Thunderball review

Of the 11 entries in comp bike, one never turned up and one had to go home as their race license didn't turn up in time. That left 9 of us and after Monday mornings extra round the qualifying times looked like this:
1 STUART CRANE 7.7663 @ 174.34
2 IVAN BIRCH 7.9753 @ 160.67
3 DAVE PETERS 8.0943 @ 160.10
4 RICHARD GIPP 8.2869 @ 168.49
5 PHILIP LEAMON 8.4740 @ 156.23
6 NICK DANIELS 8.6640 @ 154.09
7 SANDRA CHAPLAIN 8.8344 @ 157.86
8 ALAN YOUNG 8.9425 @ 147.56
DNQ
9 PHIL CROSSLEY 9.0598 @ 152.03

I managed to get some shots from the first 2 rounds.

First pair was Al Young vs Stuart Crane. Stu took it easily with another 7 second run.







Next was the ill fated pairing of Phil Leamon and Richard Gipp. Phil pulled a red light, both riders went 8.2 but Gipp took it but then came off his bike at the top end at over 150mph. This was the first event for his new bike and only 3rd pass of the weekend.

Ivan Birch took on Sandra Chaplain. Ivan took it with a strong 7.7 et










Dave peters went against Nick Daniels. Daves bike had some major changes over the off season and didn't have it's usual 7 second form, however he still took the win with an 8.2




The next round should have seen Ivan take on Dave Peters, but Daves engine cut out and he didn't restart. So Ivan through on a bye run
And Stuart Crane was due to go agains Richard Gipp but Gipp was now in hospital so Stuart also went through on a bye run.

The final then, and Stuart Crane won with an 7.9 against Ivans 8.0
Well done to Stuart.


It's less than 2 weeks now till the Springspeed Festival at Shakespeare County Raceway. The plan is to have a new set of wheely bars by then. A decision has been made and the theory is that now the bike rides the wheely bars for longer and harder then they are a more important part of the bikes handling than before. The new bars will be a bit wider, and symmetrical instead of the staggered setup of the current ones, and new mounting points will be made on one side of the bike.
A fellow racer is also lending me a wideband sensor so i can try and find the fault with the LM-1 unit. It's no longer on my mission critical list ... in fact i almost couldn't care about it now. But it would be nice to have it working seeing as how i paid a fair bit for it!

Stoppin 'n' Startin

Third gear burnouts was one of the things i tried at the last event. It's harder to get the tyre spinning but once it does it gets hot much quicker than when in 2nd.

We had some issues with our starter again during one of the qualifying runs at the last round. For some reason it just wouldn't turn the motor over, we tried twice and failed so pulled back from the burnout box and tried again. This time it turned the motor over fine and we managed to run anyway. Had this been an elimination round we would have been out, and i don't want that to happen.
The batteries get charged every run but one of the batteries has become damaged after the cart fell over and it now dissolves it's own terminal at a fairly rapid rate..... so finally it's been replaced. I've also taken the motor apart and cleaned it out, some of the solenoid parts are available as a service kit so i might replace those too. And finally I've managed to identify the starter as from a Diahatsu Rocky TDX. According to the spec it's 2.5kw so should be adequate ..... it's just sometimes it isn't!
The brakes are also on my hit list of things to improve - they do the stopping bit ok, but the front caliper binds slightly and need aligning more accurately as if i loosen the bolts the wheel spins freely.
My pillar drill has had a change of use as a makeshift lathe. I needed taller aluminium standoffs making for the lockup clutch, so i bought some ally bar and machined them up by putting the bar in the chuck of the drill. It took some time but result was spot on. For next weekends race I've taken a further10lb base pressure out of the clutch. the 60ft time will tell me if it's the right thing to do. If we can get it down to mid to high 1.2's then we are in the right area. All that will be left to work on then is applying the nitrous either sooner or with a shorter build time in order to go faster.

As mentioned, next weekend is the final round in the ACU championship. The National Finals at Santa Pod is a 2 day event, there are currently 10 bike on the comp bike entry list. The same as the last event but Dave Buttery isn't entered. To update the gallery from a few posts ago, 3 of the new entries at the last race can be seen here:
Paul Wing CB10
Not really sure but it looks like a turbo GSX but with a GSXR cylinder head.





Dave Buttery CB20
Dave has been at some of the previous events. The bike is a Turbo GSX






Nick Daniels CB19
Again i don't know much about the bike other than it's a turbo GSX.






Thanks to eurodragster.com........
The entry list for the Nationals can be seen here
The webcam will be live and can be seen here
Live reports and end of day galleries can be seen here

And Nitro FM will be live throughout the weekend and you can tune in here