Well First off I took the machine up to Ohlins to have them look at the front shocks to see if there was anything they could do. They removed 8mm of internal spacers and revalved the fronts. This gave me more travel and a softer ride. Still not sure if they are dial in completely. They my need fine tuning and I'm looking into getting a longer shaft or different fronts to give me a little more travel. Do to track conditions at the first 2 round I can't completely say that they are on the right settings, but they feel close. I did confirm what is making the steering stiff it is indeed the upper steering stem clamp, by simply added a spacer in between the clamp it frees up the steering and now is in need of a steering damper.

Now for my results:

Rd 1 (sandy mudfest)
Track conidtions were aweful. Extremely wet sandy track with huge ruts. Best advice that a morning rider gave me was 'If you see a path that a quad has made and it's part of the track Don't use it make a new one or you'll get stuck.' Man was he right the track was in bad shape to say the least. I had good start. I came in the corner tied for first and quickly pass the guy to take the lead. About 2 corners later I was in 6th or so do to the corners being 6-8" or mud and just slowing spinning thru it. I quickly faded back do to a bad cased of arm pump I finished the first lap in 13th and headed out for the next lap. When it was all over I ended up doing 3 laps in 3 hours 16 minutes and finishing 9th in the Open B class out of 23 and 129th overall out of about 230 total riders. I did all this on one tank of fuel!! That's right I didn't stop and fuel at all during the race. There was much left in the tank when it was over. About 10 minutes of riding.


Rd 2 (red clay mudfest)

This track was muddy do to rain the previous days too. So ruts and wet clay is what the track was made up of. I had a decent start I think I was in the top 5 in the first corner. Then very thing went south. The chain jumped off around the 1 mile marker and it got worst around the 3 mile marker. There was a bottle neck do to deep ruts and people stuck everywhere. I tried a bad line and got stuck. When I was able to move the quad and when I went to take off again it didn't move. I burned up the clutch from all the mud and ruts from round 1 and the early problems in round 2. So the race was over for me and I'd have to take a DNF for round 2[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img] Olny making it to the 3 mile marker. So not I'll be replacing a clutch to get it ready for RD 3.

Mike

 

Georgia was a mess! I thought I seen you on the motox track but it must have been a different Gas Gas. Sorry to hear about the clutch. Hope you get a better break at NC.

I didn't even run. Took everything but wasn't planning on running then I got there and decided deffinately not too. I just got my dale back together and hadn't rode it yet. I knew I wasn't in shape to run in that slop. I probably would have been lucky to make the first mile marker! LOL I just sat back and threw some cold ones down while watching my buddies get all the glory. Still had a ball.

 

Yeh there where 5 or so GasGas quad at Florida. I think the only other one that raced the Georgia one was the mechanic from Grove City Motorsports in Pa. The Owner of Grove City is the East Coast GasGas Rep. I talked to him at Florida about some of the things I'd like to see change and I'm sure his mechanic as voiced is thoughts after the first to rounds. Yeh I'm hoping to be back up and running for NC, if not I might run my cannondale instead. Maybe I'll see you there.

 

good to hear the report, sorry to hear you had a bad round. hopefully the other rounds will treat you better.... i'll stay tuned.
how'd the other GG riders fare?

 

At florida, A Pro #23 (Scott Fleischhauer) raced one and finished 6th in the pro class and 30th overall
The Grove City guy Daniel Koenig (#129) finsished 12th in the Senior and 157th overall
I of course finished 9th in the Open B and 129th overall
The other guy I talked to dnf at Florida do to plug radiator and it overheat the quad. No damage was done and he could have race it at Georgia but ran his 300ex instead that he race last seaon.

Round 2:

Fleischhauer ran a cannondale instead, I DNF and the other guy was on his 300ex. As for Daniel he finished 10th in the Senior Class and 217 overall.

