The 2019 season has ended for us. We had a great turnout for Mosport and the weather was excellent until Sunday at noon!
After the clutch fiasco last race, I decided to use the 550 lifter plate and pushrod with the 650 clutch basket, still with an extra plate & disc. This allows for the taller primary ratio. I'm not sure ultimately there is much difference, but in theory it will help launch from a race start.
Tyler won two heat races and also had a 4th in the P3 Heavyweight class Saturday. He enjoys racing with these guys, it's mostly a matter of mixing it up with ex pros on their 80's superbikes. The long straight at Mosport should allow good drafting except he laughingly admitted that although he was pinned to the rear of someone almost every lap as they straightened up on the throttle, those huge engines just exploded away and the 550 was left in the dust! a 4th place amongst these guys is respectable.
He managed a 1:36.2 which is a personal best on this CB550. That's a 92 MPH lap average, shows how fast Mosport is for a closed circuit.
Sunday after lunch, just as I was firing the bike, it started to rain. It was just enough to dampen the track, and the surface became greasy. For two hours it never rained enough to wash the track clean so traction was sketchy, at best. The Nascar truck race was recent and when dry, the track was awesome. Add a bit of moisture to all the dust and rubber bits and it was hell.
I installed a new front Avon Saturday evening and he had a chance to scrub it in during practice in the dry Sunday morning, so that was fortunate. Some of the usual good rain riders were tossing it because of the lousy conditions. Tyler slid around and won 2 races, but opted out of the 3rd race when conditions didn't improve.
All in all, a pretty good weekend. Beside that one tire, it was simply add fuel, check tire pressures and chain....easy! Just the way I like it.
I'm hoping there is not much to do over the winter except to plate and set up a new cylinder. Have new pistons in stock. However there were the tiniest of cracks (under a 25X macroscope) partially between exhaust valve seat and plug hole in two other cylinder head chambers when I assembled this past spring. I need to take a close look at those and perhaps Jim French will need to work more welding magic.
XR69 Replica, big Katana, and the lowly 550!
