2010 National BEARS Rd 5

Race report for the final round of National BEARS 2010.

The final round was at Phillip Island on 3/4 December 2010. I went into the meeting 20 points behind Glen Bauder, my major competitor for the title.


Race 1
The new exhaust pipe changes certainly have effected the bottom end, and my normal launch RPM just barely gets me mobile… Damn. It feels like the entire field passes by turn one. I over take four by the exit and another two before the drive to southern loop. Ahead of me Paul Coleman is struggling to get his Aprilia Tuona turning well. I get out driven to Honda by a 675 Triumph and am not close enough to attack on the brakes. Ahead I can see my title rival Glen Bauder steadily making progress away from me. A bad drive out of Siberia and Tarquin HOR on a 675 passes me in the Hayshed. Keeping the gas on out of here I repass him with ease on the entry to Lukey heights. I try to line up a wide tight move on Coleman into MG, but this does not come off, with the db1 not turning how I'd like under brakes.
First time over the line and Glen is three places ahead as Tarquin and then Dean Yagen overtake me on the run into turn one! Damn. I was leaving room to sweep around Tarquin into turn two, so now I do the same to the pair of them running super hot into the southern loop. Nice. I get the drive perfect down into turn three and Honda, leaving them in my wake. Coleman has started to catch Glen, and I set out to chase. By MG I am on the back of Coleman with Glen another five meters ahead. My drive from here is shocking and by the start finish line, I am three hundred meters back.
Using the only advantage I have, light weight. I haul them all back braking late into turn two. Ahead five bikes all fight for position. I follow them and place myself for a dive down into MG, where I over take Coleman and John Cardury (675). Cardury uses the power of his  675 Triumph to outdrive me to turn twelve. Down the straight I loose another two places as Coleman, and Mark Henderson (Ducati 1198)  over take me using their extra grunt. I slide up the inside of Mark in turn two. Mark over takes out of two, we hold position until ahead in Honda I see Paul Cane being passed by Coleman. Damn that puts three riders between me and Glen. Getting a great drive out of the Hayshed I take Mark on the way into Lukey and Cane down into MG. Nice!
The start of lap four see's Mark and Cane overtake me at the end of the Gardner straight, I have lost six hundred meters to Coleman and Glen. Again I overtake Cane into MG, Mark is starting to carve through the guys ahead of me and making a nuisance of himself by overtaking all and sundry, bringing them back to me as we hit turn twelve for the second last time.
This whole horse power thing is starting to shit me, as Dean Yagen and Cane again blitz me down the shute into turn one. I ride around Dean in turn one, to see a massive gaggle of riders in turn two! The melee ahead has caught a back marker and they are everywhere trying to take advantage. I clear the back marker out of two and get a great drive down into Honda, overtaking Tarquin on the brakes on the way in. Meanwhile Cane jumps Glen into Siberia using the extra urge of his Ducati 916. Leaving me right behind Glen. I get my best drive all race out of Siberia and grab top gear for the first time into the Hayshed. Bloody fast but it pays off as I carry more pace than Glen into Lukey heights overtaking him mid corner. Finally I get a flawless drive out of MG and turn eleven and take the line three tenths of a second ahead of Glen! Awesome, five points back in the championship.

Lap times: 2:03.994 1:53.211 1:54.120 1:53.422 1:54.350 1:54.076
Quickest: 1:53.211

Race 2
It feels good to be ahead of my title competitor on the grid as Glen and myself take our places on row six. Learning from race one, I put the bike at six thousand RPM and give the clutch a quick fan to get the bike moving. Brilliant! I jump ahead of my row only to be overtaken by most of the field again in the run down to turn one.  I keep a tight line into turn one using a late transition to two and manage to slip by Glen by the exit of two. In the sprint to turn three I get passed by Dean Yagan and a 675. I pass Dean on the run around three, and line up the 675 for an outside dive at Honda. As I am tipping in the 675 suddenly lifts to allow a diving Mark Henderson through. Holy crap, all three of us run wide. I recover quickest and drive under the pair of them running the 675 wide and reach Siberia first. Good one! Ahead I see John Price struggling to get his 595 Triumph turned into the Hayshed. Using a late apex I catch him in Lukey and pass him at MG. Excellent I am in the lead of the F3 field.
For the rest of the race I dice with John Cardury, Paul Coleman all the while wondering where Glen is. All the while the note of the engine is changing, and I can hear a exhaust header leak. Something is going wrong with the new pipes. I sneak a look down at the pipe under my right foot that looks good, and reach a hand round behind me and can still feel the exhaust in place, yet the noise from the engine is now deafening.
I cross the line ten seconds ahead of Glen and take another 5 points from his lead. In the pits I see that the rear exhaust pipe has broken the muffler where it was clamped on. Mike King and I work a few little running repairs with bits borrowed from all and sundry. Thanks to Jon Iles for the hose clamps.

