THE
ENDURANCE SEASON 
THE
ENDURANCE SEASON This has been a very UP and down season! We bought a second Hawk halfway through the 1995 season and ran a couple of Endurance races with her (Sparrow Hawk). The idea was to give Harry extra track time. During the off season, we decided to make a serious run at the Lightweight Superbike Endurance Championship.
After doing routine post-season maintenance on Roxanne and Fido, I set about building a quick, comfortable, reliable, endurance mount. The key to our effort was planning to run every endurance race (four 4-hours and one 6-hour) without a DNF. Based on previous experience, I felt that if we could run in the top three at every race, we might prevail. In order to ensure longevity, we left the motor very mild. Stock pistons with new rings, polished rods, stock cams degreed in with 105 degree lobe centers and a stock black box.
To make her run with the FZRs, we counted on some super head work from Joe Gilbert at Gilbert Porting Services and some trick pipes from Dave Rash at D&D Exhausts. Joe spent over a month on the heads, flowing them with different sized intake and exhaust valves through the stock lift range, looking for a combination that would produce the most torque. After the flow bench work, we ended up with 2.5mm oversize intakes and stock exhausts. Dave built a pipe to match Joe's head work and coated the interiors of the headers with a special thermal coating.
Sounds cool, huh? Well, it would have been if Joe hadn't gotten sick during the process and the pipes had arrived in time for jetting in on the dyno. As it was, we missed the first race in Monterrey, Mexico. Needless to say, that threw us way behind in the points. We jetted the motor in with a standard D&D exhaust system and Dave delivered the trick headers the week before the second race at Texas World Speedway. As I was leaving his shop, Dave mentioned that I would need to "lean `er out a bit" to work with the new pipes. HAH! Can you say understatement? Sure, I knew you could.
One
thing led to another and we ended up at Texas World Speedway without additional
dyno time. The bike wouldn't run on the top end. We dropped two jet sizes,
front and rear and went out for the second practice. Still no top end.
Removing the airbox cover (leaning out) made it better but we didn't have
any smaller jets. We ended up running the 4-hour with a motor incapable
of pulling 5th gear with 16/41 gearing. We struggled to a hard-fought/frustrated
second behind perennial class leader Eric Fault ( Faltless
Racing) and his "mostly-stock" Hawk.
I was pissed! Dave said "put it back on the pump." We did and I couldn't believe how lean we had to go!
We dropped from 140/138 (rear/front) all the way to 128/125!!! Sure,
I like making runs back to the Honda shop for more jets. And, I love the
look on the parts guy's face when I tell him I want jets that small for
a Hawk. I finally just told him I was gonna' run Pike's Peak! The upshot
of all this work was a motor that made the same PSI, +-25PSI, from 3500
RPM to 8500 RPM. And an increase of 750 peak PSI over the standard D&D
pipe! (I didn't convert PSI to HP since I haven't found any contingency
paying dyno races in this region.) It's kinda' like riding a John Deere
tractor, albeit a very FAST John Deere tractor.
Contrary to all the known expertise, we made more power with less fuel. Hmmmmmmm, I wonder if Dave was involved with that 200mpg carburetor I read about in Popular Mechanics back in 1957?
So it was off to the next Endurance, a 6-hour at Texas World Speedway. I was concerned that something was wrong with our methodology and that the motor would overheat running so lean. The motor was not the problem in this race… the tires were! Well, at least they were part of the problem. Up to this point, we had always run Metzler MeZ1 race compound skins on the Hawks. Harry had been running Dunlop D364 and D204 Sportmax II GP Compounds on the F2 and really liked the stick. Since the D204s have pretty much the same profile as the MeZ1s, we decided to give them a try. Bad choice! Even during practice, we couldn't get them to hook up and the front end was all over the track in testosterone testing 140+mph turn one. We juggled pressures up and down from the Dunlop recommended 30psi front & rear to no avail. With the start coming up, there was no time to change so off we went. Here's the club newsletter report:
Panther City Racing added RS125 racer Ken Neff out of Austin and Novice Hawk racer Phil White from Roanoke to the team for the "First Annual Texas World Speedway Ride, Run & Swim 6-Hour Endurance." Ken led the charge for the first hour, trying desperately to remember that the shifter was reversed from his GP bike. After the first hour, Ken handed the Hawk off to the other PCR Expert, Harry Tomlinson. We had decided to give the Dunlop D204GPII's a try rather than our old favorite MeZ1's and it was to prove to be our downfall. By the end of the second hour, the Sparrow Hawk was sliding all over the track with the rider being able to spin the rear tire at will… unusual for a high-geared, low-powered Hawk. Bob Dickey, team captain, went out for the third hour and rode as well as he could. Being fat, old and out-of-shape, Dickey pulled in after only 45 minutes and handed the Sparrow Hawk off to Phil White after a tire change back to MeZ1s. The entire left side of the D204 was slick! Phil eased onto the track with the un-scrubbed tire just as the first rain began. Riding conservatively, he kept the bike upright and out of trouble. As the rain stopped, Ken Neff took his final hour, turning the fastest times of the day for PCR. Harry took over with an hour-and-a-half left and rode steadily through the now torrential rain. With about an hour to go, the Hawk's entire tail section came adrift between turns two and three, leaving the bike unscored for eight laps since both the number plates and the transponder were mounted to the bodywork. After friendly corner workers and pit crew combined to retrieve the AWOL bits, Harry pitted briefly for a zip-tie and duct tape "fix" then returned to the fray. Dickey took the bike back out for the last half hour of slow, slogging progress through the torrential rain. As he forded the river that used to be turn one, the red flag came out to call it a day. We finished second to Null Set on their FZR after Faltless Racing had a close encounter with a submerged curb that wiped out their front wheel.
