2012 BEARS Nationals Rd 1 - Eastern Ceek Sunday

Sunday 8 April, Eastern Creek

Exit of Turn 2 - Photo by Ray Oxford


BEARS race 3
Finally I got a great start, it did not help being on the left side of the grid in 16th. I think I also got a bit pissed with the some of the F1 bikes, as a result lap one saw me in 11th place. On the way into turn one Andrew Smart 1198 Ducati came past, he was riding a lot quicker today. Next lap Scott Rinaldis came by with a better drive from turn 12, damn it. Scott was not mucking about either nailing Smarty round the back. I was determined to say with him and pick up where he was faster. That did not work to well and I lost another spot to Graham Hunter, BMW S1000RR on lap four. Staying a head of him pushed me well and truely and I saw a 1.42 on over the line. All of a sudden I was catching Scott on the final lap. I finished 14th, two up from my start of 16th. All of the bigger bikes are extremely slow into turn four and turn ten. My data logger showed on my best lap I was unhindered into these. I guess I just have to get away from them.

Fastest lap: 1.42.978
Fastest rolling lap: 1.42.771
Ultimate lap: 1.42.244
Max Speed: 245.1kmh@8050RPM

Race 3 ahead of Jon (91) this time, Scott in my sights.

Unlimited race 3
Starting from 27th I got a blinder to be in 20th by the end of lap one. Thankfully the bigger bikes would get away from me enough down the straight not to block me to much into turns four or turns ten. This helped me post my best times of the weekend so far and a ultimate lap in the 1.41's. If only I could get a clear lap, still I finish in 22nd, and my last two laps are my quickest so far.


Fastest lap: 1.42.663
Fastest rolling lap: 1.42.323
Ultimate lap: 1.41.539
Max Speed: 245.5kmh@8069RPM


BEARS race 4
I get a blinding start. The two big bikes in front don't even get moving before me and Scott Rinaldis whistle past them, ha! Starting mid grid provides me with a good line into turn one, and in one of my fastest opening laps finish in 13th. Lap two, both me and Scott muscle our way past BMW S1000RR mounted John Price. From there me and Scott went hammer and tongs trading fast laps, both of us doing constant 1.42's. I see a 1.42.299 on lap four, closing the gap further. Over the line there is 0.1 between us. We give each other a big thumbs up on the warm down lap. That was fun!

Fastest lap: 1.42.299
Fastest rolling lap: 1.42.123
Ultimate lap: 1.41.562
Max Speed: 241.1kmh@7942RPM

Unlimited race 4
Starting mid grid again is a benefit and I gain one position by end of lap one. But at least these guys are going fast. Fast enough to stay well ahead of me after three laps and let me exploit my fast sweeping lines around the back of the track. I set a 1.42.345 on lap four and my best time of the weekend on lap five a 1.42.176! Nice.

Fastest lap: 1.42.176
Fastest rolling lap: 1:41.719
Ultimate lap: 1.41.332
Max Speed: 244.2kmh@8033RPM


BEARS race 5
I went out looking for a faster lap time in this race, but could not do it with traffic and getting tired. Still I got a reasonable lap time.

Fastest lap: 1.42.834
Fastest rolling lap: 1.42.737
Ultimate lap:1.42.042
Max Speed: 243.8kmh@8018RPM

Unlimited race 5
Again I could not find clear track and struggled with race fitness. No fun, but my ultimate lap came up good, so my individual sector times were okay even if I lost top speed due to bad drive in turn 12.

Fastest lap: 1.43.438
Fastest rolling lap: 1.42.772
Ultimate lap:1.41.804
Max Speed: 241.3kmh@7933RPM

A great weekend, a new PB on the Bimota db1 Beta EVO. A huge thanks to all my friends who came out to the track and help. Tim, Joe, Stewart, Julanne, Peter, and last but not least Mike King who without the Beta EVO would just be an idea in my head!

2012 BEARS Nationals Rd 1 - Eastern Ceek Saturday

Saturday 7 April, Eastern Creek


Qualifying
I got seven flying laps in. The traffic was terrible, and I only got one clearish lap in, that was my final one, a 1.45.522. The extra power from the Beta EVO was helpful, but the SC0 compound rear I had choosen was showing some cold tearing. After talking to David Fuller I put some more air into the tyre to try and make it work harder, 25PSI on the warmer. The SC1 front was looking fantastic and holding up well. My time put me 17th in the pack but over two seconds down on top F3 competitor Scott Rinaldis from Queensland, who did a 1:43!

BEARS race 1
17th grid position is great place to start from being on the outside of the grid. As I expected everyone bunched up well nice and tight into turn one, I kept the gas on to go wide. I found myself 11th into turn two and right on Scott Rinaldis's tail. Out of three I got a great drive to over take him into four.  Ahead I could see Gerald Verhagen and my Bill Shanahan fighting tooth and nail. Scott got an awesome drive out of turn twelve to come clawing past me over the line at the start of lap three. Thinking I would chase him I to pick up my times did not really work out as I found myself in a dog fight with my old F3 sparing partner  John Price on his BMW S1000RR. I finished 12th and 2nd in F3. Happy to be going quicker. The rear tyre again was cold tearing, checking the pressure just off track showed it hanging in the 28PSI range is which is top temp for grip. Bugger. I decided to forgo my first unlimited race and get an SC2 rear fitted. 

Fastest lap: 1:44.185
Fastest rolling lap: 1:43.600
Ultimate lap: 1:43.055
Max speed: 242.3@7965RPM

Here is the video care of John Riley.

