A great start for our new team.

[DredheadV2.0]

I heart this thread.

[miles]

I heart this thread.

Apparently so does somebody else.  An anonymous benefactor just gave us another bike to play with.

[Mookie]

Apparently so does somebody else.  An anonymous benefactor just gave us another bike to play with.

Holy shit, anonymous?  That's like winning the lottery without buying a ticket  

[dagor6]

He meant secret, you'll notice his quick editing skills  

[DredheadV2.0]

Apparently so does somebody else.  An anonymous benefactor just gave us another bike to play with.

He might also like the fact you've been winning a bunch.  Good work.

[miles]

So Jeremy's got our bike on provisional pole at Miller in the GTO class, lapping at 1:51.299.  The only guy under 1:52.  Here is a link to the standings:
http://www.roadracingworld.com/news/article/?article=40635

Notice who is farther down the list.  in 20th is the owner of our local SDBMW dealership, Gary Orr (and co-sponsor of our team).  Three spots ahead of Kurtis Roberts, mind you.

edit: fixed link

[miles]

He might also like the fact you've been winning a bunch.  Good work.

Yes, that's key.

[miles]

Well, this weekend sucked for us.  Jeremy placed the bike on pole position, that was good.  Got a monster holeshot and led from the start- that was good, too.  Crashed while leading, not so good.  Jumped back on the bike and finished fifth- pretty good, considering.  Getting DQed for not teching before reentering the race- not good at all.

Our bike has the speed, we just simply haven't had any setup time on the thing.  Jeremy got a grand total of 15 laps practice time before the GTO race (just the two qualifying sessions!).

We really need some time on an empty track to work on base settings.  All our fancy electronics have come in, so it's time to bolt all the data acquisition stuff on there and acquire a heap of data.

[Tyrroneous]

Beat down by a technicality.  That hurts, but that's racing.    Keep chipping away.

[dagor6]

So, decided to post some pictures up that chronicle the effort from the beginning.

Which started with the two bikes being picked up from San Diego BMW and delivered to Lee's Cycle in San Diego (a few days later mind you  ). Why SD BMW and Lee's Cycle? Pretty simple, San Diego BMW has decided that the best way to sell, support and service a sport bike is to race them and support the community that does so. Pretty similar to the whole "GS Adventure" lifestyle type stuff that dealers typically do.

Lee's Cycle has been tuning bikes in San Diego forever, they were featured in Road Racing World magazine last month in a special everyone should check out. The owner - Jeremy Toye - is a local fast guy that can be extremely competitive on the national stage and imho produce top-5 AMA superbike finishes if the bike is working. I couldn't think of a better group of guys to pull the whole thing together. So, Miles and I bought a couple of bikes and handed them on over....

So first up the first bike arrives at the shop, pictured in front of Jeremy's CBR1000RR which he's spent a year tuning on and winning with. Suspension of neil hodgson's old bike, engine making over 200 rwhp (no, really), you name it the CBR is a built and bred race bike.

Jeremy gives the bike the look "this is going to be a long road....."





Give it a quick tear down and throw everything in a junk box:





That was the first of many junk boxes to be hauled away....

Super trick dual headlight system so that you can put race plastics on, pull the left side and have an enduro set up on the right:





The nose with everything off, you can actually see the air filter dead on!






Tail section stacked with fancy BMW electronics and gizmos. ABS pump on the bottom, "Slick mode activation plug" on the lower right in red. Gyro in white and black. We actually dissected the ABS pump and it's amazing to say the least, very amazing, I've never seen anything like it on a motorcycle before.

[dagor6]

Photographic history continued....


First modification - speedcell battery (rebranded A123 Systems stuff!! With no F'ing regulator or charging system other than stock!!!), Ohlins shock and dynojet PC-V which has been able to only somewhat tune the bike.





Pull the forks and mounted in the Ohlins stuff. Removed the triple clamp and exchanged for Attack adjustable + Attack rearsets and a Brembo Master Cylinder. We've already pulled the ABS pump by this point and run custom brake lines throughout.



It's hard to see in the picture above but if you look closely you'll see we pulled the ignition out, wired the key in the hoop on the air intake in front of the dash and then installed a simple on-off switch. Very trick.



