Ace Racing Race Report: Larry H. Miller Superbike Challenge

The following is from Ace Racing LLC...

Photos and Video by Doug Byers
 

Miller Motorsports Park

May 31, 2009

Miller Motorsports Park was the site of the inaugural Larry H. Miller Superbike Challenge, which consisted of both a GTO and GTU support race in conjunction with the seventh round of the World Superbike Championship.  Ace Racing riders Brian Parriott and Ace Robey were scheduled to appear in the GTO division on the Ace Racing CBR1000RRs, while Michael Hannas would compete on the Ace Racing CBR600RR in the GTU division.

Ace Racing WERA Sprint Races Miller Motorsports Park May 09 from 2WheelTimesTV on Vimeo.

*This video was shot the weekend before at the WERA races.

First up for the team was a 45 minute practice session for each division first thing on Friday morning.  Hannas took to the track first and got down to business trying to dial in the set-up of his machine, making progress during the long practice session but not completely eliminating the rear grip issue he was having.  Parriott and Robey were up right after for their practice session, which Parriott used to familiarize himself with the Miller Motorsports Park track which he was seeing for the very first time, as well as get a little more comfortable on the Ace Racing CBR1000RR, which he had ridden previously only one track day for testing.  Robey encountered some issues with the slipper clutch the team had shipped to the track and installed the night before, with something not right and his CBR1000RR not able to put the power down to the ground.  Robey pulled into the pits and was back to the garage to try to figure out the clutch issue, while Parriott quickly learned the track and got down to some decent lap times.

        

Hannas was up next in the 20 minute qualifying practice, which was for all intents and purposes simply another practice session, unless for some reason Saturday qualifying was cancelled, in which case the times from the qualifying practice would be used for the grid.  Hannas opted to use the session to further work on his race set-up, refining the rear suspension settings in an attempt to gain more grip and more tire life for the duration of the race.  Hannas definitely made progress but ended the session still searching for more.

Parriott was up next for the 20 minute GTO qualifying practice, while Robey was in the garage tearing into his clutch.  Parriott now knew which way the track went and worked with his crew to dial in the settings on the CBR1000RR, getting the bike a little more to his liking and getting himself up to speed on the fast Miller Motorsports Park Outer course.  Parriott’s times placed him in the top fifteen during the session and he was certain there was a lot more to come, so the team was confident heading into final qualifying the next day.

        

Meanwhile, Robey had missed almost all of his 45 minute practice and the complete 20 minute qualifying practice, and was now in the process of removing the slipper clutch the team had installed and replacing it with the stock clutch.  Thanks to Dave “Wu” Pressler of the Corona Honda team, this time the stock clutch was fitted with an HRC clutch pack, which enabled a little more slip and made the stock clutch usable.  With Wu’s help, Robey fitted the HRC-equipped stock clutch and was once again ready for final qualifying the next day.

    

Saturday morning came before we knew it, and Hannas was out first in the final qualifying session for the GTU division.  The strategy for Hannas was simple: to go out and ride as fast as he could for the whole 20 minute session.  He had found earlier that softer rubber didn’t agree with his machine, especially in the cold morning sessions, so the team decided to qualify on race rubber and use the session also to test durability of the tire for race distance.  Hannas rode the whole session, setting his fastest lap on his last flying lap as he took the checkered flag at a 2:02.058.  This put Hannas 16^th on the grid, on the fourth row, but the time was encouraging for the race as it was set on his ninth lap, which meant the tire would most likely last the whole twelve lap race without any issues.

Parriott and Robey were up next on the Ace Racing CBR1000RR machines in final qualifying for the GTO division.  Parriott was ready to put the hammer down and earn himself a good starting position, while Robey was hoping to get up to speed without much track time to draw from due to the clutch issue.  Parriott showed that he was indeed coming to grips with the powerful CBR1000RR and the track, and was able to set the 12^th fastest time and earn himself a third-row starting position for the final.  Robey struggled somewhat to get up to speed due to the lack of practice but was able to set the 23^rd quickest time, setting him up for a sixth-row start.


Photo by Doug Byers

The first race for the team was the GTU final on Saturday afternoon with Hannas on the Ace Racing CBR600RR.  The weather had been nice and sunny all weekend, but it started getting pretty gloomy looking about an hour or so before the race, causing all the teams to break out the spare rims and mount up rain tires just in case.  Without any spare rims, the team’s strategy was to leave the DOTs on until it started raining, then rip them off and run over to Pirelli and swap them to rains if we had time, or leave them on and run it if we didn’t have time.

