Slaughter's April Race Report

[Slaughter]

Veni, Vidi, cidi

loosely translated from the Latin as:

I came, I saw, I fell (and bent the piss outta the front end in turn 6 during Saturday practice)

_________

I'll be posting more - and yeah, pushing it up in practice can cause machinery to get bent! Right now, life has become all about getting both bikes together. The poor SV ready for Willow and the Muell ready for the 6-hour in Fon-Tucky in June. Gotta do something or I'm not gonna have anything to race in 3 weeks!

[harbiho]

What??????

No lions and zebras?:D

[GMAN]

Bummer, man. Though, I take it you're ok? What exactly happened?

[Slaughter]

Originally posted by GMAN
Bummer, man. Though, I take it you're ok? What exactly happened?

COLD TIRES!!!

3 of us agreed to go out together and play on the last practice session on Saturday and this was lap 1 (no tire warmers either)

Coming out of turn 5 (Left), normally you try to set your line for a late apex so your exit has you setup for 6 (Right) without having to lean the bike over too far. This is because you start your back-straight drive really out of 5 and 6 drops out from under you.

6 is up and over right turn and you're accelerating as hard as you can and it drops away from you out of 6. No problem if you're not leaning too hard but...

Exiting 5, there was a guy moving REALLY slow and I was coming up on him too fast to brake hard before 6 so I changed my line through 6 meaning I was leaned over much more than I would have liked and when I bottomed coming out of 6 leaned over that far, the front end tucked. Running on warm tires, it wouldn't have given me a second thought - even first lap with tire warmers. STOOOPID! Pretty mild low-side actually but I didn't realize the forks were bent until I went back through tech after thinking I had everything fixed.

As I said, I was looking for a reason to put on a set of rearsets. Now I just gotta get the fork lowers straightened and I'm racing in 2 weeks.

Bodywork is REALLY ratty now!

[GMAN]

Originally posted by Slaughter
Exiting 5, there was a guy moving REALLY slow and I was coming up on him too fast to brake hard before 6 so I changed my line through 6 meaning I was leaned over much more than I would have liked and when I bottomed coming out of 6 leaned over that far, the front end tucked.


Ugh. Sounds like my last lowside. :(

[Tillers_Rule]

Well, at least you had fun

[Rudeboy]

good luck man. kinda dumb though to be pushin it without being warmed up!!! That'll do it.

[Kurt'sSV]

Originally posted by Rudeboy
good luck man. kinda dumb though to be pushin it without being warmed up!!! That'll do it.

Easier said than done. Even in practice the adrenalin flows pretty hard. Slaughter likes to talk like he's some slow guy who doesn't know what he's doing out there, but in reality, he's no slouch. The old dude's got balls. When he can keep the rubber side down, he goes pretty fast.

[Slaughter]

Thanks Kurt but you gotta admit it was STILL kinda dumb.

First lap crasshing on cold rubber. That is the kinda stuff that I make fun of other people doing so I suppose this is karmic payback.

Well, at least the ratbike will be racing in a couple weeks.

[Rudeboy]

Originally posted by Kurt'sSV
Easier said than done. Even in practice the adrenalin flows pretty hard. Slaughter likes to talk like he's some slow guy who doesn't know what he's doing out there, but in reality, he's no slouch. The old dude's got balls. When he can keep the rubber side down, he goes pretty fast.

I'm definitely not trying to bag on anyone. I've got respect for anyone out there.

that was a cool race report by the way... but as much as it does suck to not have serious $$, you can definitely still enjoy what you are doing. (like you seem to do, that's cool) Yesterday I cleaned my car with my push broom 'cause I wouldn't buy a scrubber... that and I used dish soap made for a midly amusing car wash. Anyway... good luck with the rest of the season.

[Slaughter]

Mike,

I didn't take offense at all! I am the FIRST person to bag on somebody for what I consider stupid mistakes so I just have to be willing to take it if I want to dish it out!!

I think if people read about how freaking BAD the traction is on cold tires, it's all for the better - aint just a racing thing as you well know!

Hope this month's report is about a SUCCESSFUL weekend! Sheesh, I'm tired of busting up my right foot!

The Buell is being finished for the 6-hour race and MIGHT be at the track too. That will make me eligible for 5 race classes (right now am racing 4) AND the Saturday night SOLO 50-mile races - makes for a busy weekend.

[Kurt'sSV]

Originally posted by Slaughter


The Buell is being finished for the 6-hour race and MIGHT be at the track too.

Dude, your Buell has had the longest post crash rebuild EVER!

[Slaughter]

Originally posted by Kurt'sSV
Dude, your Buell has had the longest post crash rebuild EVER!

Something about money... :(

In order to make it Formula USA competitive (sorta) to where a real racer isn't embarrassed to race it, I have sunk a TON of money into the beast.

The cool thing is that we picked up (at this time) some legitimate sponsors.

Now I have to be willing to be a real team owner and let other racers ride it in the F-USA in Vegas in September - depending on what their sponsors allow.

Gonna be an interesting motor scooter - except the frame, there's NOTHING that hasn't been modified - and I mean NOTHING.

We have been putting together the Lavin-Yurassov team and I've been hustling my ass off trying to get it to where it'll be a stand-alone team to see if we can run the whole F-USA series next year. Depends on schedules of 2 riders and one sponsor...

Fingers crosses.

[RacR4JC]

hey steve, how was 'vegas? i'm there on tuesday for spencer's school

[Slaughter]

Sorry I read this so late.

We raced the Classic Course - setout for 1.7 miles. I liked it after a few sessions but it's flat as a pool table. Couple odd turns but no real surprises EXCEPT I never got used to how fast you could hit T1!

Wish I had more seat time before the weekend and because of that, I used the 3 days more like intense track days.

I ran on my leftover tires from the 6-hour - which were TOO HARD and would never hook-up - even with tire warmers and after 10 laps. Some of the factory guys looking at them said it was nuts using them but I explained that I was broke and the tires are already paid for - whatchya gonna do? Tires were D208GPA - medium compound front, HARD rear. NEED SLICKS!

[oren]

Originally posted by Slaughter
NEED SLICKS!

Don't you need a bike before tires? :D