Lap times: 2:02.539 1:52.957 1:52.449 1:51.711 1:53.956 1:52.755
Best lap 1:51.711 : 1:51.397


Race 3
The exhaust fix seems to have produced a massive flat spot at 7000rpm. I get a good launch yet find myself getting blitzed on the run down to turn 1. Lucky I get a break in the traffic and ride around most of them in southern loop. I pass Glen and force my way past Mark Henderson into turn 4. This is going great even thought the engine definitely dies dramatically at 700rpm. Down the Gardner straight the first time I get absolutely slayed… Damn! Still I keep ahead of Glen into Honda and I stay that way until lap 5. As I come out of Honda the bike gives a big misfire. What?? I check behind me for traffic. I'm clear as the engine signs on again, then off. I coast to the tyre wall and nearly fall in the mud next to it. I get a bad sinking feeling I have ran out of gas, flipping open the gas tank that is quickly confirmed. The blue sky is quickly joined by the blue air around me. As I realise my race is over and its my fault, the repair on the exhaust pipes has distracted me. Its a long push back to the shed.  My first DNF of the year!
Back in the shed I realise that the championship is over and go and congratulate Glen. For 12 years we have been racing against each other, and its wonderful to see him take the title.

Lap times: 2:04.001 1:54.539 1:52.622 1:52.890
Best lap: 1:52.622




Race 4

Starting from the back of the grid, I get caught up with a bunch of guys going way slower than me. Still the bike is not working properly and the engine signing off at 7000k is hampering my forward progress in a huge way. I finish the race 3rd in F3, a bit disappointing but not surprising.

Lap times: 2:05.100 1:55.805 1:53.488 1:53.052 1:52.973 1:52.903
Best lap: 1:52.903


Wrap up: 2nd in the title was a good result. 1st was possible if we eliminate our own faults. Both mechanical and my race mistakes. Bring on 2011 and maybe a bigger engine! The flat spot at 7k we found to be the air/pressure sensor coming loose!

Dyno Day for the Beta EVO MKII

The db1 Beta EVO MKII ready to rip the dyno a new one.

After all the work done to the Beta EVO we finally got her back on the dyno at RBimports in Caringbah. The new exhaust pipes certainly have done a wonder in the mid range, and completely eliminated the shocking hole in the 5800rpm range. As with all tuning you can not gain without sacrificing somewhere else. In this case the bottom end under 4000rpm is now a bloody big hole.
Ouch. I don't think the bike will like being a tractor off the line anymore!

The big bottom end hole is more than likely caused by the really large header pipes. With an internal ID of 48.5mm its probably a bit big for the 800M. Still the extra midrange is welcome.

Here is the dyno graph, blue line from the old 2into1 and red from the Beta Mega Pipes!


 

Dyno Day for the Beta EVO MK1

Dyno time!

With all the drama's of blown up engines behind us. We finally got the db1 Beta EVO onto the Dyno. A call to Motorcycle Weaponry at Mona Vale got me hooked up with one of my old racing mates, Roger Quinlen. I had raced against Roger back with PCRA in 1997 1998. A quick base line showed we had 72HP at the rear wheel. With the Nemisis onboard we set about dialing in the fueling, it took a while to get a nice smooth AFR, it was worth it with the engine picking up 4 HP for 74.

We tried unsuccessfully to remove the big dip you can see in the power curve at 5800rpm. Adding and removing fuel and advance to the rear cylinder which was showing a rich condition during this range. Nothing would fix it. And we can came to the conclusion that it was suffering from the short header on the rear cylinder which was a pretty standard design for a lot of Ducati engines.

Once we had a clean map we tried some of the Elf fuel I had been advised to try. The results were very impressive! The bike picked up 4 peak HP, and 4 ft/lb of torque. Thats 5% power and 8% torque! WOW! Lovely if you can afford the $11.00 a litre price.

