Jesse's day at the races, 8/13 and 8/14, 2005

August 15, 2005

Despite moving into a new house in the middle of the time we were supposed to be preparing the CL175 for racing, Jesse and I (mostly Jesse) managed to get the bike from being a seized, questionable street bike to being a running, tech-inspection-passing race bike in a very short span of time.

By the time race day arrived, we'd gotten the bike 99% safety wired, and as functional as we could. It wasn't running very well, but it was running, which was something of a small miracle all by itself. In any case, we figured it would pass the tech, and indeed it did the following morning. We stopped working around 1:45 that night. Jesse set his alarm for 4:30.

Race Day

Jesse had passed tech and was set up with Eric by the time I arrived, around 9 am on Saturday. Unfortunately, I didn't really get the camera out until he was on the track. The day is something of a blur for me, as I didn't get anywhere near enough sleep, and Jesse must have been operating on pure willpower and adrenaline the whole day.

I know we spent some time working on the bike as someone (Tom?) very helpfully pointed out that the carburetor slides were in backwards. No wonder it wouldn't idle for crap! When we fixed that, the bike suddenly seemed to run properly. Amazing!

It still wasn't perfect, as it wouldn't pull cleanly at full throttle. There was also a problem with the brakes dragging, the handlebars were too wide, and a couple of other problems. All of this kept the bike from going out on the track on Saturday, but it passed tech, and it was running.

Jesse ended up putting his numbers on Eric's bike, as Eric only rode in one event that day, then went home. Thus he was able to complete the New Rider Clinic with no problem, even though his own bike wasn't running properly yet.

Sunday

I arrived at the track later than I wanted, and found Jesse getting the bike ready for his second run around the track. He'd taken it home the night before and done some work, cutting down the handlebars and tweaking a few other things.

Katie and I hustled out to the track, to watch at the Bus Stop as Jesse did his first race. I was excited to see the bikes all roaring through, but it seemed I didn't see Jesse's bike in the pack. Then, there it was... Smoking, and not going very fast. D'oh! Indeed, he exited the track. Katie and I walked back to the pits to see what happened.

I neglected to take a picture of it, but Jesse's beautifully crafted, CNC machined rear brake lever had touched down in turn 3, causing a loud scraping sound, and the severe bending of the pedal on the lever. A few minutes later, trying to see if it was fixable, the pedal just came off in Jesse's hand. I guess you can only bend aluminum once.

We tweaked on the bike some more, notably moving the carburetor needles around until we found a position (much leaner than expected) which worked. The bike not only seemed rideable, but like it might even make some power now!

In the mean time, Jesse had been hard at work, adjusting the brakes to reduce drag (you know, "adjusting" with a bastard file), tensioning the drive chain, and so on. Between us, we probably put in 10 hours of work on the bike this weekend.

For the second race, with an M8 bolt firmly taking the place of the now-absent brake pedal, Jesse rolled out again. Katie and I headed for the bluff overlooking the chicane section of the track, to view and photograph the triumphant final run.

Unfortunately again, it was not to be. The bike was running at least as badly as the first race, and Jesse exited before even completing the warm-up lap. We were stuck on that side of the track until the race was over.

The end of the day

I helped Jesse pack his stuff into the truck, and we parted company. I think despite the apparent "failure" of not being able to run in either of the races on Sunday, this weekend was actually a big success. We took a non-functional bike and got it through the technical inspection and around the track several times. This is a 37 year old machine, in some ways it's amazing that it isn't just a pile of rust flakes.

Most importantly, we located the tasks for the future: fix the jetting (it's far too rich right now, needs a smaller main jet), figure out why the brakes are dragging, and relocate the pegs. There is a host of smaller tasks which also need to be done, but we already knew about those.

This was an excellent success of a weekend. Next time, the bike will actually be running, and Jesse can concentrate on riding rather than keeping his machine running.

- Ian Johnston, August 15, 2005

Happy Birthday, Jesse

[Jesse: more pictures:]
Nancy's Pictures of Spokane Sept 2005