BEARS race 2
With a new rear tyre on I took my time in the warm up lap scrub it in. Its been a few years since going straight out on a new tyre, I slowly increased the lean angles until by turn eight and nine I had full crank angle going. My grid position twelve is not one of my favorites being on the inside against the pit wall. Starting against the wall has the tendancy to get the door closed on you into turn one. As I launch I push inward on a slow track to try and get some space. It works well but I get baulked into turn two, with at least two guys going past me. Lap one I finish in 13th, and its two seconds slower than my opening lap in race one. As the race goes on, John Riley slips past, as do two F1 bikes to give me a finishing position of 16th, with a fastest lap on lap three. The big bikes are really holding me up around the back of the circuit.

Fastest lap: 1.45.150
Fastest rolling lap: 1:44.948
Ultimate lap: 1.44.279
Max Speed: 247.3@8123RPM

Chasing Scott Rinaldis (49) And John Riley (91)

Unlimited race 2
 I wanted to try this race out and see if I could get some faster laps in. That did not work very well, but I did get some some great sector times. That showed with my ultimate lap coming down by over half a second. I started 30th and finished 27th. The tyres were working really well, and I set my fastest top speed I've ever seen on the db1 - 248.6kmh.

Fastest lap: 1.45.983
Fastest rolling lap: 1.45.289
Ultimate lap: 1.43.656
Max speed: 248.6@8172RPM

Ready to go out... Thanks to Julanne for the pic.

2012 Bike changes

At the end of 2011 Mike and me discussed how to get some more out of the Beta EVO. Various discussions on the topic of more power and handling changes have lead us to focus on four areas.

1. Gearing

Some study of the data from Phillip Island showed we'd managed 241kmh down the front straight. That is seriously honking on a 2 valve bike. What was not obvious due to me lacking a lap top trackside was the RPM we where using, only 8000rpm. Thats 600 short of red line. If the bike got to readline it would be doing 280! Now given the aerodynamic shape of the db1, I am pretty sure it will not do that. So why geared so high? Well its cause we geared it that way in Feb last year when the ECU was not working over 7000rpm. We simply forgot to gear it back down.
So I have a 14T front to put on, which will give us a top wack of 260kmh, but should make the bike accelerate even harder. Lucky for us the gears are so wide ratio that we should not have problem with having to shift gears to much.  

NOTE: After a think about it we've left the 15/39 on it, the bike is going hard enough to pull it. And we will review it after Eastern creek.

2. Rear Suspension

We have found ourselves running a 12kg per mm rear spring on the Beta EVO to stop the bike compressing the rear suspension under power and running wide. We now suspect this is due to the extra length of the monster swinging arm over the standard one. The monster one is 10% longer. We suspect that this playing havoc with the rising rate rear linkage. Basically we have to run a massively stiff spring to overcome the static sag we encounter with the extra leverage of the long swingarm.

At the faster tracks I have noticed that rear suspension tends to push through the front. The front being very soft and compliant. The rear is over powering the front causing a rocking sensation in really fast corners.  Not a nice feeling and something we'd like to fix.

The changes are going to have to wait, till after Easter and round 1 of the nationals.

3. Fuel tank system

The design we created to get a low point for the fuel pump necessitated a surge tank mounted at the back of the bike. The surge tank contains the Ducati 999 fuel pump and has to be kept in fuel or it will get really hot. Hence the surge tank is below the main tank and is plumbed high and low to get the fuel to gravity feed into it. The major draw back of the design is the plumbing location, as it is routed directly above the rear header pipe. A fuel leak will cause a big fire!!
The re-mediated design is to use an external fuel pump, discard the surge tank, and enlarge the fuel tank at the front of the bike to take up the capacity we lose from the surge tank. That's a work in progress.

4. Engine performance

Lifting the power slightly and moving the max torque further up would be fantastic. As a result we added some bigger valves +1mm inlet and exhaust sourced from FastFrank in the USA. Mike gave the heads some attention porting them to let some of those lovely gases get in and out easier. The result of the work was an increase of 7HP above 6000RPM. Very nice, and more importantly the torque is nicely higher. Here is the pic, thanks to Roger at Weaponry for the dyno work.

2011 Nationals Round Phillip Island December

With four victories in four races at the Island we won the F3 Championship.

Here is the podium. John Cully on the left, second. Moi in the middle and Ross Proctor third on the right.

Mike and Goose celebrate a well deserved title.

On board video from Macpark 2011 Bridgestone BEARS National challenge race 3

Here is a video I have been working on for literally ages... Combining video from the ductail of Dave Clark's Triumph 675 and my helmet in the third race of the Bridgestone BEARs National Challenge at Macpark.

Clarkie gets a great up on me from the line, and leads the way.. I will leave the rest for you to watch!

Honda Rjays St George Race Series, Round 3 BEARS race 5

Here's my footage from non points scoring race at Eastern Creek on the 11th September.

Images of the DB1 Beta EVO from Eastern ceek 11 Sept 2011

Here are couple of great picks of the db1 Beta EVO at the exit of turn two. A huge thanks to Scotty from http://www.scottspics.com.au/  for the photos.

I always find images from the track very useful. These are no exception. Here are a couple of things from these.

1. Body position - I had been working very hard over this race weekend to keep my upper body relaxed and square to the front of the bike. The more I tense up my inside arm the more off square I become. Turn two had been a bug bear for me, crashing there three times in the last two years, always mid corner in transition from braking to throttle.  Something I have associated with weighting my inside arm to much. Hence my desire to be square on the bike and keep my arms loose.

2. Ground clearance - We made some changes to the Beta EVO to increase ground clearance on the left hand side after first practice. The belly pan is now mounted significantly more square on the bike. These pictures show we have plenty of room left, nice.

3. Swingarm angle - We had numerous problems last year with stance of the Beta EVO, with the swingarm angle being flat if not past flat mid corner and once on the throttle. These images and the lack of any understeer over the weekend validates our changes.

Thanks again to Scotty.