Roger also picked up that the bike's clutch was slipping. Dialing into a zoomed view on the dyno allowed him to show me the spikes and loops caused by the clutch slipping then hooking up. I ordered a new clutch on the way home. Thanks Roger!

If you want a good place to go and get your bike Dyno'ed call Arthur or Steve at Weaponry.
Motorcycle Weaponry
Unit 7, 8 Wilmette Place, Mona Vale 2103
ph 02 9979 4744

Round 3 National BEARS Morgan Park, QLD

The db1 Beta EVO in full flight!

Friday May 7: Practice

A new track beckoned for all but a scant few of the F3 field, Mike Coates was out before we'd turned a wheel with a practice injury. Leaving the title a three way fight between, myself, Glen and Deano. We were also joined by a bunch of very fast F3 locals aboard Supermotards. Friday practice was a bit of a strange one, with timing being provided for each session. Makes a change from NSW, were they bin you for having a lap timer on. The track is a total hoot, its tight, complex, and challenging. Half way through the day I had to replace the battery as the existing one was buggered. The DB-EVo was pinging on several parts of the track where I was getting the throttle open wide at high speed. If it was load or speed related I could not tell for sure. I dialed in 5 percent fuel to counter the detonation. The DB-EVo was also exhibiting the same rear suspension problems I'd had at Wakefield in high load corners. I dialed in another 6mm of preload on the rear spring, this stopped me bottoming out the shock.


Saturday May 8

Saturday was two qualifying sessions, followed by two races. Thankfully they had split the grid into F1/F2, and F3/F4/F5, otherwise the traffic would have been terrible. It was still bad enough, but I made the most of it post a 1:10.7 in Q1 for 5th, and a 1:09.7 for 3rd in Q2. Putting me 3rd on the grid, and best of the guys competing in the BEARS National Challenge. Just behind me was Deano, Glen was struggling a bit further back in the pack.


Race 1: Best lap 1:09.697 F3 2nd
Race one was perfect, I got away well with three Motards and Deano ahead of me. Deano did what I thought he would and race the Motards, this made him run wide on turn four and I slipped by him with ease. For the remainder of the race I chased the motards and set a new PB lap of 1:09.697 to come home fourth. Glen got Deano for fifth, the pair some ten seconds back.

Goose on his own in Race 1

Goose leading Glen

Race 2: Best lap "HA GOOD ONE" F3 9th
Race two was not so perfect. My start was not the best, but I used every ounce of cunning to get back past Glen and Deano before I crossed the line for the first time at pace in fourth. Unfortunately for me, an unnecessary yellow flag on turn three had me shutting the gas for the drive down to turn four. Turn three is a blind fourth gear sweeper so I was extremely slow under a caution, only to find no accident around the corner. In my haste to get away from the chasing pack I arrived to hot at the next bend and lost the front end. Data loggers do not lie, and I'd hit the apex 8km faster than ever before. Thankfully the DB-EVo crashes good, I picked her up, straighten the left bar and take off after the field. I cross the line in 19th! Lap three and I peg back two riders. Lap four according to my mates in the grandstand I overtake 5 people from the final corner to turn three. On the final two laps I muscle my way by two F3 competitors for some valuable points to come home outright 11th or 9th in F3. We throw a new handle bar on the bike and replace the brake pads as a precaution.

Goose post crash claws his way back through the field in race 2

Sunday May 9

Sundays dawned foggy and cold. In warm up I post a time four tenths of my best for the weekend and I was more than happy with the machine and me.

Race 3: Best lap 1:09.121 F3 2nd
Race three saw me start from 11th place on the grid due to my fall. Thankfully the guys ahead of me did as I expected, all crowding themselves on the apex of turn one so I could barrel past them all on the outside. 11th to 5th on two corners. Ahead of me Deano had broken clear with the leading three Motards. I spent two laps tracking him down, posting a 1:09.121 in the process. However once on Deano's tail the Triumph became extremely wide. We finished that way, Deano, Goose, Glen.

Race 4: Best lap 1:09.544 F3 2nd
The final race of the weekend had the same conclusion as race three, with me unable to get past Deano. Both of us circulated in mid 1:09's for the first half to the race but spent the second half tripping over each other. Once more both me and Deano scored points back against Glen who finished just behind us.

Dean and Goose at play in races 3 and 4!

