Well guys, what can I say, The Assassin assassinated himself
Before I tell you all the Gorey details, I would like to thank Mark (dusterdude) For the use of his CBR600 Street drag bike which ran without fault all day.
Also his lovely wife Lynn who stepped up to the mark with the loan of her truck to get us to Piedmont and back after I encountered problems renting a van.
Apart from having some fun ( I didn't expect to be taking the money away), the object of the exercise was to see if I could get Marks bike into the 7s over the 8th mile.
This was a time I have never achieved before due to never having a bike big or powerfull enough to actually do it, this was going to test not only the bike but myself as well.
My previous best over the 8th was on my VFR400R with a time of 8.3 and a best from the little RS175 record bike of 8.7 seconds.
Mark, new to drag racing but very enthusiastic had managed I think an 8.2 with the bike so the time had come to do battle with the bike and Piedmonts strip.
The first run was a little bit of a mess up, not sure if it was me of the air gear change that didn't want to work but after that I decided to change gear myself.
After a few runs trying to find the best launch technique I was just inside of Marks time with low 8s and some very fast reaction times to the lights.
First gear was a little low for me and I found the bike very lively off the line so I tried launching in second. It didn't help so I reverted back to using first with a little less throttle.
My last practice run was the one that put the smiles on our faces, a reaction time of .025, a terminal speed of 96.09mph and the 7, we had done it with 7.917.
Rocking-M Robert and his good lady wife Tracy had made their way down from Roanoke to witness the fun and to pick up the Ducati spares that I brought over to repair the dear battered Duc.
The fun started when I got knocked out in the first round due to a very poor reaction time. I was very disappointed not just for me but for the rest of the crew as well.
We did have the opportunity to buy back in for $15 so took it and went on to live again and higher the dial in time from 7.9 to 8.25 in case I fluffed the start again.
It never happened I left the line against a white Busa and left him for dead. I found out after from Mark that he had been jumping up and down screaming for me to back it off as I had that much of a lead. Yeh, that's right, I'd shot myself in the foot
broke out with a 8.112.
Sorry guys, Sam, assassinated