Brad's Racer Blog
What's new at Nicolai Racing
To say that it's been awhile since the last update would be the understatement of the century. A LOT has gone on since June 14th, some good, but mostly bad. I'll get into details a little later tonight, but the bottom line is that Nicolai Racing is (for now) out of business. But, with a little luck one day it will be back.
The bike is for sale, so anyone interested can get a hold of me from the contact page. Scroll down to see what we all did to it.
I also have started a new blog at www.onegoaround.wordpress.com so you can be sure to check that out. It's got a bit of information on what I'm doing in the next few months.
I don't plan on letting NicolaiRacing.com go in the dumps, but it might be awhile before it's up and running with regular updates again.
Until next time,
~Brad
Elkhart Lake in a word, Rocks. It's unbelievable. Every year we go back I like the track a little more, and this year was definetly no exception. My dad and I headed up to the AMA Superbike races last weekend, and like I said, it rocked. The weather was less than cooperative, but for most of the actual racing, it stayed dry. We did not. Our campsite was practically flooded and our tent wasn't completely waterproof. Though we took the easy-up so it wasn't too bad hanging out under there until the rains subisded (which took quite awhile).
It was interesting this weekend to see what the support classes were like. For the weekend we were treated to Moto-ST and the US Red Bull Rookies Cup. Moto-ST was pretty good and although I was apprehensive about it, the pit stops did make for some tense times. It was pretty entertaining, really. Honestly though, the highlight of the AMA weekend was the Red Bull Rookies Cup. These kids are going to be the future of the sport and it constantly amazes me how much money Red Bull is throwing at Roadracing. I can't say enough about it. It's just great.
We met a couple of big names that I haven't gotten to meet yet, like Chaz Davies...
You'll notice in the background the Attack Team holding down their easy-up's as it tried to blow away! The whole thing was ruined. Poles twisted and everything. It was pretty unbelievable, actually. Ours was one of the few that didn't get destroyed that weekend. The wind was relentless.
The AMA races were great and all, but the real treat came on Monday when we did a trackday at Road America with Sportbike Track Time. They are a great group of people and the riders meeting was one of the best and funniest I've been to.
When we woke up monday morning, we were a little worried that it was going to rain all day since it had all weekend. The forecast didn't look good either, but none the less, we were going to get on the track. It turnes out that it didn't rain at all! The track was damp in the morning, but by noon it was dry as a bone. It was amazing.
The track itself was pretty nutz too. With three (yeah three) flat out, everything you've got, straightaways, how could it not be?? We were still having problems with the front end because we didn't have time to get new springs in the front end. The good news is that we know what the problem is. The bad news is that we couldn't do anything to remedy it there. We tried a bit of everything, even had an ohlins guy come over and help us out, but it only helped a little. It was a bit of a religious experience hitting the brakes at 160 and having the front end chatter like it's nobody's busines.
Needless to say I had an amazing time. The track is just great and I can't wait to go back on the Fourth of July.
My dad took some video of the weekend, so here ya go...
This one is of the AMA weekend. This is the 12-13 combo coming out of Canada Corner.
Elkhart after canada corner.MOV
This is one of me on the front straight. I'm in the middle of a pack of 3 riders about 27 seconds into the video. It's foggy for some reason, we're still not sure why.
Front straight.MOV
Here's me going through number 3. (Sure, a little slow, but it's my first time there!)
number3.MOV
Going under the Sargento Bridge.
Sargentobridge.MOV
And the last one is coming out of the carousel and going through the kink...
Kink at elkhart.MOV
It was AMAZING!!!
I can't wait to go back over the 4th!
I think that's about all I have from the weekend. We're about to head to Lake Namakagon for a family vacation that we take every year (this will be our 16th!) so needless to say, I can't wait to get going.
The next on the list of things to do when I get back is to fix the pictures page. There are so many more pictures for you all to see and I'm sorry that I just haven't gotten around to it.
In any case, I'm off to the Lake!
See you at the races!
~Brad
It always seems like time flies so much faster when I look and see how long it's been since the last blog entry on here. The truth is that there is quite a bit that has happened (when isn't there?) including the first race weekend on the new bike, so there's plenty to talk about!
Thursday night (the 22nd) was filled with getting ready. I mean ready. Everything packed and loaded up in the van. The only thing left to do was hook the trailer up and take off. We've put together a list of stuff we need for every weekend and the "Checklist" really helps put your mind at ease. Everything was checked off and double checked. Friday after work it was as simple as hook up and head out. The trip down to Mid America Motorplex flew by and although it rained a bit on the way down, it wasn't too bad.
We decided to try something a little different this time around. Normally we'd leave the bike in the parking lot of the hotel, but it's in an open trailer and I thought it might be a better idea to leave it at the track. Turns out it worked out great because we got to pick our pit before everyone got there. I felt much better leaving the bike in the track anyways, where someone would be watching it all night. Not that there's a bad group of people there, just the opposite in fact, but things happen, and I'd rather be safe than sorry.
