Lake Gairdner Update 2015
Well I am glad I made no promises this year..... The salt was extremely good but a little sticky and the event was affected by strong winds and wet return roads and the wettest access onto the lake for years... also a couple of major accidents one of them unfortunately resulting in severe injury delayed the racing considerably....
The
Velo had mixed results, mostly due to limited dyno testing and rushed
preparation... On the first run after 7 hours delay we ran an easy
though quite unstable 175 mph on low boost at just under 6000 rpm (
engine is normally best at almost 7000 ) , visibility was poor toward
the end of the run which I put down to salt dust but was in fact smoke
from an oil line leaking on the exhaust pipe, this was compounded by
some methanol flooding on overrun causing a fire in the bellypan and
needless to say some unplanned excitement .... I was glad for having
the new disc brakes !.... Anyway the Fire boys were at hand and no major
damage resulted save for a days work tidying things up to the standard
they should have been in the first place...
After
a thorough check over , some necessary suspension adjustment and upping
the blower drive we were ready for the next run.... after another days
delay due to an accident , we had a run on good salt and in light
winds.... The suspension changes gave a lovely arrow straight run but
again the engine simply would not rev like normal and instead of the
anticipated 190 plus run we only managed 183.702 MPH........... only a
tiny fraction faster than last year..... still it was interesting to say
the least to find the front guard packed solid with salt and the soft
slick tyre starting to melt in a couple of spots.......Then I lost my
way somewhat with the tuning setup and despite changes the bike became
more reluctant to rev cleanly and went slightly slower with each
additional run..... good temperatures and heaps of grunt but it simply
would not rev out like normal..... I will get to the bottom of this in
the coming weeks as we start on some solid engine work for next
year...and definitely a new front guard with more clearance !! .. Still a
lot was learnt and we have certainly laid a solid foundation for the
next step despite not substantially increasing our speed this time.....
as I said a consolidation year..... again many thanks to all,
particularly my long suffering crew of Marsha, Russell,Ron, and
Eric.....
