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Putnam report 4/7/02:
Working title: Why desmodronics are a good thing.
By Wes Orloff
So there I was, 2am in the morning as I abruptly
awaken to a screaming fire detector.....son of a B*^%*&
Mussolini must be the cause of this! After a mad, nearly blind
contact-less scramble, I discover I am partially right: Yes,
the evil Ducati known as Mussolini, who has taken up the role
in the garage as the resident death bike since the exorcism
of the H2, was indeed the cause. The alarm was not the fire
alarm, but the CO alarm. Seems a little too much closed door
running of Mussolini had converted the house into a gas chamber.
No wonder I was so sleepy! Luckily Stacey was already in Indiana
and didn't have to be a second victim to the evil twin.....I
decided it better to risk frostbite than a slow painless death
and slept through the 30 degree night with the bedroom windows
open.
The Ducati had been driving me nuts......I wanted to take
it to the upcoming track day at Putnam and had blown off prepping
it until the last possible moment thinking it would only take
an hour or so. 5 hours later, I had finally got the free-bee
Pirelli slicks mounted (after scouring the lower half of Wisconsin
looking for a 46mm(!) socket to remove the wheel nut), oil
changed, and managed to disconnect enough of the wiring harness
to remove the turn signals, headlights and tail lights to
make it somewhat track ready (please note that Italians have
no business designing wiring harness's.....). Damn Ducati.
This was just a start though, as I cranked it over and ran
the thing, the oil light lit up like a Christmas tree! Another
hour of troubleshooting resulted in no progress. As quickly
as the light lit, it suddenly went out. the mechanical soundness
of the Ducati now in question, I decided to get done prepping
the trusty GSXR with its newly built 640cc heart....The Gixer
prep took literally 35minutes. ahhhhh.....Suzooky good, Ducati
bad....
My plan for getting up at 5am Friday morning for an early
get away to Indiana was foiled by the late night prep/CO scare,
so I spent the morning figuring out how to fit 2 bikes all
my tools, and a set of freshly painted R6 bodywork into a
medium sized pickup truck. After loading the lightweight GSXR
(Suzooki good...) and surprisingly portly Mussolini (Ducati
bad....), we were able to engineer a tie down system and get
all the essentials loaded with almost enough room for a driver.
Off to hoosierland and our date with destiny at Putnam park.
After a mad scramble to Mat’s place in Bloomington in
order to get him his delinquent R6 bodywork (6 or 7 hours
before his track day!), we headed back to Columbus to get
some well-deserved sleep. Damn, I forgot to eat today....
Saturday dawned a bright new morning (if not a bit chilly).
The goal for today was to dial in the jetting on the brand
new powerplant of the GSXR at the Whalesborough airport (relatively
abandoned) with the able assistance of Bob Foist. Bob and
I got there and unloaded the feathery GSXR (very good....)
and the chunky Mussolini (gggrrrrrr). Got the 600 fired up
and proceeded to run around the airport for 1/2 hour breaking
it in. My blind guess on jetting seemed to be pretty close.
A couple WFO runs up and down the runway confirmed the A/F's
were close to where they needed to be....The power was incredible
for a 600.....3rd gear power wheelies no problem! Brakes/suspension....I
just felt right at home on the bike quickly. GSXR very good!
probably the best its ever been actually....very much looking
forward to getting on the track on Sunday. I was ready to
pack it up and head back to Columbus when Bob asked if maybe
I should run the Ducati around a little.....well, I really
need to wash my hair, maybe later......I reluctantly agreed
that it probably wouldn't be a bad idea and attempted to start
the Italian stallion, unfortunately the battery must have
suffered CO poisoning the prior night and refused to cooperate
(Ducati bad....). We jumped it with Bob's car and got her
to fire reluctantly. I hopped on and made a lap. After my
testing of the screaming flyweight GSXR, Mussolini felt like
a Sicilian John Deer with its tractor like powerband and heavy
deliberate steering. My fun (?) was cut short when the oil
pressure light lit up again.....Visions of little expensive
desmo-thingies slowly melting danced through my head.... Ducati
bad.
