2008  season

2008 Main Event

With the taller gear ratio and larger Enderle barrel valve established on The Dealer the Woollatt Racing team arrived at the Santa Pod Main Event confident of running some good numbers. The plan was to run a “banker” qualifier and then take advantage of the premium track conditions and new MT rear tyre with some extra horsepower and more aggressive clutch settings. The clutch was still set effectively the same as at the Thunderball, despite the higher gearing, while we concentrated on optimising the fuel system.

First qualifying session the bike launched OK, but hit tyre shake just after the 60’ – Steve shifted to top gear immediately – this resulted in a 6.60 at 207.9 (the low speed reflecting a slightly early shut off).

This qualified us #3 behind Eric Teboul & Rikard Gustaffson (another “20” for Eric and an excellent 6.50 for Rikard’s funny bike), with Steve Carey #4 on 6.67 and Ian King yet to run.

We wanted to consolidate our qualifying position, so we decided to follow our development plan and increase the horsepower a little, but leave the clutch unchanged. We also increased the rear tyre pressure by 0.5psi to help counter the shake. Second qualifying session produced 6.42 at 217.1mph, putting us #2 – with no shake.

The bike was adjusted for the next pass – unfortunately this never took place as Sunday and Monday were rained off. We were all really disappointed to lose more track time this season, particularly as the Main Event is associated with excellent traction and it is the second year running that it has been rained off. Let’s hope that the weather improves for the Summer Nationals.

We would like to again take the opportunity to thank our sponsors for their continuing support – Motorcycles Unlimited, G&S Valves, G-Max Racing Fuels, Mickey Thompson Tyres, PreTech Engineering, ACL Bearings, NGK Europe, Bikes of Brighton, Richa, Shoei, Rebore Rod …and me!

See you at the races,

Phil B

 

2008 Springspeed Festival

The team arrived at the Springspeed Festival at Shakespeare County Raceway having fitted the new Enderle barrel (fuel flow control) valve and made a small modification to the clutch.

The Enderle barrel valve has a much higher flow capacity than the -6 Hilborn valve we have been running and we knew it was going to have a dramatic affect on fuel system settings.

Also, many of you may have noticed me modelling the resplendent crew shirt that Steve & Jackie had got for me. Thanks guys.

Again the weather conspired against us and we lost over half the available track time to rain. The Woollatt Racing Team extends its sincere gratitude to the Shakespeare County organisers and officials for their outstanding efforts to get at least some of the racing completed on the race day.

When we initially fired the engine the throttle operation was extremely “stiff” from idle to part open. The motor sounded fine at idle. After some discussion we decided to run the bike as it was.
We were missing our regular “push” man on Saturday and this affected how well we managed to follow the rubber line from the burn-out. (Really demonstrates the importance of consistent crew). On the launch the bike moved off the line and then, almost immediately, the rear tyre just lost grip. On inspection, back in the pits, we could see that the rear tyre had collected a lot of debris over a significant proportion of it’s surface – it was so stuck to the tyre we had to use a paint scraper to remove it! (Steve was really worried – after all, the tyre is only one year old). There wasn’t enough data from the logger to draw any conclusions.

Before the next run we altered the barrel valve operation (to alleviate the stiffness) and made a small adjustment to the clutch to soften up the launch a little. Next pass it blew the tyre away again. Steve was on and off the throttle (but never reached fuel throttle) and we ran 8.43/131, which at least qualified us (behind Steve “much straighter” Carey & Turbo). This was really important as it rained all day Sunday. In the pits we again noticed debris on the tyre, but a much reduced amount.

Based on the limited data logger output from the second qualifier we made some major adjustments to the fuel system settings and waited (and waited, and waited….) for our next pass. Rained all day Sunday and was still very wet when I arrived at the track on Monday. The track crew worked very hard and eliminations finally commenced in the afternoon.

First round of eliminations, racing Turbo, was a bit worrying as we hadn’t managed to stick the bike to the ground all week-end. Also, Turbo had lane choice, leaving Steve in the unfamiliar (to him) and often inferior right hand lane. Steve hit the throttle and the bike stuck to the ground, carding a 6.49/218.8 pass. Back in the pits we had a good set of spark plugs and the data logger showed that Steve had shifted gear a little early. Also, the clutch trace showed that the small modification has worked well. Up to 330’ the run was quicker than either of the Thunderball runs with the taller gearing and we still pulled good mph under more normal air temperature conditions, picking up 45mph from the 1/8th to the finish.

Unfortunately the meeting was terminated before any of the finals could be run – the organisers just ran out of time.

Overall we’re pleased with the performance achieved and are now in a position to move forward and hopefully run some good numbers.

We would like to again take the opportunity to thank our sponsors for their continuing support – Motorcycles Unlimited, G&S Valves, G-Max Racing Fuels, Mickey Thompson Tyres, PreTech Engineering, ACL Bearings, NGK Europe, Bikes of Brighton, Richa, Shoei, Rebore Rod …and me!

See you at the races,

Phil B
 

 

Woollatt Racing 2008 Easter Thunderball

The only race meeting I ever got “snowed off” in my entire racing career was an “early” Easter meeting at Santa Pod. This Easter was the earliest for over a decade (March 21-24) and Jack Frost again sent his worst. The Woollatt Racing Team extends its sincere gratitude to the ‘Pod organisers and officials for their outstanding efforts to get the meeting completed.

After spending two days in the (new) caravan the team finally got out onto the track early Monday morning for a one-shot qualifier. We had the fuel system and clutch settings the same as the previous run at the National Finals in 2007 – always a good idea to check that we’ve rebuilt it properly! The bike carded a virtual repeat of the NF run with a 6.39/209 pass, shut down a couple of tenths early – we we’re pretty pleased considering the weather conditions and the fact that we had the rear tyre fitted last May still in place. I guess we put all the bits back in the right place.

As everything was working OK we decided to embark on our 2008 development programme and alter the overall gear ratio – with no other changes. This resulted in a 6.47/222mph pass – a PB for terminal speed. We suffered more wheelspin than on the earlier pass and all the spark plug electrodes were burnt away. As expected we lost around 0.1 second on the first 1/8th, but the performance over the second 1/8th indicated we have enough HP to pull the taller gearing under “big air” conditions. The incremental times were a bit weird – Steve changed gear 0.5seconds later on the second pass and we’re still trying to work out whether this improved or impaired the ET. The timeslip gave 141mph for the 1/8th mile speed – the data logger suggests 184mph.

The clutch was adjusted and the team prepared for the elimination final. As Steve prepared the bike to run in the fire up lane it started to snow and there was a delay as the track was dried and prepped. In the end the final wasn’t run until 18:41 – by this time the temperature had dipped and the light was fading. The clutch adjustments improved the 60’, but made little difference to the 60’ – 330’ incremental. Steve shut down after approximately 3 seconds as the back end of the bike was moving around and it was too dark to see properly.
On return to the pits the thermometer in the van was indicating 30F – sub-zero!

We managed to accomplish the majority of our objectives for the week-end and managed to avoid any tyre shake (the main problem from 2007) – which is amazing, considering the weather conditions – and will now modify a few more parts prior to the meeting at Shakespeare County on May Day week-end.

We would like to again take the opportunity to thank our sponsors for their continuing support – Motorcycles Unlimited, G&S Valves, G-Max Racing Fuels, Mickey Thompson Tyres, PreTech Engineering, ACL Bearings, NGK Europe, Bikes of Brighton, Richa, Shoei, Rebore Rod …and me!

Phil B