Points after round 3
1. Glen Bauder 240
2. Phill Gray 219
3. Dean Holmes 212
4. John Price 182
5. Ben Gilbert 173

Changes to Beta EVO after round 2

Engine: Me and Mike King remove the borrowed engine, and install the original motor. The original engine was augmented with Pistal high compression pistons, and top ends from our internet engine. Internet heads got a bit of port work and we checked the squish was all good on assembly.

Suspension: The front soft springs we threw in at Mt Gambier were not installed correctly, a couple of sessions with forks and springs gave us a reasonably good setup, with both forks carrying .85kg springs for the next club round at Wakefield park.

Chassis: I ordered some special bits from around the world, and between them and taking some stuff off we lose 3.4kg from the bike.

Round 2 National BEARS Mac Park, SA

 Friday 2 April
Practice went well, and I got a full day on the bike to experiment. The only issue on the day was the inability to record speed, as my dataloggers speedo sensor failed. Still I got down to a flat 1:20. Which was just over a second off my best time here on the db1 in 2001.

Goose readies himself for action

Saturday 2 April
Today proved a lot of fun. I qualified the Beta EVO on the second row and second in F3 behind Dean by four tenths of a second. Race one had Dean do a bolter while I could not beat Glen into turn one, and the power of the 748 could hold me off from attacking in the tight stuff. Damn I was loosing seventy meters down the back straight to the more powerful F3 bikes (all of them four valve engines of course).  Race two was a repeat of the first race, Deano taking off and me unable to attack Glen through a pack of F2 bikes. My best lap time for the day was a 1:19.1, and I know I could go faster once clear of the bikes ahead of me.

Race 1: Fastest lap: 1:20.060
Race 2: Fastest lap: 1:19.757

Race 1 start

Tim West F2 leads Dean and Goose in Race1

Sunday 4 April
Today I threw some soft springs in the front end of the bike, seeking some more turn in at this tight, tight track. Race three saw me all over Glen, as we tussled early for second place behind Deano. This all changed on lap four at the old turn one as Deano got in their to hot and lost the front end, sliding uninjured into the dirt. I could not find a way past Glen for first, but came in stating I would have him in race four come what may.


Race 3: Fastest lap: 1:20.060

Race 3, Dean flogs Goose and Glen

 So, what do they say of best laid plans? It all came undone on the line for me so I thought, the bike slipped the clutch and I was left standing to watch most of the field dissapear into turn one. Lucky for me I ride better when I am pissed off. I quickly got the best of a bunch of F5 guys, staying just ahead of Deano who had to start rear of pack. My dashboard showed I was doing my best times of the weekend, 1:18's, as I mowed down the field. With two laps to run, I'd caught Glen running second in F3 and passed him with ease out of the pine tree? Problem or not I didn't care. Ahead of me in F3 was Mike Coates (Moto Guzzi MGS01), unfortunately for him my dander was still up. Mikes bike is so quick in a straight line, but no match for the DB-EVo as I closed down two hundred meters of gap in two corners to slide under him at the water tower. With an unobstructed final lap I set the fastest F3 time of the weekend (1:18.4)), and bar a missed shift out of the pine tree would have had the lap record on the way to winning F3 for the weekend!

Race 4, Goose passes Mike Coates

Race 4: Fastest lap: 1:18.636

The final race victory put me top F3 scorer, on 81 points equell with Glen. No points back on him, but moving myself into a clear second ahead of Deano for the title. My best lap time being 1.3 seconds better than my pervious PB in 2001.

Goose bores the crap out of everyone

Points after round 2
1. Glen Bauder 171
2. Phill Gray 147
3. Mike Coates 139
4. Peter Smith 136
5. Dean Holmes 135

F3 Podium, Glen, Goose, Coates

Something borrowed... something 800ish?

With the help of the BEARS club I found some prepared to lend me a Ducati 800 engine. John Clifton came to the rescue, a few sheckles changed hands and me and Mike got to install another engine into the Beta EVO.
Thanks John! Your a life saver.

Ebay to the rescue... maybe

Ebay yielded a 800M rear piston, barrel and head. The seller gave me a great deal, and shipped me the rest of the engine front and rear cylinder/ head and cases with internals for another $400! I guess no one in America wants 800M parts. Now if it turns up on time we might have a chance, it should arrive next monday. That will leave us a day to put the bike together, before I have to depart. I think I'll look around for some on to borrow one from.

After the first round I found the front .95kg springs way to hard. With all the preload off and the compression tightened as much as I dared I still had twenty millimetres of travel left. A call to Dr Nick from Teknick and I had three springs to try for round two.