It ended up storming out that night. I mean STORM. My dad was convinced that the trailer had flipped overnight. I slept like a rock through the whole thing, but he had woken up several times. I was really hoping that it wasn't too bad out and that we'd get some nice weather for the rest of the weekend, but the forecast wasn't good and judging by our past experiences here at MAM, well, let's just say we weren't holding our breath.
Saturday morning we headed to the diner near the hotel for biscuts and gravy (some of the best). After our bellies were full, we headed to the track. We were greeted by our bikes still being there (thank God) and we quickly got situated and set up the pit.
The weather that morning wasn't bad at all and we were pleased to see that the track was dry as a bone. It must have been all of the wind, but it was some sort of strange miracle that the track was dry after a night like that. We threw the tire warmers on and I headed to the riders meeting. About halfway through I remembered that I forgot to check the tire pressure.
Yeah...I know...
I couldn't believe it. One of the most important and basic things and I simply forgot it. Unreal. But I checked with the Bridgestone and Track Addix guys and found the proper warm tire pressure to shoot for. Once I got back to the pit my Dad informed me that we didn't have a tire pressure gauge.
WHAT?
Are you kidding me? How did we miss this!? So much for the checklist! This was turning out to be a bit of a disastrous first weekend. But we were pitted next to the Pirelli guys who were nice enough to lend us a tire gauge whenever we needed it (despite the fact that we're running Bridgestone!). Later on in the weekend they asked if they could use our air tank, I kind of thought "aren't you guys supposed to have that kind of stuff?" It was kind of funny, but then I thought that we didn't have a tire pressure gauge, so who was I to judge?!
The rest of the weekend went much more smoothly and when the first session rolled around, I was ready to go. I had decided to move up into the Advanced group. Turns out this was a great idea as i knocked off a full 10 seconds from the first session on Saturday to the last race on Sunday. Granted, alot of that was getting used to the bike and how it handles, and I only took off 3.5 seconds off of my best time last year, but I was still amazed at how much I learned simply riding around guys that were faster than me.
There was much more people there than I'd seen in awhile. It was a combined CCS event between the Midwest guys and the Great Plains guys and it showed. I think there was somewhere in the vicinity of 70 pre-entires!
Saturday morning was all about getting back into the groove and upping my speed everywhere. During the Saturday afternoon sessions I started to get fast enough to really get some definitive feedback from the bike and I learned some really good things. One of the things that wasn't such good news was that I was bottoming out the forks under hard braking. This was mostly happening in turn 1 and going into the carousel as they are the hardest braking zones. We tried some fixes, but the bottom line is that the springs in the front end are too soft for me. Under actual braking the front would just chatter really bad when straight up and down from the tire just pounding the pavement. And any attempt to trail brake was futile. It was everything I had to just get the thing to tip in when on the brakes. Once I let off of them a little, it would drop in like a dream. Needless to say I was getting passed on the brakes all weekend long.
The rear end honestly wasn't tons better, but at least I could handle that. After 4 or 5 laps the rear would start to get very mushy and corner exit was a joke as I was trying to muscle that thing to where I wanted it. The rear would just sqat on corner exit making it very hard to get it to cooperate with me. So by the end of the sessions I was fighting to get it into the corner and fighting to get it out of the corner. Not the ideal way to race to say the least.
Saturday afternoon at the track we ran into one of the regulars over at the Speedtv.com forums, Kenny (Though all of you over there know him as KingKenny)! It was really good to put a face to the name, and my dad, Kenny and I all went out to a great mexican place Saturday night that I'm sure will become a regular fixture when we go to MAM.
Saturday right before we left we put a new set of tires on for Sunday. We decided to try out the Bridgestone BT-003's and I have to say that the things rock. Rear grip is unreal and the turn in actually felt better on these than on the BT-002's. I think it's safe to say that we're going to stick with these!
I was a little worried about heading out on fresh rubber in the morning though. Again the forecast was calling for rain, but if we could somehow dodge it and I could get my morning practice in with the new rubber on to scrub them in, then I'd be all good for the day.
Sunday morning turned out perfect and we got just the weather we wanted. After a perfect morning session it was time to get the race face on.
My Mom and Brother decided to come down for Sunday's races, so it was good to have them there to watch!
The first race of the day was Heavyweight Supersport, sure to be my easiest race of the day. There are traditionally less people than Middleweight Supersport, and with it being my first race of the day I thought that it was my best chance of the day for a podium.
Thanks to my Dad I was gridded in the front row for all of my races that day, so I had no more excuses. It was go time. Third call finally came around and I took a deep breath, threw a leg over the bike and gave a blip of throttle as my dad took the bike off the rear stand.
Something strange happens when you put the visor down. It's not a switch in the traditional sense of the word, but something about that click of the visor makes everything else disappear. There's not much noise because you have earplugs in. There's something strangely serene and calming about the fact that you're about to put it all on the line. It's just you and the bike.
