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Grattan National – Take Two

I think I've found a way to cut into the four seconds we need to find around Grattan, although the latest weather forecast of rain for Friday and Saturday threatens to put a major wrinkle into those plans. Saturday's already a wash (figuratively and for all intensive purposes, literally) with the 6-Hour National Endurance race taking place. There will be only one round of morning practice for us, so the core of practice and dropping time has to happen on Friday.

The weather for Sunday looks great – sunny and temps in the 80's. With this being a National however, I don't think we'll be quite as fortunate on Sunday compared to BeaveRun, without some good practice time beforehand. There's a significant gap to the National regulars that we need to bridge and jumping into the races on Sunday trying to find it isn't the ideal script.

Back to last year and not wanting to relive the electrical issues we had at the Grattan National, reality has an evil sense of humor. While installing our new lap timer yesterday, Joe discovered our voltage regulator had burnt off/was missing one of its six metal tabs that are housed inside. The missing tab appeared to be inside the electrical connector coming off the harness, without a way to pull it out except for removing the entire connector itself. We don't know how long it's been like this, but when firing the bike up and checking the electrical connection at various spots, the charging system appears to be working correctly. However after last year, we're not taking any chances. I ordered a new voltage regulator which Honda East is over-nighting to the track, and we have a spare electrical connector for the harness that we can use if need be. Crisis averted – hopefully.

We will have a garage setup for the weekend, so if you're planning on coming out to watch the races, stop on by and say hello. Look for the bright red bike or a guy with huge calves ….

Cheers,

- eddie

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 | POSTED AT: 6:29 AM
FILED UNDER: General