Holy Mangled Piston Bat Man!

Mike called me up today to give me the good news on the engine. The good news is that only the rear head, piston, and barrel are total screwed. And here is why... it seems that an airbox tab came loose and got eaten up by the rear pot. Yay! A simple lesson, do not leave an unfitted fastener. If we'd had a dzus fastener in place it the entire tab could not have come away.

Both are Dzus clips. One is not quite right, can you tell?

Unfortunately for us the tab was made of lovely soft plastic from the airbox which got munched up, leaving only this Dzus clip to pound the crap out of the rear cylinder. A total disaster.
 

 =

Still it could have been worse. Now off to find a 800M rear cylinder head/barrel and piston!

Round 1 National BEARS 2010

Mike moving faster than the speed of light on tools

18 March 2010 3am

Beta Engineering: Mike and me down tools and load the bike into the back of the van. I get 200m down the road before the phone rings. Mikes desperately tired voice tells me that I've left the stand behind. I back the van up and we laugh as he hurls it in the back. "Good luck mate!", he intones as he shuts the door.
I drive to Marulan before being forced to take a nap. I am shattered. At 7:30am I start driving again. My plan is to get to Broadford at midday meaning I would get roughly three practice sessions in before I had to leave to pick up Lin at Melbourne airport.

18 March 2010 12 Midday

Broadford: I unload, sign in and get on the track. The bike is surprisingly okay given it has not been on a track yet. The bike is not unstable. Drives okay, it feels a little short of breath, but geared okay given it was a guess from me and Mike. The lap timer says I managed a 1:07. All up a good start to the session, given our lack of track time build up.

19 March 2010

Qualifying 1: Fastest lap 1:05.706, Best rolling lap 1:05.556, Ultimate lap - 1:05.507
Qualifying 2: Fastest lap 1:05.211, Best rolling lap 1:05.211, Ultimate lap - 1:04.907

My qualifying efforts where good enough for 2nd in F3 with only Dean Holmes ahead of me.

Goose ready to go... bring on the bringing off of the red light!

Race 1: F3 2nd, Fastest lap 1:06.251, Best rolling lap 1:05.886, Ultimate lap - 1:05.323
A tough race. Dean Holmes (Triumph 675) got away from both me and Glen Bauder (Ducati 748). I diced with first Mike Coates on the awesome Guzzi Daytona, and then Pete Smith Ducati 900ss mounted. Pete taught me some great lines around turn one, and once clear of him I closed the gap to Glen to trail him over the line by half a second. Dean? Unfortunately had a small off at the end of the back straight. He was super fast before that though. A good start, some great sector times leaving me with the task of getting past the slower guys to strike at Glen.

Hard thinking Goose

Race 2: F3 2nd, Fastest lap 1:05.127, Best rolling lap 1:04.987, Ultimate lap - 1:04.518
I struggle off the line, and again have to fight my way past Mike Coates and Pete Smith. Ahead is Paul Coleman (Aprilia Tuona) and Glen. I can overtake Paul down into the pit corner and lead him onto the straight, but down the straight its all over with both Paul and Glen pulling gaps of a hundred plus meters. At the line I am a second behind Glen with Paul sandwiched between us.

Goose types in "Go Fast" 0 Evo says "Up you!"

Day 1 wrap up
Small changes on the bike lead to some faster sector times through out the day. This is a good indicator that we are heading in the right direction. I don't expect to set fastest laps with so much traffic, so I happy to set fast sector times.
Me and Linden Roth drive up to Albury after racing and dyno both bikes. I am most interested in the fueling and the indications are we are right on the money. All good!


20 March 2010

What was all good, soon turned all bad. The db1 Beta EVO ground to a halt in morning warm up. First dropping a cylinder and then locking up. I check the rear pot by pulling the spark plug. Indications are not good. There is no clearance on the plug, and a big witness mark tell the tail, something has come loose and gone through the motor. I look in vain for a culprit but can not find anything.

Race 3 and 4 
I ride Dave Aboud's KTM 640 for the final two races, I love the old Kato, but it is severely out gunned in F3. The best I can do is 8th place in both races.

Points after round 1
1. Glen Bauder 90
2. Peter Smith 71
3. Dean Holmes 67
4. Mike Coates 67
5. Phill Gray 66

Goose on a KTM... who would have thought!

Bits everywhere, and no closer to an answer.....

For Beta EVO MKI spec's click here.