Bob and I brainstormed and it didn't seem to make sense that
Mussolini had actually lost oil pressure, as plenty of oil
splash was seen in the window and no funny noises were yet
emanating from deep within the bowels of the crankcases. We
figured it was probably a bad sensor. A quick trip to NAPA
and a fairly intense conversation with the local 175hp F2
owning squid resulted in little help. I was able to dig through
the book myself and found a Volkswagen sensor that fit perfectly
and was of the right range, only confirming my belief that
the WW2 axis powers were actually behind building the damn
bike. Throwing the sensor on the bike just lit the low pressure
light again as well......damn, Ducati bad. What would Scott
Files do in a situation like this?.....well, he would probably
make a sensor out of half an oil filter and a light bulb,
then go home and get his wife pregnant. I took a slightly
more practical approach (plus Tammy was out of town) and went
to Autozone and bought an oil pressure gauge (Bosch....go
figure). got it mounted up and saw 35psi at idle, 80 psi at
6000rpm. Just what I figured, the magneti marelli sensor had
been lying.....Ducati bad.....
By this time it was already 6pm and I again found myself
late heading up to Eric's house to meet the Blatterts, Erin,
Kelly, Ben and Jerry for dinner up at Indy. We all hooked
up and headed out to the now traditional cheap Mexican joint
for a few burritos and lie telling. Everyone headed home and
I stayed the night at Hotel Blat and was able to get a couple
of good hours sleep, excited about the track day like a kid
at Christmas.
Sunday morning dawned clear, crisp and cold as we headed
out in the moonlight to Putnam an hour away. We rolled into
the pits with the Ohio gang closely behind and set up camp.
We managed to roll both the GSXR and Ducati off the truck
without dropping them and proceeded to start them to get them
teched.....the gixer fired right off and settled in a burbably
idle. the Ducati on the other hand was up to its old tricks
and required a jump to reluctantly start idling, dry clutch
rattling like a jiffy-pop on full heat. I also promptly discovered
as I tried to get under way that the hydraulic clutch had
decided to go off, requiring a full bleed before I could even
make it to tech. Ducati.....well you can probably guess by
now. Both bikes passed tech without any issues and we settled
in for the short wait until our first session. After a very
thorough riders meeting (probably a result of last years tragedy.....),
the first race group which I was part of was given first call
to the grid.
I considered going out first on the Ducati and ending our
miserable existence together with one hot lap on ice cold
slicks on an ice cold track, but my conscious got the better
of me and we decided to tip toe around on the GSXR first.
the first session was spent re-acquainting myself with the
both the 600 and the track, tip toeing through the flowing
corners and hammering it on the straights. The Suzuki's new
found muscle was intoxicating, as R6's and new GSXR's that
used to leave me for dead on the straights were now slowly
being reeled in. The thing was a rocket for a 600 (well, sort
of a 600.....), and we were having a Blast exploiting the
soft compound rear slick's grip on corner exits. The previously
perfect gearing was now slightly off as I'm sure we could
go down a tooth or two in back to compensate for the new found
mid-range. The first session ended and I was all smiles and
could hardly wait for the next session! Unfortunately we had
to make an unplanned trip around the track in the pickup to
pick up Ben, who managed to low side on the cold left side
of the tire....on the first lap! Ben, we are just giving you
a hard time, as I did the exact same thing on the first lap
of our last track day. Of course you crashed at turn 4 and
I made it all the way to 8......). The next couple of sessions
were spent just hopping on the GSXR and riding, slowly upping
the pace. The bike was just about perfect, and the slicks
were just awesome, not even giving a hint of sliding as we
began to slam the bike around in pursuit of Ben and Matt.
We ended up having some great 'mock' races. Between sessions,
I gleefully bounced between helping Erin and Jerry out (Kelly
seemed to be the only one of us who had everything under control)
and the GSXR, blissfully ignoring Mussolini who sat solemnly
alone in the corner of the pit. ex-Ducati racer Jim Connor
was there and didn't have a ride, so I offered him the use
of Mussolini (snickering slightly under my breath). He politely
refused, probably based on the cosmetics alone. It was beginning
to look like the Duc would stay grounded for the day, as I
was having way too much fun on the Gixer....
The next session I was determined to start cranking out some
fast laps and try and beat my own personal best lap time at
Putnam. I knew the bike was capable if I could start hitting
my brake markers and go in a little hotter into the corners.
