2022 WMRRA Season: DS7/R5 in the V750 Class

[idr5c]

Race season is upon us again!  2021 was a weird race year for me. I had surgery in the Spring and that put me out of commission for most of the race weekends. I did take advantage of the latter half of the 2021 season to test some new components however and prepare for this year.

Garrett set me up with a great R5 top end. He made some porting tweaks from the prior 2020 350cc engine and trialed some ideas he had for making the engine work well for my skill level and our tracks. I also dialed in the jetting for his pipes.

Parts ready for the maestro


Parts back!


On the dyno


The new engine made good power so I spent the last rounds of 2021 learning to ride it. Other than forgetting that I still had my hillclimb gearing installed  , things went well but I didn't mount a significant challenge in V750 having missed most of the rounds. I zoomed around and had a good time 

So now the 2022 season is here and it's time to get serious about racing this new iteration of the bike. There are some things to address:

The Good
-The bike brakes well, seems reliable, and makes a lot of power   

The Not So Good
-The higher speeds and power levels have pushed the handling of the bike in undesirable directions. I now have more chatter, some odd oscillation on fast corner exits, and overall the bike is not as settled.

I've got some ideas for the suspension and tires to get the bike settled out and I'm working on improving the aero so I can keep up with the big 750's at faster tracks like Portland.

WMRRA and OMRRA schedules are below and we have 4 shared rounds this season. As per usual, if you'd like to stop by please look me up in the pits. I'll be with the other vintage hooligans, just look for the 494 pit board. See you at the track 

[idr5c]

WMRRA Round 1 is in the books! Lots of wind and insane weather made it a challenging round. The weather forecast also scared off a lot of riders, Vintage included. Between no shows and attrition (mechanical and practice crashes) we ended up with only 4 vintage bikes on grid  WMRRA did change our gridding up this year so the Vintage crew race as a wave with the smaller modern bikes so at least we had some people to dice with.



I only had practice on Saturday so I volunteered for corner work in the afternoon. Was fun to zoom my 71' R5 street bike up to T12! Only picked up one bike, but it was my pal Tico so that kinda sucks. Between wet practice and 30-40mph gusts/squalls all afternoon it was exciting for the racers and the corner workers.










Sunday morning practice came around and the track was mixed damp/dry but still cold from the evening. My friend Duncan binned his Seeley/Westlake in T3 so that was another V750 competitor out.

Race 1 went well. The front half of the track was warm, dry, and sunny. The back half was pouring rain with standing puddles  . On the sighting lap I thought "Oh shit here we go".  I got the first and only good start I've ever gotten with this new engine and left everyone at the line. It was pretty weird to run full wet pace from T4 to T12 and then flat out T13 through T3. I've never experienced anything like it. Ended up with first but only had one other 750 I was racing against.

Race 2 was fully dry and so the game was on to chase down the Ninjas! I did manage to reel in a few of them (their wave starts 10s before ours) and to my complete surprise I was running a solid 3rd place laptime for the ULWSS class! That was kinda fun actually. I also lost a silencer. She got real loud on one side!

Only action shot I have, sorry about the watermark. Not paying for pics.





 
I had lots of issues with the front tire/front end this weekend so it's time to go back to the Avon AM26 race compound front and see how that does. If I can improve the front end chatter and get better grip on corner exit that will really help against the other 750's. 

It's only money $$$$$ 

[pdxjim]

Thanks for the great writeup!

I'll try to make it out to PIR for the June or July round to say hi.

[bostontrackrat]

Awesome stuff!   I look forward to reading more.  Please continue to document the season!   

[Vintagetz]

E-mail me I have the chatter solution. (just info on causes, parts, etc.)