The day that we left my ambulance race hauler that had just had $3800 worth of maintenance and repairs broke 30 miles from home. Brought it home, frantically rented a Uhaul van and transferred stuff into it willy-nilly. Go to the perfect salt Friday afternoon and proceeded to spend the week battling a strange misfire problem on the new motor. Basically the motor ran great no load in the pit but would cut out about 6000 rpm except for short random spurts under load, when it showed that it could run like a scalded dog right up to 9K.
For five days I went through the valve adjustment, the ignition, the timing (all over from retarded to advanced), the new carbs/jets (multiple times), different plugs, checked all the wiring connections, made sure the battery had a full charge, tried gas, tried E85, tried much advice from other racers and still no joy. Frustrating and exhausting. Finally said f**k it and made a run late Wednesday when just a few bikes were hot lapping and no one would be upset if I went putt-putt down the course. For a brief instant it ran stunningly though first gear right up to my 9K shift point. Into second the miss started. Got it up to 61.7 on the gps speedo and decided to see if it could pull in third. Nope, started falling off. So I putt-putted down the course and decided to make it a training ride, playing with my tuck and watching for speed changes and trying the "head down, head up and peek, head down, head up and peek" technique. Speed ended up 59.
At least my wife got some nice shots of me on the bike after my run. Nope, turned out the nine year old Nikon DSLR broke in the middle of a previous days "bike on the salt" photo session! And the new electronic tach on my teammate's bike apparently ate its new electronic ignition before he even got a run in. In spite of all this I had a great time. Luckily my bud Jaylin Billig did get a nice shot to prove I was on the course.
So you're still the king. But watch out next year, I'll be back and sorted!