I began experimenting with some different lines, started braking
deeper, and trying to ride smoother. Things felt like they
were coming together when disaster struck. I had just crested
Dead bear and was blasting down the short straight toward
turn 9, when I went for a WOT upshift and found a false neutral.
The revs went off the tach, and when I gathered it back together,
I found the screaming inline four had suddenly done its best
Triumph triple imitation, making a sickening clattering sound
at the same time. It was pretty obvious the game was over,
so I immediately pulled in the clutch and headed toward pit
road, limping it back to its rear stand. Something was not
right (A later autopsy showed an intake valve had broken at
the valve keeper, dropping the valve into cylinder #2). As
I coasted in on the sick bike, I saw that my wife Stacey and
both of her parents had just shown up and witnessed the ugly
incident....very nice.
I turned away from the poor little gixer and stared eye to
eye at Mussolini.....I had no other choice. It was mano against
machino. I wasn't happy about it and I'm sure he wasn't either,
but the sudden attrition rate left the Ducati as my only riding
option. I couldn't imagine how I was ever going to get this
overweight, underpowered horse around the track in anything
close to a competitive speed. My father-in-laws first spectating
of me on a bike at a track would be on this completely stock
street bike thing which I hadn't even rode for 5 miles on
public roads, on ice cold slicks, with the hot race group
which were well up to speed. As the old sailors say, any port
in a storm....
The Ducati warmed up slowly, you could almost hear the anger
in its stuttering idle. Our session was called to grid and
I hopped on and hoped for the best. I let the rest of the
group clear pit out before I hammered the Ducati and headed
for the track. The torque of the beast caught me a little
off guard, as we powered wheelied through 3 gears out of the
pit. hmmmm....that was kind of fun! Turn 1 approached and
I tentatively bent it in....to my amazement, it just sort
of non-chalantly sauntered through the corner. I was still
tip toeing through the corners testing traction when the session
was red flagged for a crash after only 2 laps. We lined up
again on the hot pit, and I had a chance to look over the
bike. The tires were nice and warm and working well.....hmmm,
maybe we can get a little more aggressive.
When the session was re-started, Matt on his R6 and Ben on
his F3 were right ahead of me out of the pit exit. Neither
one of these guys are slouches when it comes to lap times,
so I had decided I had enough tip toeing and started chasing
them around the track. Something close to magical suddenly
happened as I began to push the bike. The previously heavy
steering suddenly became stable and precise. The feedback
from the front end was amazing, putting my race prepped gsxr
to shame. The bike that felt so heavy being pushed up the
ramp in my truck suddenly disappeared below me. The power
delivery was almost idiot proof, very linear.....every lap
I was able to confidently open the throttle a little earlier
and earlier through the corners. The harder I rode, the better
it felt. Within 3 or 4 laps, I was going as fast as I had
in 4 sessions on my 600. Honestly, I had never bought into
any of that Ducati crap, thinking of them as overpriced, over
hyped rich boy toys. I was simply floored by how good this
thing really is.....
The last session was a riot spent chasing Matt around on his
R6 at nearly full race pace, the only thing holding me back
being the thought of all those expensive Ducati replacement
parts, and the fact that I had just painted Matt's bike and
crashing him would not only piss him off, but me too....Both
bikes/riders had their strong points: Mussolini's awesome
front end feedback allowed my to run quick through turn 1
and 4, while Matt was getting out of the bus stop and through
turn 9 and 10 a lot faster than me. Of course I was short
shifting and saving my tires......could have smoked him no
problemo (gg).
anyway, a very fun weekend and a beautiful day to ride. It
was great seeing everybody again. I have to thank bob foist
for his help on Saturday, the Sebastians and Blatterts for
their always friendly accommodations (and Eric's surprisingly
good chocolate chip cookies....what a homo), Erin, Ben, Kelly,
Matt and Jerry for some good riding/racing, Stacey for putting
up with all this 2 wheel crap, and we'll thank Jamie now for
getting my 600 motor back in running shape again. I guess
I also owe an apology to Mr. Mussolini as well.....maybe I
have you all wrong. Maybe your not so much an evil Italian
dictator as a tortured artist, only content when being pushed
on the track, painting beautiful black darkies coming off
of all the corners..... (My god, I'm beginning to sound like
a Ducati owner)
WFO
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