Ace Racing Larry Miller GTU Pre Race Michael Hannas getting ready to rip. Now if Mother Nature played nice we would have done well. Gambled for wets it dried, tires wasted poor results. Next time! www.2wheeltimes.com

The clouds looked threatening but didn’t drop an ounce until the moment the bikes took to pit lane to head out for the warm-up lap, at which point the clouds opened up and it began to pour.  UtahSBA officials decided to give all the competitors a twenty minute break to change to rain tires.  Hannas pulled the CBR600RR under the tent and the crew got to work taking off the wheels and getting them over to Pirelli.  At this point it was still raining and the other teams were mounting their spare wheels with rain tires.  Thanks to some quick work from Corey and Chris at Pirelli, the rains were mounted up, and on the way back to be mounted on the bike as the announcer was making second call.  It was at this point that the rain stopped and we noticed the other teams start to take the rain tires off and remount the slicks or DOTs.  We barely had enough time to just get the wheels mounted, let alone have Pirelli swap them back again, so we just hoped the track would stay wet enough for the rains to work, or hopefully it would rain again during the race.

            
                                                                                                        Photo courtesy Amanda McVay            

The officials decided that since no one had ridden on a wet track all weekend, they would allow the GTU competitors to do two complete sighting laps before the race.  While this was nice of them and probably the safe thing to do, all it did for Hannas was make the track dry out even quicker, making the probability of his rain tires lasting the distance get smaller and smaller.  Hannas saw that he definitely had more grip than his competitors while the track was still wet, but also that the track was going to be completely dry before the end of the race unless it rained again.  As the field took the start, Hannas shot up the inside of the first corner and gained a few positions.  While the rest of the riders tip-toed around trying to find traction, Hannas was hooked up on his rain tires and passed a few more guys on the first lap to move up into the top ten. By the time the riders were completing their second lap, a dry line was beginning to form and for Hannas his charge towards the front seemed to hit a road block.  He was able to maintain his position for the next two laps but as the dry line became wider and whole sections of the track became completely dry his rain tires began to shred and he stared going backwards fast.  By the halfway point he had dropped back to around 20^th and was fading fast as his rear rain tire was simply done.  Hannas continued to circulate, trying to at least finish the race, but by the last two laps the tire was so shredded that he couldn’t even circulate through the corners fast enough to not be in the way of the lead riders, who were now beginning to lap the tail end of the field, and he decided to pull it in a lap early as to not cause an accident or suffer a catastrophic blowout at high speed.  Hannas ended up 32^nd, two laps down, and not happy at all.  Lesson learned: spare wheels are a necessity.

Final race for Ace Racing was GTO, with Parriott and Robey back to attack on the CBR1000RRs.  The rain was now gone,
 and after an encouraging warm-up on Sunday morning, Brian and Ace were ready to race.

        
    Photo courtesy Amanda McVay                                            Photo courtesy of Mark Hindman

Parriott seemed to get a decent launch from his third row starting position, but on the run to the first corner his CBR didn’t seem like it had the speed that it usually does.  Meanwhile, Robey was trying to make up some ground and work his way through the pack.  When the pack came around to complete the first lap, it was obvious that something was amiss with Parriott’s machine, as he was being drafted and passed by 600s down the straight!  This continued for the first four laps or so as the crew wondered what was going on and Parriott continued to drop back, until finally the bike seemed to fix itself and once again had full power.  Parriott worked his way back around the gaggle of 600s that had passed him and started moving forward, but for him the damage was already done and he was only able to work his way back up to 16^th by the finish.  Meanwhile, Robey found that the faster pace he was riding during the race as compared to practice caused new handling issues to appear, which somewhat stunted his charge though the pack.  Robey ended up 24^th at the finish, wishing he had gotten a little more set-up time during practice.  Lesson learned: go fast in practice if you want to go fast during the race.  After the race it was determined that the engine management system on Parriott’s machine had been set to self-mapping mode, which is what it spent the first four laps of the race doing until it sorted itself out.  Lesson learned: no self-mapping during the race.

    Photo courtesy of Brandon Bones                                                           Photo courtesy of Mark Hindman

Although the results aren’t what the team hoped for, all in all the team learned a lot over the weekend, and will be better prepared to attack at the next race.  Next up for Ace Racing is AFM Round Four at Thunderhill Raceway in Willows, California on June 13-14.  Hope to see you there!

Ace Racing Results

Larry H. Miller Challenge

Miller Motorsports Park

May 30-31, 2009

GTU Qualifying: 16^th  Michael Hannas (Hon)

GTU Final Race: 32^nd Michael Hannas (Hon)

GTO Qualifying: 12^th Brian Parriott (Hon)

GTO Final Race: 16^th Brian Parriott (Hon)

GTO Qualifying: 23^rd Ace Robey (Hon)

GTO Final Race: 24^th Ace Robey (Hon)


Photo courtesy Amanda McVay     Team Ace Racing LLC Miller Motorsports Park USA May 2009

Ace Racing would like to thank our partners www.2WheelTimes.com, CRG, Catalyst Racing Composites, Kyle Racing, Bazzaz Performance, Leo Vince, Shift, Concept 5, Epic Images, Yoyodyne, Parriott Motors, and Pirelli.

For sponsorship inquires please contact aceracingllc@yahoo.com.

We would also like to send a special thank you to Parkhurst Racing for the use of their transport vehicle for the week.
Thanks Doug and Jane.