In comes the new Catalyst Composites bodywork plus the superslick MC Pro Design paint job, the owner Chad Jensen has been a huge supporter of the team and spent 40 hours painting this thing and getting it right over a three day period. Normally when a "factory" asks for a paint job they spend about 3 weeks painting samples, doing mockups on the bike lining up the stickers and blends and then making custom stickers. Chad does this because he paints for all the factories in the US and they order 20+ sets a year of painted bodywork. Doing the same for us was basically charity.

On top of that we tried something new and asked for the first ever "green" paintjob to use all water based paints and water based inks on the stickers plus urethane sealers. (As I understand it, excuse my idiocy if I've screwed up a few terms there). The results are stunning, the bike looks great, costs a bit more to paint but in reality we've had two minor low sides on the bike and I've never, ever, ever, ever in my career seen paint that holds up to rock chips and crash damage. It absolutely does not chip even the area surrounding crash damage after flying through the rocks. It's absolutely stunning.

[dagor6]

Then we got some cool woodcraft case covers on and off to WERA buttonwillow where we had a minor lowside in race one (after setting the lap record and as I understand it the outright record for the track at 1:46.1) and then one the F-1 race for the inaugural California State Championship!





Plus new Akrapovic Titanium Exhaust:

[photomd]

You make it look so easy...I just took the lower end of my Guzzi to be balanced this AM. You could measure my build in years.

As for the ABS pump, I'd love to see the inside.

for a great thread. Keep it coming.  

[miles]

Jeremy gives the bike the look "this is going to be a long road....."

Little did he know.  Lee's Cycles has spent literally hundreds and hundreds of hours working on these bikes.  Jeremy tells me it's a mix of the most amazing things he's ever seen engineered in a motorcycle, and headscratching stuff that makes him wonder "WTF were they thinking?"
It's been a huge learning experience for Lee's, and for us (mainly DagoR6, he's been doing tons of research and chasing down suppliers).

[dagor6]

Okay Track pictures - how does it look in action????????????  





Had a brief off-track excursion but were able to come back for the next race and hammer home a win, albeit limping a bit.



For the win in F-1, first round state championship and after 2 weeks since program inception!

[dagor6]

Okay, so after Buttonwillow it was time to open the engine and tinker with it a bit. All we could do in the couple days time was to alter the timing a bit, which had no effect it would seem.




Cam's, pretty radical



Engine looking, well, open:




Half speed cam chain moving in..... reverse???



Whole thing out:





Then it was time to pack the two bikes up and get off to miller!

[dagor6]

Miller started out great, first weekend was the WERA National with a few sessions of practice on Friday, zero time on Saturday (there was an endurance race) and then quick warmup on Sunday and two races.

We set the fastest time of any bike for the weekend, iirc a 1:52.28 and won every race entered. Including a wild superbike race with Taylor Knapp on the ex-Mladin Yoshimura superbike where we led every lap and then won by 1-2 bike lengths.

The second weekend was a bit bittersweet. It was WSBK weekend which meant that we'd get virtually no track time, in fact less than 15 laps prior to the actual start of the big-money GTO race. We were changing so much we could barely get it dialed in and there was a ton of top AMA talent out there ready to race. Including series regulars Geoff May and Taylor Knapp, plus Aussie Dave Anthony and Scott Jensen as well as all the other BMW teams including Chris Peris.

We set pole with a fastest lap of 51.2 on race tires. (Just for comparison, Xaus and Corser were lapping in the 49's and 50's for their races). We ran the race out in front for 7 laps and then lowsided when the Ohlins shock overheated and lost damping. Very, very frustrating. We remounted but were DQ'd for "failing to re-tech". Silly

Here's the pictures from Miller, we were rolling!  


Power wheelies just to get the front to turn:




Ran out of leaning room, knee dragging while tucked all the way up into the bodywork!




BMW Power on a lower, when did you think you would see that again???