August 3rd had us returning to heat-soaked Texas World Speedway, hoping we had chased all the gremlins away. With track temperatures reaching over 130 degrees F, survival was the name of the game. Breaking the 4-hour race up into 45 minute stints didn't allow us to take advantage of our newly enlarged, 4.2 gallon fuel tank, but did let the old man on the team live to fight another day. Four hours, $387 worth of Metzler's finest, 6 gallons of Gatorade, 15 gallons of race gas and 3.5 qts of Mobil 1 later, we finished 3rd behind Faltless and Null Set. The newly installed oil cooler (mounted in the subframe behind the seat to take advantage of the low pressure area around the rear wheel and for protection during crashes) helped hold ngine temps to acceptable levels. The Camel Back drinking system did almost as much for the old man!
Labor Day weekend saw us make the long trek to Hallett Motor Racign Circuit in Northeast Oklahoma for the last round of the Endurance series. In a brilliant move by club officials, this 4-hour was scheduled to start at 8:30 AM! At last, we can escape the heat of the day. With Friday afternoon being the only real practice available, Link (Crew Chief) and I headed out in "Toulouse La Truck" (`91 Datsun Pickup) early Friday AM to make the afternoon practice sessions. But wait, I've left out the bit o' drama in this scenario. Wednesday night, while picking up tires from Scotty and delivering the big red Spares Box to Harry, I had a short encounter with a mindless Volvo driver. Pitching the truck in on the brakes, in the rain, the spares box went AWOL, unbeknownst to me! Arriving at Scotty's, I noticed its absence and FREAKED! Return to the scene of the stupidity… NO Spares Box. All the spare sprockets, levers, clip-ons, gauges, steering dampner, cables, plus assorted special tools, nut `n bolt box, first aid kit, chain breaker, battery charger, spare battery, etc... all gone.
OK, so we just don't break anything, right? RIGHT!
Hey, there really are Guardian Angels and The Lord does look out for Motorcycle Racers and other fools. Thursday night, loading the truck for the early Friday morning drive up to Oklahoma, a young college student calls. He had the spares box. Found a pill bottle in the first aid kit with Harry's mom's phone number, tracked us down, brought back the box with minimal damage, refused a reward. Thank you, Lord. There are a few good people left in this world. Fortunately, we didn't need any of the spares, but, before the weekend had wound down, some of our fellow Hawk racers did.
Saturday moring's brief warm up session revealed a blown exhaust gasket
on the front cyclinder, likely as a result of the dumb-ass mechanic (yours
truly) not re-torquing the flange nuts after some further exhaust development.
With no time to replace it, we charged out into the crisp morning with
little hope of making up our point's deficit, but every intention of trying.
The major change for this race was the addition of a new EBC
Pro-Lite front rotor.
That
and the EBC Black pads stood up well to the brake intensive Hallet Course.
Here's the club newsletter report:
Team Captain Bob Dickey rode dutifully round and round for the first 45 minutes in the cool Oklahoma morning. Panther City Racing's fast guy, Harry Tomlinson took over for the second 45 minute sprint. After one and a half hours, we refueled the stretched 4.2 gallon tank and sent Phil White out for his 45 minute stint. Dickey ran 50 minutes after that and speedy Tomlinson took a splash of fuel before going out to finish the last 55 minutes chasing eventual winner Faltless Racing. When we drained the tank after the race, we had less than a pint of fuel left!
So ends the Endurance Season.