CSBK Round 1 report
Well Mack Weil race fans, CSBK Round 1 at Grand Bend was a learning weekend for sure.
We arrived in the rain Wed night for the Thurs track day with high hopes for great results but were plagued with motorcycle issues, or so we thought we had them. We spent all Wednesday night until 2am in our trailer trying to finish prepping our R6. This season hasn't started off as prepared as we’ve been in the past.
Our Yamaha R6 was running really good on Thursday and we had 3 or 4 practice sessions, relearning our lines and getting to know the bike. Unfortunately, due to backorders we were minus an important piece of kit, our steering damper (the R6 desperately needs) and we had hoped would be delivered in time for some practice. This made for some exciting riding for Mack throughout the day. When the damper did arrive late Thursday night we didn't have the proper clamp needed to make it work and unfortunately we couldn't locate one. We also had a fork seal spring a leak and that needed some attention.
Friday came with cold wet weather so we skipped the mornings practice as our time was better spent helping our teammate Adam Abnett #211 prep his Kawasaki 400 Ninja for the weekends race.
In the afternoon practice, our 2nd lap in the motorcycle shut down, like the bike went into a limp mode and Mack was forced to pull off the track. We pulled the bike apart in the pit and got it to the Brooklin Cycle racing dyno to see if we could recreate the problem only to find out the bike was running perfectly. Upon further discussion with fellow racers later that evening we found out that Mack inadvertently activated the R6's pit limiter (I did start by saying this was a learning weekend lol) and we didn't even know our R6 had one lol.
Mack managed to qualify 15th Saturday and finish 14th overall on Sunday, not as good as we would of liked but for only have ridden the motorcycle when we purchased it last Nov we considered it quite the feet, especially without a steering damper.
Round 2 at Calabogie will be much different. We will be at a track we truly enjoy riding. Until that...its time to put our R6 on a diet and finish prepping this amazing motorcycle.
Huge thanks to Scott Cartier for all the help in the pits and fixing everything we managed to break. Thanks to the entire CSBK paddock for trying to help us try to find parts we needed and offering amazing advice and a big thanks to all our sponsors. MotorcycleCourse.com, Keene Truck, Fred Racing, Hindle Exhaust, Cartier Racing, HEL, MotoD Racing, Barrick & Barrick real estate, Royal Lepage Parkway Realty.