One note me and Daniel were the only two that had custom a-arms everyone elses were 49-50+ inches wide and I think that was why we were the only ones to enter it at rd 2.

I talked to Lazurus (GT THunder owner that made my a-arms) at RD 2 and he said he has 10 or so people that are planning on buying to narrower a-arms some are asking for 46" ones instead of 47's.

I'll keep everyone posted on my results. Later

Mike
GNCC #265

 

I went all the way down to florida to break my inner clutch basket before i even made it to tech. than i stayed in a hotel and had the parts I needed air maile to it .. fixed it that went to GA. raced two laps... my first lap was awesome and i actually was running 17th overall and than i come into a corner about 5th gear and it dies as soon as I pull in the clutch so i kicked it down a gear and tried to bump start it but all I did was make a huge cloud of white smoke by blowing a radiator hose. and my radiator was clogged solid so that didnt help with cooling. thats just my guess though. than i get everything ready and buy new crap and check everything all week ... I go riding and drop off of a 25-30ft cliff sort of thing and bottom it out so bad i dented the bottom of my bumper .. than i am soon to find out i blew my shocks but i found this out the next time i rode it which was at NC. so i raced anyway but my arm was so sore from almost imploding that i couldnt even hang onj. the blown shocks didnt help much either. i got the holeshot with them though .. you can see me if you go to the gncc site and go to photos and than afternoon quad starts. i am on page 4 on the top right picture all the way to the inside with the blue and white quad. #518. check out the front suspension.. my left front tire is hitting the fender..ya ..whoa.. i got a little carried away now that i look at it

 

I'm too am having problems at the start of this season. I went to NC to only make 2 laps and boil out all the anifreeze so I was unable to finish. I feel your pain there are alot of riders having a tough go at it this year. Look at Matt Smiley. He has DNF in all 3 races. Last year his worst finish was 4th overall. Hope it gets better for you and me both. Look me up at SC. I'll #265 in the open B on a GasGas 300. Later

Mike

 

Hey Mike. It was great getting to meet you at the race. Nice to put a face with a name.

Your start was pretty good for getting the muddy end. Seen you on the other side of the bridge in the mud hole when you got stuck also. Was going to help but I was on top of the hill and couldn't get there in time.

Sorry it didn't go so great. My buddy finally came through there while I was waiting to pit for him, but he was walking with a nice chilly one in his hand. He bent a tierod into a very sharp V on the second lap.

Also the guy parked to my right brought his 2 week old Z in on the first lap cause it died on every downhill and stuttered on flat ground. It had to be in the carb cause he said it ran great up the hills.

Also factor in that I buried the Excersion at 3:30 in the morning, I hope things only get better for all of us at the rest of them.

Jason

 

Turbo,

Hope things get better soon too. This quad is flat out awesome, I just need to get the little bugs out of it. It's different when your one of the only ones racing a quad, because nobody knows what to look for and prep it for a race. I think I've got it figure out now and an added plus is I think the suspension is pretty close if not spot on. Alot of people where complaining that the track was super rough and bet the heck out of you. I though is was bad but not as bad as people where saying so I guess the suspension is working pretty good then.

As for my starts, that was one of my to things I wanted to improve on this year. I went back to the way I use to start on the old quadracer at the district level. I stopped having good starts about 2 years ago after I got hit in the first corner and broke a tie-rod end. Since then it was bad starts ever race. I had people asking me at Florida if I was going to put the GasGas out front off the start and show everyone what it could do. Well after enough people asked I figured I'd give it a try. My result since have been:

Round 1: 2nd off the line 1st out of the 1st corner.
Round 2: 5th in the 1st corner.
Round 3: I think I was around 10-15 and I started in the mud like you said.

The only other thing I wanted to improve on is my 1st lap times (I get a bad case of arm pump on the 1st lap and at about 1 mile into the 2nd lap I catch a groove and the arm pump is gone for the rest of the race).

Well hopefully I'll see you at the next one.

Later
Mike