Fall 2003 Dutch Run in Sendai

Aidan and Keith think they are about to embark on a day of riding in the sun...foolish boys...

Aidan and his slightly used CBR600F

Chris kicking back in the "Bitch" chair

Keith strikes a pose on his mighty XR650...not the fashionable wave rotor..

Larry and his 954

Mike and his Duc

Stu Bo and Shady about to perform a map upload on the new Z1000

The pits, the RMX250 R, VTR1000F, Z1000 and the XR650

Mr. Bowie and the new toy

Mr. Bowie thinks it is NOT green enough...

Modern state of the art re-jetting

More rejetting at work

From the left; John G, StuBo (in black, showing his good side) Mike, Shady, and Martin

Dutch Run Fall 2003

Well we had quite the weekend.

This event seemed doomed to fail from the start. Near the last minute I discovered that it was going to be on a Saturday not Sunday like it always was, so we lost two of the seven guys that were going to go on the big truck right there. Then due to some other problems that had to deal with so many changes at the last minute we ended up with 4 guys going in a truck that would seat only three! We were very fortunate to get Rich (Rocket Jockey) to swing through Tokyo and pick up the unseated rider.

My day on Friday started early and went late, I forgot some important stuff, and everything got rushed at the last minute (par for the course I guess) We did get under way fairly early and were into Sendai at the Green Line Hotel before midnight. The Hotel was great, I needed ear plugs (and example of something I forgot) as some water pipe ran through the ceiling of my room, but I still got a lot of sleep. We were all out at the trucks ready to go at 7:30 AM. On the way up the mountain we got a phone call from John saying he was kindly saving pits for us, but did not know how much longer he could do so, so I kind of hurried along. The road to the track off the main road is a bit of a rough one, and I was going to fast, near the top of the road I noticed one strap on the rear of the bikes flapping around. I stopped and checked it out, tightened it and checked everything else, but I did not check well enough, as I soon found out. When we got into the parking/pits area my VTR had fallen over! Luckily it fell into my RMX, so I had crashed both of my bikes before I even got them off the truck, I hoped that my crashing was done for the day!

The VTR took some hits to the fairing, but it was only cosmetic, and the RMX is going to need a new side panel, no big deal.

We unleaded the bikes and got started on the taping and wiring of components. We also checked in and attended the riders meeting; it was nice and short this year.

We got out on the track and I decided to take the RMX just to get reacquainted with the circuit and warm up, maybe 5 laps into the 1^st session, just as I was going to change to the VTR it started raining, so I pitted in. I thought that I would wait out the rain as it did not seem to be sticking around long, well I was wrong, it rained and rained, but it looked like it was clearing up. In this time we did some oil changes ‘(Shady’s virgin R1 run in oil change, and StuBo’s second oil change) we waited and waited, but is just kept raining. Then when the bell for the second session to end rang it cleared up, it was nice and sunny over the hour long lunch break, and the cage guys were out there drying the track up for us (so there is a use for them cages). We got on the track at the first chance after lunch, I noted on the clock on the VTR that it was 1:02 PM when I entered the track. I had fun, but I also had something dragging on the left side of the bike into corners. This was the first time out on a track on the VTR since I installed the Case Guards, and I was worried that they were dragging. About this time Rich came by in the mighty might Zebra and was urging me on to come and play, but I was trying to figure out what the heck was dragging, sorry Rich, I would have loved to try to follow you around, next time! I did get to pass all the Irish crew and I heard from Larry that on the brakes hard into the chicane I had the rear wheel off the ground, looks like I need to work on my braking some more. I heard that Keith tried out the off-roading capacity of the XR650 after watching me pass him and some of them smelly old two-smokes going into the chicane. I did stuff Aidan on a corner on the inside, which is not really by the book, sorry about that one dude!

It turns out that the side stand on the VTR was dragging, and upon closer inspection it is bent, which is also why the VTR most likely fell over on the truck, the sidestand bent allowing it to fall over! More parts on order…

I did not see StuBo and the “Not Green Enough Z1000” on the track, nor did I see Shady or Russell, I saw Maya a few times, she is looking better on that Spada all the time. I guess when you consider that the second session was ended by more rain at 1:27 PM that fact that I go to warm the tires up at all was good in itself. In the second session as it was raining only a little I took out the RMX again for some foot down Motard style stuff, and just about ended up on my ass a few too many times, the back tire is just about done on that bike, was fun, and very exciting!

It continued to rain and rain, but not really hard enough to put the rain wheels on, I was afraid of the rain letting up and cooking the rain tires like Nagano san did that one time, I can’t afford that.

Now comes the fun part, we had arranged with John G to take his bike back to Tokyo and he would take our extra rider back to Tokyo, but we, or I guess I should say I brought one to many bikes to fit John’s TL onto the big truck….SHIT….

Rich was heading to Ebisu that night, and so was everyone else. We now had 4 riders and 3 seats in the truck. It was decided that we would spell each other off on one bike; the bike of choice was the VTR. That went OK until the exit from the Tohoku expressway, where the bike just died. Oh shit, the regulator/rectifier has gone POP again! Dead battery.

This is the second R/R that I have gone through in one year! It seems that with the VTR if you don’t ride it every day or so the battery gets run down, and then if you go on a long blast the R/R get over worked and goes POP! The fix is a new and improved R/R and a Battery Tender to keep the battery up to full charge. I have ordered both.

We in the truck had to go back around and get Keith and the now dead VTR; this took a lot of time. When we got there we were near Kawaguchi where Aiden lives, so he was going to go straight home, and since we had to take Keith’s XR650 off the truck he decided to just go straight home too. StuBo and I took the other bikes back to my house and by the time I got unloaded and the truck gassed up and everything put away it was near 2:30 AM, long day.

All in all it was better than a kick in the pants, but not by much.

I’m sure glad that you guys had a good day out at Ebisu; you sure go the weather for it.

Cheers!