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I'm competing in a Provincial racing Championship called the Southland Cup. There are five classes: Formula 1, 2 & 3, Motards (Dirt bikes with slicks on essentially) and classics (pre '89). This is my third season competing in the Formula 3 class or Superlite as it's also known.
The technical bit:
I've copy and pasted the class rules below for those interested:
1.1 Multi-cylinder four Stroke up to 450cc
1.2 Multi-cylinder production based two strokes up to 400cc
1.3 Twin cylinder, air cooled, four stroke up to 750cc
1.4 Single cylinder four stroke 251cc - Open Capacity
1.5 Single cylinder two stroke 200cc - 500cc
1.6 Twin cylinder, 2 or more valves, water cooled 4 Stroke up to 650cc
Traditionally there used to be a lot of 400cc fours (GSXR/ZXR/CBR/FZR) from the late eighties and early nineties competing in this class but now we are down to one sole FZR400. There are a few Suzuki SV650's, the odd Kawasaki Ninja 650 but the hot ticket these days is the modified 600cc supersport with one cylinder disabled to turn it into a 450cc engine. It's playing the rule book a bit but it's legal. They are commonly referred to as a 'cripple triple'
A good 650 twin is putting out 75 RWHP whereas a cripple triple is more like 80-85. Plus you have the benefit of a supersport handling package with fully adjustable suspension and top line brakes.
I did my first season on a '94 model GSXR400 which was a hoot (15,000RPM anyone?
), but by seasons end I was sick of giving away 20HP to the guys out the front.
So for 2017 I switched to a 2007 SV650 which cost me twice as much as the GSXR but had been set up properly for racing and came with a 2nd set of rims with wet tyres etc. AFAIK the motor is standard apart from having a power commander and a full titanium M4 race exhaust system fitted and then Dyno tuned. It's a quick bike!
Chassis wise it has a lighter custom made aluminium sub frame fitted to the main frame which is aluminium also.
Suspension is Ohlins fully adjustable shock at the rear and up front I'm running the conventional SV forks with Race tech springs and gold valve emulators to provide some compression damping adjustment.
All of the fiberglass is aftermarket race stuff. The curved rear tail section is a Honda RS250 copy and the main fairing is K6/K7 GSXR600 copy. It's an 'unusual' look
I painted the bike myself and the local sign writer did the graphics of my sponsor (Killeen Auto Electrical) for free as part of his own sponsorship.
The racing bit:
The whole racing thing kicked off for me by doing some track days on my road bikes. I did two on my CBR250 one season and then the next season I did two on my CBR300. I was wanting to do more but bad weather seemed to coincide with the track days so that was all I managed, but I had the bug!
My first season of licenced racing in 2016 was a huge learning curve for me and a big leveller. I had always thought of myself as a fast rider but I soon found out that it's one thing doing it on the road and another at the track. I tried to compensate for my lack of experience by pushing harder which only resulted in me leaving the track on two or three occasions because I over cooked it into corners with too much speed on. Luckily I never fell off the bike or even worse took out another rider. Basically it's like any skill you learn in life. You have to practice it to be competent at it, you can't expect to be good at it straight away.
Over the course of that season (15 races) I went from being last to the middle of the pack and got my lap times down to a respectable level. Highlights would have been passing someone for the first time on a track (yes!) and getting 11th out of a field of around two dozen riders at the Burt Munro (World's fastest Indian fame) Memorial races at the seasons end.
They say a good tradesman doesn't blame his tools but I felt the GSXR was holding me back from realizing my full potential. At the end of the season I had a test ride on an SV650 that was for sale. OMG! It was a revelation. It felt like a point and shoot machine after the slow steering GSXR. And the torquey motor was so forgiving, you didnt have to be between 10 -13,000RPM to get any serious propulsion. A deal was quickly sealed!
Over the off season I did some track practice on the SV and bettered my previous best lap time on the GSXR by 4 seconds, so things were looking promising.
Because our practice sessions are not timed we just assemble ourselves on the grid using an honesty system. If you think your a gun then you go for the front row and newbies to the back etc. In the first race of the 2017 season I backed myself and put myself on the front row. There must have been a few raised eyebrows inside of a few helmets ha ha. But I had noted that there were no cripple triples there that day and I had a hunch that with my ridiculous low body weight of sub 60kg and my new found Horse Power I could make it to the first corner first and then the plan was just to make them get past me. It could have back fired on me spectacularly but luckily I got a good start and did indeed take the holeshot and even went on to win the race. I was ecstatic (but tried to keep a lid on it!), it was the first chequered flag I had ever taken and so unexpectedly.