After the warm-up lap, I took my spot on the grid, middle of the first row. It was to be a 2 wave start, so I put the bike in neutral and held my hands up. The experts took off.
Here's where the serenity and calmness go away.
Click into first. 7,500 RPM. Feel for the grab point with the clutch. Eye on the flag. This is it.
The 1 board goes sideways.
The green flag waves and all bets are off.
I'm reminded of a line from the movie 300. "It's not fear that grips him, just a heightened sense of things"
I got a great start, but the guy to my left out broke me (go figure) and I was in 2nd going into 1. Unfortunately this didn't last long and I soon realized that I was falling back fast. Time to step it up. It took me a half lap or so to realize just how much harder I could push and by that point I was in 5th or 6th. I picked up a couple spots after reeling in a couple guys and ended up finishing 4th. Not bad, but I was disappointed that I hadn't had a quicker pace in the first lap or I would have been contending a podium. Rats.
When I got back my mom gave me a great report that she was down to 10 Hail Mary's a lap as opposed to the 50 or so she was shelling out last time she saw me race. That's good, I thought!
I didn't have much time to rest as I only had one race to rest before MWSS. Between the last track day and this race I had been doing quite a bit of bike riding, which helped out immensely, but it was clearly not enough and I was still pretty tired after the race. It was going to be tough to be 100% for MWSS.
Not nearly enough time passed before first call, but it was time and I had to go wether I was ready or not. This time I started on the outside of the first row. Another good start, but this time I knew I was beat into 1 and was already 3rd by the time we hit the 2-3 combo. Head down, I thought, push. Unfortunately this time around there was just guys who were plain faster than me. I ended up falling back quite a bit and I was very tired by the end. Terry (one of the first guys I met at the track) was right behind me on the last lap, but I had enough of a lead to hold him off until the flag for 11th spot. He would have had me going into 1 if there was another lap, but lucky for me, there's only 8! He later told me that he saw me slowing down and thought he might be able to get me before the flag. Terry is such a great guy and one that my dad and I always look forward to seeing at the track. One day we're going to have an epic battle to the checkered, I can feel it! It may be for 11th place, but I know it's coming!
The lunch break didn't come soon enough and I was more than happy to take my suit off. It had warmed up to 80 degrees or so. What was I thinking buying black leathers!?!
I had enough time to rest and gain some strengh back, which was good. I was going to need it for Middleweight Grand Prix. All of the other races of the day were 8 lap sprints, but the GP races are 12 laps. I was to start in the middle of the front row again.
This time I totally bogged the start and I was in the middle of the pack going into 1. I was able to pick off a couple of guys and maintain until the last few laps. I was absolutely exhausted by the end of the race and finished a tired 8th.
The bike just did not want to turn the whole weekend and I think I really spent a lot more energy than I should have trying to muscle the bike around.
My dad wanted to stay and watch the superbike races, but my brother wanted to head home, so I decided to give him some company in the car. We said our goodbye's and took off.
Despite the fact that the bike wasn't where I'd like it to be it was a great weekend. It felt so good to be back in action, and even though the results weren't what I would have liked them to be, we have something to work with and I know that I can shave a few more seconds off.
We have new RaceTech springs coming in and hopefully we can get those in next week sometime. I would have liked to get them installed this week sometime so that we can have them when we go to Elkhart Lake this weekend, but I kind of dropped the ball on ordering them, so I have no one to blame but myself. Hopefully that will fix the front end, or at least make it better.
I had a great hour long conversation with Ryan from what used to be Susupension Soloutions in Lemars IA. I had gotten his phone number from a guy who was reading this very blog an it turned out be be one of the most informative hours ever. We went over nearly everything that has to do with suspension and bike set up and now I feel like I have a really good grasp on what the bike needs as far as suspension goes. Bottom line is that the stock stuff has to go if you want to win. It's going to be great to get some new components on the bike and really work with it to see how much I can squeeze out of it.
I mentioned Elkhart Lake earlier. My dad and I are headed there this weekend (June 6th, 7th, and 8th) to check out the AMA boys. On Monday there is a track day hosted by Sportbike Track Time, so we're going to do that to prep for the CCS races over the 4th of July there. It's going to be amazing to get on that track. I honestly can not wait!
Well I think that about covers it. Hopefully after Elkhart Lake I'll get off my butt and update this a little faster this time around.
The third week in June every year is dedicated to a family vacation to Northern Wisconsin. I'm really looking forward to getting in some R&R that week. It's been so "GO GO GO" lately that it'll be nice to take it easy for a week.
Lesson of the weekend: Suspension wins Championships. Get it or get second. If you want to win, it's a must have.
Thanks again to everyone who's been so supportive, especially my family! I couldn't do it without you!
If you happen to be at Elkhart Lake this weekend and see us around, stop by and say hi, we'd love to chat with you!
See you at the races!
