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Jennings Recap

My dad, Eric Johnston, Mike Flis and I made the highly-anticipated trip down to Jennings, Florida this past weekend. We packed up and headed down on Thursday night, driving straight through and arriving at the track Friday afternoon. We setup shop, each worked on a few odds and ends with our bikes and then proceeded to walk the track and re-familiarize ourselves with the track layout. For my dad, this was his first visit to Jennings, so he was trying to soak it all in and tie it with the onboard video we had watched on our way down.

Both days overall were great and a far cry from the Michigan weather as of late. Saturday was cloudy and windy, but still warm and in the 70s. Sunday was beautiful and sunny, although some added red flags throughout the day gave us a few less laps than Saturday did. Eric, Mike and my dad continued to go faster each session. This was Eric's first time on his SV (coming from a 600 last year) and he adapted really well. Mike was on more or less the same bike from last year and was putting in fast laps all weekend. My dad dropped 13 seconds from where he started on Saturday and was pleased with the progress. He got used to the track, along with his relatively new bike, smiling from ear to ear at how he never had spun the rear tire on an SV before and how much fun it was.

Things with the R6 were a mixed bag. We were able to sort out the initial things with the bike such as lever and handlebar positioning, as well as making sure everything was sound mechanically from what we had done in terms of taking the bike apart and putting it back together over the winter. Nothing vibrated loose or fell off which I took as a good sign.

I was able to get laps on the bike, which I've been dying to do – and loved finally being able to ride the bike. However we weren't able to get to the dyno beforehand, so the bike was popping from the exhaust in several areas of the track. It was nothing major, but just something I wish we would have had time to sort out before leaving. The popping shows that the bike is likely running lean and needs to be tuned correctly based on the fuel and air characteristics of the engine. We were also still running the stock air filter, as the aftermarket one is not yet available for the newer model R6s. However with that said, the bike still ran quite strong. It already feels faster than the 2005 R6 I raced last year, and the torque out of the corners is perhaps the most noticeable improvement over the previous bike. I'm sure it's a combination of Mark Rozema's engine work and Yamaha's new variable intake design. I can't compare it to the 2006-2007 R6, but it's definitely better than the 2005 model. With this new bike we've literally jumped two generations in Yamaha's development of the R6. It goes to show how rapid the progression of the 600cc machines is from year to year.

What can't be underestimated however is the "development" work that went into our bike last year in terms of the chassis and suspension. It was nothing fancy, but just something we took note of and spent time working on throughout the season, which definitely paid off with a bike that could get around the race track quite well. The new R6 isn't quite there yet. It has all the necessary parts to do it, but just isn't setup properly where I could feel comfortable and go as fast as I wanted to.

The main problem was two-fold and primarily my fault. I didn't have Garry over to baseline the bike before we left. The original plan was that he would fly down and meet us at the track, but he was already out of town for work and once his flight was cancelled, that wasn't possible and we were left with the bike as is – forks and shock set as they had arrived. The second issue was that I didn't bring any additional tires to mount up. Last year there was a Pirelli truck at the track and this year, not the case. My bad there not being adequately prepared. Jennings is a very abrasive track and by the end of the first day I was sliding the left side of the tire in several (high-speed) areas of the track. I really wasn't going fast enough where sliding the tire should have yet been an issue, but for the second day, we were basically trying changes on a toasted tire – where we couldn't be sure if we were getting fully accurate feedback on the changes we were making. The tire was bad enough that it had worn down through the wear marks – something that was worse than any tire I had run all of last year.

Garry was great however and I talked to him 5-6 times throughout the day on Sunday to try and relay what was happening with the bike. The biggest problem was that it wasn't turning and finishing the corner. It felt exactly like the 2005 R6 felt like when I started racing a 600. With Garry's assistance over the phone, we tried a number of incremental changes throughout the second day, where I tried to differentiate "better" or "worse" after each change. It was tough obviously as he wanted to be there and couldn't see the bike first hand. By the end of the day we did make some progress though. We changed the geometry of the bike to be a bit more aggressive and that was starting to point us in the right direction. However by the afternoon, the rear tire was toast and finding lap times to show as proof of progress wasn't a realistic expectation.

As the afternoon wound down, we loaded up and started our trip back to Michigan – happy and fulfilled from a full two days of riding. The trip was a great time overall and a much needed getaway - Eric and Mike were great to drive with, which made the 17-hour drive much more bearable. Things are looking up, as Garry will be over this week to help us sort out the suspension. Having Garry over to actually bounce on the bike and give his feedback is an invaluable tool and something that will definitely get us pointed in the right direction.

I've posted some photos from the weekend over on the gallery page. Take a look if you have a chance ..

Cheers,

- eddie

Monday, March 17th, 2008 | POSTED AT: 10:43 AM
FILED UNDER: General, Race Reports