That's OK though, I got sorted out by a faster rider in Round two of the competition...
Long story short I managed to get podium finishes in most of my races last season but the main thing from the points standing was that I finished all 18 races. No DNF's through mechanical issues nor falling off etc. I turned up for all six rounds (three races per day) so yeah, I was pretty focused. The pay back was I ended up winning the class championship. In some ways I felt a bit lame as I knew I wasn't the fastest rider of the season, but that's the way championships work, your rewarded for consistency.
2018 season so far...
Unfortunately the numbers seem to be dwindling every season. Often now there is only around half a dozen of us in the F3 class at any given round. For that reason we race together with the Motards who are suffering from the same issue. Our race results are kept separate though.
Round one kicked of pretty well for me in March. I had done some adjustments to the bike in the off season- changing my springs for softer ones up front to match my body weight and increasing my static sag by backing off the preload adjusters. This gave me increased feel at the front end when pushing hard. I was 2nd in all three races behind a cripple triple but managed to stay in touch with him in the first two races and knocked over half a second off my PB. The last race was disappointing though as I dropped off the pace for some reason and he got away from me. Still, 66 pts (3 x 22) for the day was a good start to the campaign.
Round two yesterday was a real mixed bag. We got practice and Race one done in the dry in the morning but the rain set in after lunch. It was wet for race two and atrocious for race three. Worst I've raced in. I was surprised they sent us out and if I wasn't chasing companionship points I would have stayed in. I had more slides than I care to remember and was just happy just to stay on the bike and finish the races.
In the mornings dry race I manged to pass one of the cripples for the first time ever but he got me back down the main straight with sheer HP right on the finish line. I lost by half a bike length. Bugger.
In the wet races I was so far back I didn't even know where I was. I'm $hit in the wet, I freely admit it!
So I will have to wait until the website results table is updated before I know here I stand but it's early days yet. We have round three in May then we take a three month break for winter before getting back into it in September for the last three rounds. Will keep ya's posted on the progress of #22
Thanks for reading.
![Motorcycle racer Motorcycle Vehicle Motorcycle racing Motorcycle fairing]()
I dunno why it turned my photo, it wasn't uploaded like that!
The technical bit:
I've copy and pasted the class rules below for those interested:
1.1 Multi-cylinder four Stroke up to 450cc
1.2 Multi-cylinder production based two strokes up to 400cc
1.3 Twin cylinder, air cooled, four stroke up to 750cc
1.4 Single cylinder four stroke 251cc - Open Capacity
1.5 Single cylinder two stroke 200cc - 500cc
1.6 Twin cylinder, 2 or more valves, water cooled 4 Stroke up to 650cc
Traditionally there used to be a lot of 400cc fours (GSXR/ZXR/CBR/FZR) from the late eighties and early nineties competing in this class but now we are down to one sole FZR400. There are a few Suzuki SV650's, the odd Kawasaki Ninja 650 but the hot ticket these days is the modified 600cc supersport with one cylinder disabled to turn it into a 450cc engine. It's playing the rule book a bit but it's legal. They are commonly referred to as a 'cripple triple'
A good 650 twin is putting out 75 RWHP whereas a cripple triple is more like 80-85. Plus you have the benefit of a supersport handling package with fully adjustable suspension and top line brakes.
I did my first season on a '94 model GSXR400 which was a hoot (15,000RPM anyone?
), but by seasons end I was sick of giving away 20HP to the guys out the front.So for 2017 I switched to a 2007 SV650 which cost me twice as much as the GSXR but had been set up properly for racing and came with a 2nd set of rims with wet tyres etc. AFAIK the motor is standard apart from having a power commander and a full titanium M4 race exhaust system fitted and then Dyno tuned. It's a quick bike!
Chassis wise it has a lighter custom made aluminium sub frame fitted to the main frame which is aluminium also.
Suspension is Ohlins fully adjustable shock at the rear and up front I'm running the conventional SV forks with Race tech springs and gold valve emulators to provide some compression damping adjustment.
All of the fiberglass is aftermarket race stuff. The curved rear tail section is a Honda RS250 copy and the main fairing is K6/K7 GSXR600 copy. It's an 'unusual' look
I painted the bike myself and the local sign writer did the graphics of my sponsor (Killeen Auto Electrical) for free as part of his own sponsorship.