~Brad
----- Apr 28, 2008 -----
Wow, so it's been longer that I though it might be before the next update. There's been qutie a bit happening, including the first track day with the new bike, but that's for a little later. First things first, I need to thank our newest sponsors, the Sioux Falls Federal Credit Union (www.siouxfallsfcu.org). I'm really looking forward to riding for you guys!
We made a few minor changes to the bike before heading to Mid America Motorplex on the 19th and 20th. An ex-racer emailed us at Nicolai Racing and let us know that the kickstand switch seemed unnecessarily in the way and that it could get caught on something. He pointed out that it would be very simple to unhook the switch and zip tie it up a bit further. So that's exactly what we did. It unhooks very easily, like any other electrical connection on the bike.
After we did that, we connected a jumper wire in between the two connectors in the wire...
a href="http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2823658000069261379phnUgr">
and made sure the bike started AND SHIFTED INTO GEAR (very important) before we electrical taped the crap out of it and zip tied it back up a little higher, so it's definetly not in the way at all.
See the cut off zip tie in the middle of the picture? That's it. Definetly out of the way now.
We also put Stompgrip on the bike and the stuff ROCKS. I've heard a lot of people complain that it's hard to put on, and it is, but I think I found the secret. Heat the stuff up. Seriously, get out your girlfriend/wife/mom's hair dryer and heat that stuff up until it's flimsy as heck. Everything will go on MUCH easier and there will be little to no bubbles. Mine literlly has Zero bubbles in it.
Now on to the fun stuff, actually riding the bike! We took off Friday night in usual fashion, in a bit of a hurry, thinking that we'd forgotten something, but we didn't. The trip down to Mid America Motorplex is a little over 3 hours for us and my dad, my brother and I filled the time with talk of politics, global warming, and of course the newly proposed rules to the AMA Superbike Series by DMG (Which I don't approve of, but that's for another blog.)
We were greeted at MAM with some rain and cold, which is probably the worst possible combination...except for snow. The forecast for the weekend was good, so we were still optimistic. After an unusually poor night of sleep we woke to overcast skies. The ground had dried out qutie a bit, suprisingly, though it was still pretty cold. Over a breakfast of biscuts and gravy at the diner next door, we ran into a couple of TrackAddix instructors that told us Dean (the owner of TrackAddix) had made an executive decision to push the whole day back an hour or so to let the track dry. With our stomachs full, we headed for the track, which is literally about a half mile from the track. There didn't appear to be any standing water on the track, but the infield was a different story. If any of you have ever been to Mid America Motorplex, you know what I'm talking about. MAM was built on a bit of a swampy area, very low lying, and when it rains it's very stubborn as far as drainage goes. In any case, I'm pretty sure that when the built the track, the put a bunch of superglue in the soil as it's basically impossible to get off of your bike/tires/suit/anything it touches once it's on there. It literally takes hours to get off of there, I'm not kidding. Needless to say, It was a good call by Dean to push things back a bit.
By the time we got registered and our pit ready, it was about time for the rider's meeting.
Dean reminded all of us to take it easy since it was the first track day for most of us (myself included) and the track was still green since it had rained the night before. Some inevitably didn't heed Dean's advice and in the very first session of the day (Advanced) someone had already gone down. His front wheel wouldn't even turn there was so much mud and crap in there.
I opted to be in the Intermediate group since I had literally never ridden the bike. But there were a couple orders of business to attend to before I headed out to the track. First was to mount some Bridgestone BT-002's on the bike. The other was to get a baseline suspension set up. We kind of ran out of time to get Sag setup before we left, so we asked Larry at TrackAddix to help us out and he did a great job. Both of those jobs cost us a couple of sessions, which was fine with me since the track was still a bit damp and no one was really pushing very hard.
Finally it was time to get out there. All of the months of preparaton and all of the time put into the bike and it had finally come down to this. 
I deliberatly waited until there was a bit of a line to pit-out before I headed there myself since I knew I was going to take it easy and simply get the feel of the bike. The first impressions of the bike were very good. I was suprised as how quickly I got used to it and how quickly I felt comfortable going faster and faster on it. Everything is such a huge step up from the GSX-R... brakes, power, handling, and everything in between. My brain kept telling me to take it easy, but the bike kept urging me to go faster and faster. The only real complaint I had is that I felt very cramped on the thing, but I suppose being 6'2" will do that to you. Everything just felt very snug. In each session I got more and more comfortable on it and rode a little harder in each. The last session of the day I really let loose and wicked it up and the bike felt even better. The harder I rode the bike, the more comfortable I felt on it. I've never felt so comfortable going so fast on a bike before. Before the end of the day, I had simply gotten used to how much smaller the bike is than the GSX-R and I didn't feel cramped anymore.
We also worked out a couple of unseen kinks in the bike on Saturday. In the third or fourth session I was out, I felt my shift lever just kind of go away. I looked down and saw that one of the bolts holding the thing on had come almost completely out. Luckily it hadn't yet. I was going pretty slow and there was no one anywhere near me, so I reached down and took the thing out. It must have spun loose riding, but with a little Locktite, we were back in business. The very next session, however, I couldn't get past 2nd gear. We brought it back in and found out that we snugged the same bolt (that just came out) a bit too tight, and it wouldn't budge after 2nd. So we backed it out a bit and we out again. We didn't have another problem with it for the rest of the weekend.
