Round two of the ASRA Team Challenge is here. Again the plan is to come out with a podium spot all while finishing the race. But first we have to make it through the other festivities. The weekend started on Thursday meeting John at his church to make the haul down to Kershaw, South Carolina. I opted out of Friday practice because you know, we’re talking about practice? I did some light work on the Team Challenge machine and the Superbike. Saturday morning would be my first session on the new superbike. While the motor was very strong the suspension was absolutely horrible. By far the worst set up Sv650 I had ever ridden. Made some drastic changes in the forks and it did help in P2 but it was still very far off. I raced the bike as is anyway. In both Ultralight Superbike and Thunderbike I nabbed the hole shot but with the bikes set up could not manage to run the pace. Finished 5th and 4th in those races. Days later I may have found out why the bike was so off, the preview owner or builder had installed lowering links.
Some Ultralight SBK action
The main focus was still the Team Challenge. Slapped some new Pirelli SC2 slicks and new Vesrah SRJL-XX brake pads on the endurance bike and Will went out for practice. Claimed the bike was perfect. So it’s time for the show.The grid was very light for the Team Challenge for our class, only 4 bikes. Team Mavros and Ducati Depot are in the show with their 1100 Ducati Hybrids so it was going to be a tough race to beat those guys. We fill the gas tank to the brim (6+ gallons) and head out for the race. I had not thrown a leg over the bike during the weekend until this point. During the warm up lap I felt something with the bike, something very very good. The motor was much stronger now then it was at Roebling. It was finally fully broken in and running silky smooth. The suspension was absolutely spot on. This is exactly how I wish the superbike would be. The flag dropped and once again my start was on point. I passed more than half the overall grid going into turn one exiting around 7th place (out of 20). Coming out of turn 5 onto the downhill straight Greg Melka on the Ducati passed me but when I saw him I knew I was ready to run his pace. The bike felt so unbelievable underneath me it almost felt easy to follow Greg. For a couple laps I was on his rear wheel doing 1:40 lap times which is over 3 seconds faster than my personal best at CMP. My best was a 1:40.701 which was the best lap time by any SV through the entire weekend. To make it feel even better (yea i’m gloating) this was done on pump 93 (the other top SV’s running MR12) with 6 gallons of gas in the tank.
We caught up to a middleweight machine and Greg manage to pass him and I got caught up. At this point I decided to back down the pace to a more acceptable level considering I still had to do 30 more laps. Around lap 22 I passed Greg back. But there’s a catch, he was sitting along the side of the track. This “pass” put us in the number one position. Around this time Seth Starnes had mounted the Mavros Ducati and was doing 2-3 seconds faster a lap than I was. I did 1:44’s for just about every single lap I was out there. There was a stretch of 15 or so laps where my right hand was very cramped and had to keep shaking it to help with the arm pump. It was a huge surprise that my lap times stayed as low as the 1:44’s considering those were my sprint times. I pitted in on lap 34. We had a near perfect pit stop and Will was on his way. Except for 1 or 2 laps he did 1:47’s for the remainder of the race. We crossed the line in second place. While it was great to get second place, it was basically handed to us with the DNF by Ducati Depot. We remain 2nd in points and Mavros extends his points lead by 5.
