A Nice Seafood Dinner

[ceo012384]

Installed exhaust slider:



Got my suit back from repairs. Silver panel, black patch, and crotch patch are all new. Guy did an amazing job.











Bike felt fucking awesome at the track. Still waiting on pics and video and stuff... was only able to find one shot online:



Bodywork is back with the painter. Shit's gonna be sick.

More to come...

[ceo012384]

Mounted a hook for my suit in the garage



Received and installed the woodcraft 3 piece brake lever that was backordered



Threw a Puig black double bubble windscreen on the stock front cowling. Have a clear oem for the race plastics. No switching necessary now.



Threw on the new pazzo clutch lever, will keep the rashed one as a spare



Threw on a fresh set of stompgrips



Put most of the stock fairings and lights back on



I found a couple pics that some spectators took from the last track days. This series through T6 and T7 up into T8 I thought was pretty cool.





Hard on the gas




Wish this one was in focus, I like it.


Starting to pick my body up to throw it over into T8

[ceo012384]

Worked on the workbench. Assembled the Ikea kitchen base cabinet and cut drawer liners for all the drawers:



Worked on the countertop. Cut it to length, then used some 220 grit sandpaper to give a light sand to the top and sides. Then I cleaned up all the dust with some tack cloth:



Laid down stickers and then a really thick coat of Parks' Super Glaze. Might do another coat just to add to the durability:







The space on the right is for this bad boy:



Also picked up a set of wheels for track tires that should arrive this week:

[ceo012384]

Picking up all the painted plastics tomorrow.

Track photos showed up.

[ceo012384]

Here is everything... full set of race plastics, oem mid fairings, airbox cover, intake covers, and fender. The race plastics have number plates with silver pinstriping around them. I got only one number plate on the front because I thought that looked a lot nicer.



Race plastics:











Trimmed the black border off the red/white replica stripes, going to install them next Saturday. That will give the paint another week to cure.



I also had the dent in the old tank pulled out and primered. I'll paint this at some point and throw another set of sliders on it to have as a backup.



Picked up a spare fuel pump



Spare set of wheels showed up... cleaned them up, now they're ready for rubber:



I installed all the street parts... she looks fucking awesome!
Notice the mid fairings (long skinny ones), airbox cover and intake covers are all painted now, instead of grey bare plastic:














I Threw a couple more stickers on the workbench and then laid another coat of Super Glaze down. Covered it up with a sheet for dust prevention and left it to cure:



A couple photos I picked up arrived. I'm going to get some frames for them and hang them up. One is Valentino Rossi leading Jorge Lorenzo and Nicky Hayden from the 2008 MotoGP race in Laguna Seca CA. The other is a print of an autographed photo of the king of smooth himself, Kenny Roberts.

[ceo012384]

Bike = complete for now. Well, except for the red numbers that I'm planning to throw on there this winter...









Had her up at the track the past two days... I am less and less interested in riding on the street every day.

[ceo012384]

Little bit of a 'riding' update.

Had a couple frustrating days at the track. About 1/3 of the time was raining, about 1/3 of the time not raining but wet-ish track, and about 1/3 of the time dry track. It really fucked with my head. I like riding in the rain and practicing being smooth and doing things at a slower speed while still having to worry about traction limits, you learn a lot... but when you have a damp/drying track it's a very difficult situation to deal with I found myself lacking confidence. When the track became fully dry I found myself having trouble getting back into the right mode and wasn't able to make the progress I had hoped. A couple of the sessions things started to click though and I got in a little bit of a groove.

Still have 4 more track days this season at the least, so I'm not worried. 9/29 and 30 with Tony's... 10/2 with another organization on a sick discount deal they were doing... and 10/13 down at the new track in New Jersey.

I also want to do the penguin roadracing school to get my race license so I don't have to worry about it in the spring... that's on the 26th of september... we'll see if I can drum up the money before then.

I think next weekend my buddy and I are going to safety wire our bikes.



Oh, I also went up to watch the races on sunday before my track days to see what I am getting myself into. All I can say is HOLY FUCK. There are a couple of the fastest guys in the northeast up there... and watching the way they go into a couple of the trickier turns at NHMS I nearly shit myself. It is absolutely preposterous how hot they are coming in on the brakes, ho early they get to 55 degree lean angles, how unscathed they are by the shitty bumps and pavement at NHMS and the transitions on and off the nascar oval, and how soon and hard they get on the gas powering out. I was blown the fuck away. Some day...