I must say your bike looks awesome. Im sure you get a ton of questions, so if i may ask a few. I seen you said you did a rattle can job what paint did you use? and in grit sand paper to get it to stick right

 

Thanks... it's coming along - I'm anxious to get it back on the track!

Just Krylon from O'Reilly/Walmart - you can get it anywhere that sells paint, really.

On the sandpaper, I think 150 is the coarsest I used, where the old paint was the thickest, and from there, I worked down from 220 - 400 - 800. After the primer, I went all the way down to 1000, though I must say, with the surface imperfections that were just too deep to deal with, 1000 was kind of pointless.
After the gloss black initial coat, I hit everything with 1000 or 1200, before the red accents and number plate yellow, then the same on those new colored portions, before clear on top of it all.

 

So last week I went to the AMA race in Daytona. I was just curious as to what the differences are between what you race and the AMA? Also, they were doing about 183mph, what's your top track speed?

 

It really depends on the track, because of the long highly banked runs, Daytona is FAST!! The Daytona Sportbikes run up to around 175, and the Superbikes sometimes exceed 200 there.

Top speed at a track depends on a lot of things: the length of the straight, the bike, the amount and type of turns, which can dictate how your gearing the bike, how hard the rider is pushin, and how late they will brake, etc. Top speed is rarely focused on, and sometimes not even noted, as laptimes are the "dangling carrot" you're chasing... laptimes and overtaking other bikes are really all you concentrate on.

On the F2, just as an example, at HPT, which has a front straight of roughly 1/4 mile, which at turn alpha is going slightly uphill, and kinking to the left, before dropping off and getting set up for a 90º right hander (it's kind of "blind", if you will), I think I'm usually somewhere around 130 near the catwalk, which comes off of the timing and scoring building.

Newer, bigger, more powerful bikes, surely could hit that same point at 15 to 25 mph faster, if they are also braking as late as possible to enter the somewhat blind section "safely", but a lot of the time, I overtake those bikes in the next couple of corners, and gap them enough in the subsequent corners, that they aren't close enough to pass me again on the straight.

The series I currently run, does not employ any long fast tracks, where top speeds get very high. This year I will be learning two new tracks, but those straights aren't much longer, if at all, so top speeds there won't be much different... I would love to run at NOLA, though, that one would see some much higher trap speeds!

At some point, I will be re-attempting the R1 project I had to scrap a few years back, due to job lay-offs - when I'm done with that one, finally, for classes A Superbike, and A Superstock, I will see much higher speeds, as the horsepower will be closer to 190+, rather than the F2s humble 100... I can't wait! I loves me some highly tuned liter-bikes!

 

Hmm. Crazy. I wish I had been riding longer. Only ridden about 5 times now and I'm 23. But what can ya do. Those 5 times or so that I did were awesome so maybe eventually I'll be able to hit up a track.

As long as you keep some tabs here for the R1 project that would be sweet. I really enjoy reading the posts and updates from you on both your projects.

Keep up the good work and I hope you can get out on your track bike soon! Still pretty sandy/salty/snowy up here in Minnesota. Probably won't get the bike out for another month or so.

 

Did you add a clear coat or is the paint chemical resistant?

 

Get comfortable, put some miles under your belt, so you can "find your legs" or, wheels, as it were, and hit a track day, maybe the next season... for most guys, it becomes highly addictive.

I'll make you a deal, you give me the $22,000 I'll need again, to rebuild the R1 like the last one, and I'll give you live streaming video progress updates!

Well, there's no sand on the track , but yeah, things are decent here - I've only missed about 8 days total riding time, over the last year, but I do ride in the cold, just not on snow and ice.

 

I dont' know if I would trust any spray paint to be at all chemical resistant, even if it stated it was.

But yeah, as I mentioned near the bottom of that post you quoted, I put clear-coat on top of everything - I think I did like 3 or 4 coats - that said, I try to be super careful with fueling, and while working with any chemicals, to keep them off the finish, even with factory painted parts, which are more impervious to being tarnished by gasoline, degreaser, and whatnot.

At any rate, clear coat or not, I will just have to be very careful - if I do get any chemicals on the finish, I'll spray on some Simple Green, or some other cleaner, and wipe it down immediately, and then hope for the best, because for now, I cannot afford higher quality finishes, and, I don't currently have real paint equimpent anyway!

 

Yeah. I'm definitely going to ride hard this season. I'm so excited. Haha. I've been itching to get out but don't want to put the bike down with the sand and stuff. But we have one track around here. I'll have to see if they do track days.

If I had the money I would for sure. Haha.

I wish I could ride year round. One of the downfalls of living in Minnesota.

 

How far are you from the Brainerd track? That course ROCKS!!

Yeah, this year you got the winter you usually get - us too. But last winter was VERY mild... I was in Minneapolis/St. Paul, and Dubuqe, IA, at different times in and around the holiday season, and where usually it's heavily snow covered and cold, it was more like mid-spring!