Saturday turned out to be a great day and exactly what I needed. Needless to say, I slept well Saturday night.
Sunday we woke up to still overcast skies, but the temp was supposed to get up to 76 and I knew it was going to be a very good day. The rain wasn't the problem Sunday, the wind was. It was a steady 25 mph, gusting up to 40 or so, and you could definetly feel it on the track. Again on Sunday I opted out of a few of the morning sessions as it was pretty freakin cold in the morning, but once I got out on the track everything fell right into place. I was starting to get held up by the riders in the intermediate group, so I kicked around the idea of getting into the advaced group, but decided against it because there were less people in the intermediate group and I didn't want to feel pressured to go faster that I was comfortable with yet. I started to make sure that I was the first in line to get onto the track once the Intermediate sessions started. I found I could get 4 or 5 clean and clear laps in before I'd catch up to the people at the back of the pack, which was good, because that's about the time I got tired.
That was probably the most disappointing part of the whole weekend. Plain and simple, I was further out of shape than I thought. I could feel that the bike could push harder, and I knew that I was capable of going faster around the track, but I simply ran out of steam after 5 laps. It was extremely frustrating to say the least. Needless to say, the first thing I did when I got back home was fix up one of my brother's old petal bikes to train on.
Speaking of my brother, he came down to MAM with us to do TrackAddix's "Try the Track" program. He got 2 hour long classroom sessions and then 2, 15 minute paced sessions on the track. He used my boots and my bike, and I think it's safe to say that he's got the bug!
The rest of the sessions went very well, and I rode faster and faster in each session, and, it seemed, on each lap. Toward the end of Sunday there were a lot of people leaving for one reason or another and for the last couple hours of the day TrackAddix opened the track up for the rest of the day in an "No Sessions" format, so I got some good track time in with that. The faster I went on the bike, the more comfortable it felt, which urged me to go faster yet. There still needs to be some adjustments to the suspension, but all in all, I couldn't be happier with how the weekend went. 
On the way back home we stopped at Wimps for some of the best burgers ever, which really topped off the weekend.
One of the problems we ran into this weekend was that the exhaust gets so hot that the Bridgestone stickers on the side of the bike simply burned off...yeah, BURNED off!! So we've taken off the lowers and tried to insulate it as best as we can. Hopefully that will solve that problem.
Here's a few more pictures from the weekend. They're from Midwest Sports Imaging (www.midwestsportsimaging.com) and I'll only be putting links to the pages up here since they are copyrighted.
http://msi.exposuremanager.com/p/3_pm_intermediate/img_269541
http://msi.exposuremanager.com/p/1_pm_intermediate/ho0g036120
http://msi.exposuremanager.com/p/3_pm_intermediate/img_263343
If you feel so inclined to look through the rest of the pictures, I'm in the Intermediate group throught the weekend.
Looking back on the weekend I realized that it's just what I needed. I couldn't be more confident heading into the first race of the season on May 24th and 25th. We had kicked around the idea of heading to Motorsports Park Hastings the weekend before that (the 16th and 17th) but we're still not sure if we're going to or not, so we'll keep you posted.
One of my co-workers suggested that we put in a "Schedule" Section so people can see where we're going to be. I though that was a great idea, so hopefully we'll have that up and running soon. I also am going to redo the pictures page. It's just not what I think it could be, so I'll be working on that soon.
Lesson of the weekend:
If you have a steering damper, use it. Or this might happen...
Apparently that was a tank slapper down the front straight at about 120mph.
A quick side note, the guy riding the bike above dislocated his shoulder and messed up his hand, but he was released from the hospital that day and will be just fine!
See you at the races!
~Brad
----- Apr 6, 2008 -----
Finished! Alright, so not quite finished, but the paint job is, and I have to say, it didn't turn out too bad at all, especialy for it being just a rattle can job. We went with black and white. Since the number plates for an amateur have to be yellow (Per CCS rules), we also did a little yellow pin striping that really finished the bike off.
Like I said, I'm very happy with the way it all turned out! There's plenty more pictures in the 'Pictures' section, so be sure to head over there if you want to see the rest of the finished product.
We also put the seel braided brake lines on. And by we, I mean Scott! After about an hour of hassling around with the brakes, we decided to take it to Advanced Motorsports. Thanks again to Scott at Advanced Motorsports in Sioux Falls for helping us out with that!
