and my confidence wasn't where it really needed to be. Friday practice was pretty uneventful, spent most of the day getting used to the track and trying to set the bike up for the fairly slippery track.

Saturday, with confidence down, I pushed on and got a 8th in Middleweight Supersport, and 5th in Heavyweight Supersport.
Sunday was only marginally better. I got a 4th in Thunderbike and 5th in Heavyweight Superbike.

Now it's time to work on getting the new motor all together for round 3 back at HPR.

Round 1, HPR, May 7-8

OK, here's the full rundown... A month before the first weekend of the season I decided that I really did need to go through the motor, after being in denial of it all winter. I'm an idiot for not doing it last November, if I had I would not have had such a f-ed up weekend... but anyway. So I spent the money that I didn't have budgeted for and freshened the motor. It promptly sucked a valve on the dyno and blew up less than one week from the opening weekend. Catastrophic failure equalling I now have to find a whole new motor. Lucky for me Fish had to miss the first two rounds so he loaned me his bike. I decided it was better to run just his motor rather than his whole bike, so I got it out and into my bike and all hooked up, finishing this task at like midnight on Thursday night before the Friday practice day. I got to the track late on Friday morning and decided to just run the afternoon session since I was late anyway. First my rear tire warmer didn't work, so I had to borrow a warmer (thanks Tracy and Swift!), then the damn wind picked up and destroyed my canopy. I finally got on track and started making some suspension adjustments to get the bike dialed in for the new fork internals and new Continental tires. By the end of the day Friday the bike felt pretty good even though the lap times were not. Saturday morning came and practice was going ok till the last session and the bike stuttered on my on the the track. I thought it was strange, but it really only did it once or twice. But then in the Middleweight Supersport race it was full on dying on me mid corner and almost dumping me off the bike, so I pulled off track. So, I got a DNF. I thought I'd found and fixed the problem, a loose ground on the battery terminal, before the Heavyweight Supersport race, but I was wrong. Two laps in and it was shutting dying again so I pulled into the pits before it threw me off. Another DNF. What I did find was a loose ground from the main harness to the frame, and that was the problem. Sunday morning I ran the first practice and the bike was fine, no more dying mid corner. While getting ready for the second practice session I ran into some pretty fierce stomach problems and missed the whole session. Thunderbike was at about noon and with very little practice time for Sunday, it was time to just go. This is the class that I wanted to chase points in and run up front. I made my way up to second and that was where I finished. Considering how the weekend had been going, I was happy to be on the podium. I raced Heavyweight Superbike later that afternoon and took a fourth.
So the weekend ended ok after being a complete mess up until Thunderbike.






I'll have Fish's motor for the next round a PPIR and hopefully after that I'll have another motor built and ready to go in.

Here's a few shots of my brother Chris tearing around on his Honda from the weekend too!




Gotta give some thanks:
Th'ink Tank Tattoo, Johnny Burr and the Walnut Room, Illegal Pete's, Kevin, Mike and the guys over at Foothills Triumph, Bart at Faster, Rob at Lithium, Mike at HardCore Racing, Norm at Snug Harbor for the Puma boots, Garry at EBC Brakes, Nick at Woodcraft, Dave, Biff, Rodney and all the SpeedMetal crew, Brad at Von Zipper, Anders at Scull Candy, the whole MRA staff and crew, my very patient wife Lacy, my brother Chris, and the one dude who made me being able to even run this weekend possible- Fish. Thank you brother!

Pictures by John Chadwick

From high to low

After spending the last month tearing down my 675 motor and building it all back up to freshen it up (main bearings, piston rings, etc.) it went in for the dyno runs to break it in and map it. The result is now I have a really heavy paperweight.


Anybody got a 675 motor for a good price?
Bummed out.

Banquet and the final end to the 2010 season

Lacy recorded my uncomfortable speech at the banquet, here's the video. Also, check out what Triumph USA gave me! Thanks TRIUMPH!!!


2010 was great!

End of the season promo pic

Rosie over at Th'ink Tank designed this bad ass promo pic for me to give out to all the sponsors. Came out sick! Thanks Rosie!!!

Sweet! Recognition from Triumph USA!

The guys over at Foothills Triumph/BMW have helped me out for 3 years now and there support has been tremendous in keeping me going. When I won the AmU championship this year they passed the good news on to Triumph USA and what do you know, they put me in there newsletter that goes out to all the dealerships and everyone else on there mailing list. Unfortunately they used a picture from the last round when the bike and all my gear was all wrecked from the Pueblo crash, but oh well. Check it out:
Triumph News
Thanks Foothills!!