The racing bit:
The whole racing thing kicked off for me by doing some track days on my road bikes. I did two on my CBR250 one season and then the next season I did two on my CBR300. I was wanting to do more but bad weather seemed to coincide with the track days so that was all I managed, but I had the bug!
My first season of licenced racing in 2016 was a huge learning curve for me and a big leveller. I had always thought of myself as a fast rider but I soon found out that it's one thing doing it on the road and another at the track. I tried to compensate for my lack of experience by pushing harder which only resulted in me leaving the track on two or three occasions because I over cooked it into corners with too much speed on. Luckily I never fell off the bike or even worse took out another rider. Basically it's like any skill you learn in life. You have to practice it to be competent at it, you can't expect to be good at it straight away.
Over the course of that season (15 races) I went from being last to the middle of the pack and got my lap times down to a respectable level. Highlights would have been passing someone for the first time on a track (yes!) and getting 11th out of a field of around two dozen riders at the Burt Munro (World's fastest Indian fame) Memorial races at the seasons end.
They say a good tradesman doesn't blame his tools but I felt the GSXR was holding me back from realizing my full potential. At the end of the season I had a test ride on an SV650 that was for sale. OMG! It was a revelation. It felt like a point and shoot machine after the slow steering GSXR. And the torquey motor was so forgiving, you didnt have to be between 10 -13,000RPM to get any serious propulsion. A deal was quickly sealed!
Over the off season I did some track practice on the SV and bettered my previous best lap time on the GSXR by 4 seconds, so things were looking promising.
Because our practice sessions are not timed we just assemble ourselves on the grid using an honesty system. If you think your a gun then you go for the front row and newbies to the back etc. In the first race of the 2017 season I backed myself and put myself on the front row. There must have been a few raised eyebrows inside of a few helmets ha ha. But I had noted that there were no cripple triples there that day and I had a hunch that with my ridiculous low body weight of sub 60kg and my new found Horse Power I could make it to the first corner first and then the plan was just to make them get past me. It could have back fired on me spectacularly but luckily I got a good start and did indeed take the holeshot and even went on to win the race. I was ecstatic (but tried to keep a lid on it!), it was the first chequered flag I had ever taken and so unexpectedly.
That's OK though, I got sorted out by a faster rider in Round two of the competition...
Long story short I managed to get podium finishes in most of my races last season but the main thing from the points standing was that I finished all 18 races. No DNF's through mechanical issues nor falling off etc. I turned up for all six rounds (three races per day) so yeah, I was pretty focused. The pay back was I ended up winning the class championship. In some ways I felt a bit lame as I knew I wasn't the fastest rider of the season, but that's the way championships work, your rewarded for consistency.
2018 season so far...
Unfortunately the numbers seem to be dwindling every season. Often now there is only around half a dozen of us in the F3 class at any given round. For that reason we race together with the Motards who are suffering from the same issue. Our race results are kept separate though.
Round one kicked of pretty well for me in March. I had done some adjustments to the bike in the off season- changing my springs for softer ones up front to match my body weight and increasing my static sag by backing off the preload adjusters. This gave me increased feel at the front end when pushing hard. I was 2nd in all three races behind a cripple triple but managed to stay in touch with him in the first two races and knocked over half a second off my PB. The last race was disappointing though as I dropped off the pace for some reason and he got away from me. Still, 66 pts (3 x 22) for the day was a good start to the campaign.
Round two yesterday was a real mixed bag. We got practice and Race one done in the dry in the morning but the rain set in after lunch. It was wet for race two and atrocious for race three. Worst I've raced in. I was surprised they sent us out and if I wasn't chasing companionship points I would have stayed in. I had more slides than I care to remember and was just happy just to stay on the bike and finish the races.
In the mornings dry race I manged to pass one of the cripples for the first time ever but he got me back down the main straight with sheer HP right on the finish line. I lost by half a bike length. Bugger.
In the wet races I was so far back I didn't even know where I was. I'm $hit in the wet, I freely admit it!
So I will have to wait until the website results table is updated before I know here I stand but it's early days yet. We have round three in May then we take a three month break for winter before getting back into it in September for the last three rounds. Will keep ya's posted on the progress of #22
Thanks for reading.
I dunno why it turned my photo, it wasn't uploaded like that!