The next step is suspension set up. We're going to do as best as we can, but obviously you can only do so much in the garage. You really need to get out on the track to sort things out. This is going to be a very interesting and challenging task for me. I've never really worked out a suspension and now I'm charged with taking a completely stock bike (as far as suspension goes) and getting it into race form. At least with the old Suzuki things were already track ready when I bought the thing (though it really wasn't set up for my weight). I suppose it's a little daunting of a task simply because it's all up to you. Up until this point everything I've worked on has been lines, braking points, form, and the like. All of those are things that someone can tell you "Here's what you're doing wrong, and here's how you can fix it." With suspension it's all about what you're feeling through the bike and what you think you can do to make it better. It's going to be incredibly interesting though, and I'm really excited to dive into it. I think you just have to be confident in your skills and go from there.
My dad wanted to put some of his own vintage bikes on the website for all of you to enjoy, so I've created a new "Vintage" section of the website. In there you'll find the 4 vintage bikes he's got now, complete with pictures, descriptions, and maybe even a little history. It'll be updated as he acquires new bikes and makes changes to the ones he's got now, so feel free to check that out as well!
That's all I've got for now. We were planning on setting up sag this weekend, but my pit crew (AKA, my dad) went out of town and so it'll have to be done sometime this week.
We're also kicking around the idea of going to the 2008 Speed Machine gathering at Borrowed Bucks Roadhouse on the 12th of April from 11 AM to 5 PM, so stop by and say "Hi" if you're going to be there! www.sdparent.org has more information on the event.
See you at the races!
~Brad
Okay, so the update didn't happen quite as quickly as I had hoped for, but we're much further along in the process of turning the bike into a full on race bike.
The oil has been changed to full sinthetic Ams-oil with a new oil filter, and we have completely drained the anti-freeze out of the bike and have replaced it with distilled water and water wetter. The safety wiring is all done, too. We have officially started painting the bike and after the first type of paint didn't turn out as glossy as we had hoped for, we switched to another kind and definetly got the results we were after. The uppers still need another coat and the tail section isn't quite finished, but all in all, we're pretty close to being ready to go. In fact, if we had to, we could definetly go racing right now.
Oh, except for one thing. We ordered steel braided brake lines off of E-bay and they came without the double banjo bolt. This posed a problem as we didn't have a spare one just laying around. But we called the good folks at Goodridge (www.goodridge.net) and they are sending us one at no charge. So whenever that gets here we'll actually have brakes, which are a good thing!
The numbers are ordered from a sign shop here in town, so that should be done soon, also. After that it's time for one of the best parts of putting together any race bike, putting the stickers on!
All in all, the bike is coming along nicely and we should be ready to go very soon!
Dean at Track Addix ( www.trackaddix.com ) has helped us out immensly by offering us a spot on their Team Bridgestone which will help us out on the costs associated with tires. We've also joined the MotoMania club (which can be joined through the Track Addix website) which will allow us much more track time at a much lower cost. Thanks again Dean!
Hopefully within the next few days the painting will be done and we will have some pictures up on the website of the new paint job. I'm particularly anxious to see how it looks and also to take the bike out to the fairgrounds and have a go at the new bike. I wont be dragging a knee or anything like that, but I've never ridden this bike before and it will be good to have a little seat time before I get on the track on April 19th and 20th at Mid America Motorplex (put on by Track Addix, of course!)
See you at the races!
~Brad
----- Mar 6, 2008 -----
With the arrival of a brand new Leo Vince exhaust at the house, it was time to get back to working on the bike, and that is exactly what we did last weekend! Unfortunately we were only able to work on it for part of Friday and some of Saturday, but still, we got a few important things finished.
We got all of the plastic finished (Thanks again to Kelvin!) and fitted with the new Dzus fittings and some final bolts. The next step was to wet sand the crap out of them, and I have to say they turned out very nice! We're looking over possible paint schemes at the moment as that is the next step in the "Race Plastic" process.
Our first order of business on Friday was to fit the new exhaust, which first entailed taking off the stock one. This proved to be more of a pain in the rear than I wanted it to be. Getting the whole thing loose was not the problem, but actually removing the pipe off of the catalytic converter was. The problem was that when lifting the pipe off of it, you had to lift up, hence running into the subframe of the bike. The converter wouldn't shift down at all, so the only option we had was to unbolt the subframe and shift it as high up as we could. This ultimately worked, but not without some choice words to go along with it. 
Once that was off, we wrapped the lower pipe that hooks on to the catalytic converter with exhaust wrap. We kicked around different ideas on how to secure the wrap, but ultimately decided on using hose clamps because they could be taken off and adjusted without much trouble if the need arose. The wraps instructions suggested that we soak the wrap in water for several minutes, wrap the exhaust, then let it dry. So after the wrapping was finished, we were done for the night so we could let the wrap dry.
The next morning it was time to whip out the new exhaust and get it installed.
We read the Leo Vince directions that came with the exhaust, but after trying that a couple of times and having it not work, we decided to throw them in the garbage and give it a whirl our way, which ended up working great! There are a couple bolts that don't line up perfectly, but it's definetly good enough. The toughest part was trying to get the cradle that holds the silencer up to go on. With a little persuading, everything fit well.
And let me tell you, we took out the sound baffle and it sounds GREAT!