Leading the race but can't hold a tight line because the front end is bucking like a bronco into turns while the overheated shock compresses to nothing on exit:





Look at the line we're trying to hold, only a matter of time until the shock gave up the ghost completely:

[miles]

My new desktop picture:

[miles]

Cut-and-pasted from the team blog at sdbmwracing.blogspot.com
Willow weekend race report
http://www.roadracingworld.com/news/article/?article=40901

Another Lap Record Falls to Toye and the S1000RR, while Orr ups his game!


Friday
We showed up on Friday to set up in typical blustery Willow conditions and give this S1000RR its first shakedown at the tight and twisty Streets of Willow Springs during the Motoyard trackday. It really is a good thing that we did too because the setup that we had on the bike was from the Pahrump test the week prior and didn’t translate very well. Thanks to the information from the 2D data logging system and Jeremy’s rider feedback we were able to deduce where the problems were and adjust accordingly.
We started off with some simple damping adjustments to get the suspension working with the bumpy sections of the technical Streets course and once the bike was rideable, gearing was selected and we could focus on geometry for turn in, direction change, and rider feel. By the end of the day we were well on our way to a good base, but still had a few issues with the bike being harsh over bumps on acceleration and a bit abrupt on the front end. These were all things that we had a game plan on fixing that evening, but would never get around to. It turned out that we would instead have to pick up and move our entire operation to another location in the pits because the places you can park for a trackday and a race weekend are entirely different. This is fine when one is pitting out of the back of their pick up, but when it involves two motor homes, bikes, canopies, carpets, tables, vehicles, and miscellaneous things like tool boxes and chairs you can see how an evening’s worth of work gets pushed back!
Saturday
A few of our team members bit the bullet the next morning, getting up with the sun to finish the “To Do” list. This included swapping the Ohlins forks for the AK Gas forks, making a spring rate change in the shock, and changing the gearing. Practice that day was spent fine tuning the gearing and feel of the motorcycle to match the increase in speed that Jeremy was able to carry as the bike became more comfortable. Gary Orr was also able to improve throughout the day on his bike with the new Attack triple clamps, SDBMW link, and Attack rearsets.
That afternoon both riders were entered in the 20 lap Solo GTO race, but for entirely different reasons. Jeremy went out to put his setup to the test in a race simulation for the 12 lap main event the next day, whereas Gary was there to win! Launching off the line Jeremy was not only able to open up a massive gap, but he was able to smash his own lap record on the second lap, after that he was already into the lappers! Gary got a decent start, but had some work to do as he was caught behind some other fairly quick riders.
Once the 12 laps were up Jeremy pulled off so the team could collect the data and make improvements to tomorrow’s setup, leaving Gary in 1st position! Towards the end of the race Matt Quigely did start to close the gap, but in the end was no match for the S1000RR and Gary took his first win since returning to expert racing!



Sunday
Fine tuning in the morning warm up saw some more forward progress and eagerness to get racing for both riders. The first race of the day for both riders was the Open Superbike event. Jeremy again launched off of the line and won the race handily after getting the hole shot, with Gary rounding out the last step on the podium. Gary won Formula 40 in style by not only lapping the entire field, but also setting his personal best time of a 1:16.4 allowing him to sit and watch Jeremy in the F1 race with a grin on his face.
F1 started off slowly due to a wearing clutch, and Toye went into the first turn in 4th position. However, the number 57 made quick work of Karl Lowery coming out of the bowl turn on the first lap and set his sights on the two leaders Jimmy Wood and Shawn Higbee. Once he had reeled them in he displayed patience and confidence following for a few laps to see their weak points. Jeremy made the pass for the lead exiting the bowl turn with the great drive of the S1000RR. After that he put his head down and stepped the pace up to a new lap record at a 1:13.5. From there he only had to look back one time to see how big of a wheelie he could loft across the finish!

[miles]

A minor update, with more to come after the weekend.

Switching to a Bitubo rear shock we scored from the WSBK team gained us four seconds a lap over the Ohlins TTX we had been running.  Increased control allows greater speed, and the rear TTX had been the bike's achilles heel.

The brakes are now the weak link- the carrier-less design the BMW uses doesn't allow heat to disperse from the rotor quickly enough, and this is leading to problems on a hard-braking track like Infineon.  We will have to change wheels and rotors- hey, it's only money, right?