If could have posted Friday, all I would have said was "speechless". Cause and effect has taken over Friday. Apologees for being vague, but it is not the time and need to be tactful. I will say I dodged a bullet and GOD kept me safe with an incident that could have been avoided through awareness. 2 weeks ago when I VERY discouraged by the fact that I got in only 3 laps of pratice in WV before I was ordered off the track because of oil filling my belly from an oil filter 2 threads from falling off. Not having that oil filter properly attatched caused a catstrophic failure.
I learned a very hard way just how much damage can be done from loss of oil pressure. i wont drag this out, but put yourself in my helmet. 3rd gear, rev limiter, knee grinding the asphalt and completely flat out as far over as we can go, the motor through the whole connecting rod straight through the top of the motor into the gas tank. It locked up so fast that I was still in a riding position as the bike flipped out from under me at 105 mph, and proceeded to desintegrate as I took the 3rd most violent tumble of my career. It just happened so fast and as i was flipping I could see the amount of smoke coming from the exhaust... I knew tha bike broke bad.
FOUR times this season mechanical faliures and none from the assembly from the factory, all due to improper servicing. When you start running up front and pushing a BMW to its imits every other weekend, it takes a crew that I have acquired just recently to keep Main Line BMW's championship winning racebikes healthy.
SO the drama feels free to continue at this 2006 Championship winning weekend at VIR. I will say I ripped off a lap time in practice this morning that was .2 seconds off of the fastest I have ever gone around this track on a BMW Boxer. Off the launch of the GTLights race my mid pipe came apart and literally my rear end (butt) was being burnt. The mid pipe was shooting raw exhaust through the exhaust heat shield, melted the tail section, and burned the seat to the point it was catching the foam in the seat on fire. My left butt chek was so hot for the whole race, I was hanging off the right side of the bike all the way through 6th gear and down the whole front staraight away to cool it off, lol. Zach, the hands down best mechanic anyone could ask for was so amazing. The amount of carnage this exhaust burned through underneath the seat made me start thinking about pulling off the track during the race. I was having very disturbing quick flashbacks of the 100+ mile per hour get off the day before with no warning. The gauges were going nuts, the rpm tach was bouncing up and down so fast, the yellow trinagle warning, the red warning trinagle, the brake failure light, the fuel warning, speedo... you name it was all going ballistic underneath the windshieled. I shut one eye and pinned it down the straight past the pit in to exit the trck and realized that I just passed up my ne opportunity at that moment for the safe haven of pit ro and seeing what is wrong. No, I have great BMW riders from all ove rthis wekend, I am going to finish and ride on feel of the motor and no RPM tach or gear indicator.
I won 2 races to day and great reat battles in the 600 class and 1000 class that resulted in two 4th place finshishes on our only R1200S now. This is a fast track and the BMW R1200S held its own and only lost ground on the straight aways!
Ok 3 races tomorrow and then we can ALL own a # 1 plate!!!!!!!!! again
Good night!
N8!
I learned a very hard way just how much damage can be done from loss of oil pressure. i wont drag this out, but put yourself in my helmet. 3rd gear, rev limiter, knee grinding the asphalt and completely flat out as far over as we can go, the motor through the whole connecting rod straight through the top of the motor into the gas tank. It locked up so fast that I was still in a riding position as the bike flipped out from under me at 105 mph, and proceeded to desintegrate as I took the 3rd most violent tumble of my career. It just happened so fast and as i was flipping I could see the amount of smoke coming from the exhaust... I knew tha bike broke bad.
FOUR times this season mechanical faliures and none from the assembly from the factory, all due to improper servicing. When you start running up front and pushing a BMW to its imits every other weekend, it takes a crew that I have acquired just recently to keep Main Line BMW's championship winning racebikes healthy.
SO the drama feels free to continue at this 2006 Championship winning weekend at VIR. I will say I ripped off a lap time in practice this morning that was .2 seconds off of the fastest I have ever gone around this track on a BMW Boxer. Off the launch of the GTLights race my mid pipe came apart and literally my rear end (butt) was being burnt. The mid pipe was shooting raw exhaust through the exhaust heat shield, melted the tail section, and burned the seat to the point it was catching the foam in the seat on fire. My left butt chek was so hot for the whole race, I was hanging off the right side of the bike all the way through 6th gear and down the whole front staraight away to cool it off, lol. Zach, the hands down best mechanic anyone could ask for was so amazing. The amount of carnage this exhaust burned through underneath the seat made me start thinking about pulling off the track during the race. I was having very disturbing quick flashbacks of the 100+ mile per hour get off the day before with no warning. The gauges were going nuts, the rpm tach was bouncing up and down so fast, the yellow trinagle warning, the red warning trinagle, the brake failure light, the fuel warning, speedo... you name it was all going ballistic underneath the windshieled. I shut one eye and pinned it down the straight past the pit in to exit the trck and realized that I just passed up my ne opportunity at that moment for the safe haven of pit ro and seeing what is wrong. No, I have great BMW riders from all ove rthis wekend, I am going to finish and ride on feel of the motor and no RPM tach or gear indicator.
I won 2 races to day and great reat battles in the 600 class and 1000 class that resulted in two 4th place finshishes on our only R1200S now. This is a fast track and the BMW R1200S held its own and only lost ground on the straight aways!
Ok 3 races tomorrow and then we can ALL own a # 1 plate!!!!!!!!! again
Good night!
N8!
posted by nate_kern at 7:37 PM
2 Comments:
Thank you Steve it is very mutual. Sat. was fun regardless of how stiff I was from Fri.
I just took it easy today (Mon.) and found some more aches and bruises. :)
I like what your grandfather said John. WGATAP! (With GOD All Things Are Possible)
Hey Kevin, just make sure the bike is what you really want and have it looked at by someone else also. for what you want to do and what we need as racers (corner safety crew), you need to be prepared for sure buddy!
I am really happy to have had the new Sidi boots and Spidi gloves for the 100+mph get off. They held up great and pretty much unscathed! Talk to youse later!
N8!
Great Joel! Dude, no need to ever thank me for "taking time"! lol We are all just having fun and to be able to go out and win does not mean that I need all the time in the world to myself. Again, Im just another BMW rider like you guys, Ijust get places quicker.
Anytime, i look forward to seeingyou guys at VIR again and there is a pretty special treat at VIR next season that was just announced. 500km endurance race (about 140 laps) aournd VIR on the BMW R1200S next April!
Brad and Kacthy are great arent they!?
Ride smart Joel!
N8!
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