I'll hopefully be working on the bike tomorrow and Friday, and we'll be working on the radiator flush, oil change, and taping off the plastic for painting, so I should have some more updates before this weekend or early next week. The bike is really starting to come around and look like a race bike should!
Oh, we've just ordered steel braided brake lines from Goodridge, so that will be another project for another weekend.
One last thing, I've got to thank Leo Vince for the great sponsorship they've offered me as well as Precision Industries for helping us out for the second year! I'm looking forward to getting on the podium for both of these great companies!
See you at the races!
~Brad
What a weekend! Friday, Saturday and even part of Sunday we worked all weekend on fitting the new E-Racings fairings. I have to say it was a bigger job than I thought it would be, but it's a good one to have pretty much finished up. Here's the rundown... We started out on Friday at evening around 7, picked up Kelvin (the master fabricator) and headed out to the shop. Since my dad and I had already taken off all of the street fairings off, we could start right in on the fitting. We decided to start with the tail section.
We were trying to figure out a way to pinpoint the location that the screws will go in so that everything will line up accordingly. It turns out that this is really the key to fitting every piece of race plastic. There are indentations and things in the plastic already to give you a ballpark figure of where the bolts will go, but to get them perfect is the real challenge of fitting these race fairings.
We kicked around the idea of putting some grease on the end of a couple of bolts, putting them in place and then fitting the tail in hopes that some grease will get on the exact point that we need to drill. However, the tail section was fitting very snugly and we thought that any grease would get wiped off before we got the tail fitted correctly anyways. We ended up simply dirlling small holes (smaller than needed) in the middle of the bolt indentations to see if we could see down through them once the tail was fitted. This ultimately worked though we drilled the holes too large and Kelvin (Master Fabricator) is going to fill them with fiberglass and re-drill to get a perfect fit.
I mentioned that the tail went on pretty snugly. That might be an understatement. It went on very tight. On the underside of the tail there are a couple of long "tabs" (for lack of a better term) that seem to rub against the sub frame every time you put the tail on. We remedied this by whipping out the old Dremmel tool and basically shaving the tabs right off. The tail still dosen't exactly slide right on, but it's a much better fit than it was.
Our next piece that we decided to fit was the tank cover. The tank cover probably fit the best of all the pieces. It really was a pretty simple slip it on, drill and bolt.
One of the only complications we had in the tank was that at the point they are drilling in the picture there seemed to be some excess fiberglass that need to be ground down to size so that the rubber grommets from the original gas tank cover could be fitted on there. Again, Dremmel to the rescue.
Also on the inside of the original tank cover there are thin pieces of foam padding that seems to keep the tank cover snug on the bike. The E-Racings fairings did not come with these and subsequently there were some places where the tank did not fit snugly, such as where your legs go, and where the future Stomp Grip will go. I will be installing some of this foam before the first race to make sure everything fits correctly.
We also decided to forget about the bolt that goes in the tab on the tank cover that ends up covered by the seat. This tab is basically straight down from my chin in the picture above and you can clearly see it in the picture below. The problem with that is not that it wont fit, but that the tab is not very strong and seems as if it would break off. Between that and the fact that the bolt hole would end up very close to the edge of the plastic, we decided to just kind of forget about it. The tank cover seems to fit just fine without it.
The only other problem we had with the tank was that where the gas cap goes there is a rubber seal that needs to go between the gas cap and the tank cover. This was a bit of a pain in the butt to get to fit correctly so we decided to Dremmel the inside of the gas cap hole in the tank cover to get a better opening so that everything fit better.
This definetly worked and the tank cover went on much better from that point on.
The next thing we worked on was the front fender...I think...we did quite a bit that weekend, so bare with me! The front fender went on without a hitch. The only complaint we had about the front fender was that the E-Racings front fender is much heavier than the stock front fender. So much heavier that my Dad suggested that we just use the original and paint it. We ultimately decided against that as I am not Valentino Rossi and it probably won't make any difference, really.
After the front fender was installed we started on the lowers. They went on very easily. Everything seemed to line up correctly and there was VERY little we had to do to get them to fit right. Ultimately though, we drilled the holes in the lowers too big and so that piece is with Kelvin also to be filled and re-drilled.
I believe that was the extent of our work on Friday. Let me tell you there is nothing like a cold beer to finish off a long day of working on this stuff!!
Saturday we started off by removing the kickstand. This proved to be a little tricky, but we figured it out.
The first problem we ran into was the fact that the bolts we bought to use as swingarm spools (so we could lift the bike with the rear stand) ended up being a size too small. Luckily though, my old 2001 GSX-R 600 still had the bolts from the swingarm spools in it and they happend to be the right size. So that saved us a trip to the hardware store. Once we got the bike on the rear stand we were able to start on the kickstand removal.
The kickstand has an automatic cut off switch installed on it. The switch works so that if the kickstand is down and the bike is put into gear the engine will quit. We thought of a few different ways to bypass this switch but ultimately decided that we could zip-tie the switch in the 'up' position.
Once we did that, we simply zip-tied that onto the kickstand mount.
Our next step was to fit the uppers. We actually didn't think that we would be able to do that this weekend as we did not have a fairing stay and the Yoyodyne one we had intended on getting was on backorder until March. After taking a look at the original fairing stay, we decided that would do just fine, so we removed the headlights and anything that was unnecessary and used that. A good way to save $200 if you ask me!
Since we decided to use the stock fairing stay and ram intake, we were able to fit the uppers. This was easily the hardest part of the whole ordeal. To start with, the entire thing just didn't feel like it was fitting correctly. We moved and pushed and adjusted as much as we could but it just didn't seem like it was fitting right. So after putting it on and taking it off a half dozen times or so, we decided to take a look and see what the heck we might be able to adjust so that it will fit better.
One of the first things we noticed is that one of the tabs was bent on the bike. The guy who owned the bike before me actually layed the bike over on it's left side. Nothing major, but enough to mess up some plastic and bend this tab back a bit. Once this was straightened we noticed a bunch of foam that was on the side of the bike.
We decided that this was part of the problem and so with the help of some scissors...
...that problem was solved. There was also more foam on the other side that we 'took care of' as well. Another thing that we saw that was interfering with the fit of the uppers was the hose clamp screw on the radiator hose. This can clearly be seen in the lower left hand side of the above picture. There were a couple other plastic things that were hooked on to the top of the radiator that we removed to help with clearance issues. Also, on the right hand side there is the hose that goes from the radiator to the radiator overflow resivoir that we had to move out of the way. the hose is VERY tight after moving it around so I will be getting a new, longer hose to replace it. After doing all of this the plastc fit MUCH better. It still isn't perfect, but it's close enough.
The next step was to fit the uppers to the tank cover with Dzus fittings. We first made sure that we weren't going to drill into any wires or hoses and then drilled away. Everything went well except that the Dzus fittings that we had werent long enough to reach the holes that we drilled. So once again the Dremmel saved us and we ground away a noch so that the fittings would fit.
After repeating this process on both sides, we had something that started to look like a race bike. That was it for Saturday...the rest had to be finished on Sunday!
Sunday I think we were all a little tired of working on the bike at this point, at least, I kind of was, but none the less there was still a bit of work to be done, although not much, really.
We started finishing up the uppers by putting on the windshield.
We had no problems fitting the windshield, although there is a little gap where the small light fits right under the windshield on the street fairing.
We fitted the lowers back on, drilled and finished the holes for the Dzus fittings between the uppers and the lowers. We decided to use D-Ring fittings for these as they are much easier to use. Unfortunately the fittings werent long enough and we have to order the next size longer so that they will 'click' in.
After that we removed the passenger pegs and fitted the frame sliders that we ordered, all of which went smoothly.
The only other thing I need to do with the bike is get a new rear brake resivoir. The old one is unprotected without the passenger peg and I have a couple of ideas on how to fix the problem.
Once we have the plastic all on and are satisfied with the fit, we will be working on the sanding and painting of the bike. That's going to be a whole other weekend project!
That was pretty much our weekend. It took a lot of time and patience, but this stuff is something that you can't rush. You just need to take your time and do it right.
I need to say a HUGE thank you to Kelvin! We wouldn't have been able to do it without you!
See you at the races!
~Brad
Well, the first official blog! I suppose I should get you up to speed on what we've been up to.
Currently we're in the process of turning the 2007 Honda CBR600RR into 2008's race bike. It's going to be a long process, but I'm confident that we're up for it. We've replaced the rearsets with new black Vortex rearsets for better cornering clearance, a better grip on my boots and full adjustability as far as where the pegs are located. The rearsets are also really great because they feature the ability to switch to a GP style shifting instead of the standard. I'm going to stick with the standard for now, but it might be something to play around with later on.
Just today we recieved the E-Racings race fairings and they are GREAT! The price was definetly right, and they are much more durable that I thought they might be. The only complaint that I have about them is that they are much heavier than stock, but I'm confident that they will hold up well throughout the racing season. We haven't fit them on the bike yet as we have to get a front fairing bracket before we can do so.
I've also gotten a new helmet for the year and I like it! I decied to stick with the KBC VR-1 helmet because if it ain't broke, don't fix it! I'm pretty sure nobody else likes the design of it, but I do, so that's all that matters.
I also found out that I'll be switching numbers next year from number 26 to number 28 which is fine with me...I never liked Dani Pedrosa that much anyways!
Getting sponsorship for the year is, as usual, difficult. If anyone wants to sponsor a great race team with a bunch of great guys, let me know at brad@nicolairacing.com!
I'm currently working on getting the Pictures section up and running, but it's proving to be more difficult that I thought it might be. In any case, it should be up soon with pictures from the 2007 season as well as pictures from the 2008 build.
I think that's about all I've got for now, see you at the races!
~Brad
