Reno AMA National

Thanks !

Thanks - moral support is still support

I'll post a race report here on Saturday evening, if I can - otherwise it will be Sunday.

Best regards,

Brett Saunders

Congrats to Graham Cheney on a fine 8th place finish in the unlimited class. Good luck at the next race. GO HUSABERG

Kraig

Went to the races today. Boy that was a good time. For those who weren't there, we got a little rain delay and that pushed things back at the end. They shortened the main AMA Supermoto from 18 laps to 10 laps and the main Unlimited Supermoto from 18 laps to 8 laps. I thought it was kind of odd they scheduled the main events so late to begin with. It was getting pretty dark by the time the last event finished (Unlimited). The shortened venue seemed to be a big advantage for Kunzel who runs both classes and placed second in both. Pretty awesome dude. I talked to him for a bit at the paddock and he signed my helmet. Hey Brett, I came by your pit, but you were out and about. Sorry I missed you, but I got to take a look at the bikes. It was great to see number 9 out there. The bike looked and sounded super sweet all day. I bet you guys are going to do great. I TiVo'd the series and I'm really looking forward to following the Husaberg effort.

- Craig

A Husaberg with say 64-66rwhp will in itself be able to win the world championship Supermotard. I assume that they already have this kind of power to play with as that's quite easy to lure out of the engine.
If they are running 3 sec off the pace it's all up to Rider and chassi setup.
Maybe a tiny bit tires but also here I have to assume that they ride on reasonable stuff.

Best way to solve it is to ride, ride, ride and ride. Train MX with slicks as much as possible. Learn about suspension setup, fork levels etc for supermotard racing.

Here (Europe) you often see a beefed up 450 beat up machines with 15rwhp more out of pure rider talent.

So, engine wise you will need something like 65rwhp, no reason to go much higher normally. Power is good but you need to put a lot of continious work into the bike if you go much higher and also risk brakedowns during race.
The rest is up to learn how to ride the bike fast. No other excuses.
We just had a guy here win the national championship on a quite mildly tuned bike. He then went to the international class and beat upp most of those guys too, including some really big names. This in his first season (Supermoto, mx for YEARS) and on a Husa 650 putting out 66rwhp.

Daniel
www.supermotard-racing.com
(Mechanic for Semi-Factory Husaberg supermotard Team 00-03)

CraigHB said:

we got a little rain delay and that pushed things back at the end.

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What's that then :wink:

You mean to say that over the pond you don't race supermoto when it's raining?

It really does crack me up something rotten to think the AMA premier class is made up of 450s and you only race in the dry :lol: :lol: :lol:

It's a bit like going to MotoGP and getting a grandstand view for the 250 race and calling them the premier class :wink: :wink: :wink:

At least the S1 world series has still got it the right way round - Open Class = S1, 450 class = S2 :wink:

What is the world coming to, I wonder

Simon

How do we get to the top of the heap ?

LINEAWEAVER said:

With the current Husaberg effort running some 3.8 seconds per lap off the winning pace what do you personally view based on observation as possessing the most potential regarding reduced lap times?

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The teams who are finishing in front of us are full-time, big-budget operations. In my opinion, we are doing a spectacular job with the resources we have at hand. What would make us faster ? Well, Cheney is game enough, but he could certainly use more seat-time on the bike in between races. Unfortunately, the way the season is structured, that's very difficult. He's in good shape, which helps a lot, and he learns new tracks quickly. That's an invaluable skill, when we sometimes get only twelve minutes of practice prior to our heat races. So, while there are faster guys out there, I can't complain about our pilot

The stock 'Berg has held together well, though we're getting ready to have a look inside this week. I'd like to build a motor with a tad more horsepower, something that spins up a bit faster (lighter crank), but I'm not willing to sacrifice reliability at the expense of added power. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

Bike setup ? It's been great. Cheney's suspension work is done by the best Supermoto tuner in the world bar none, in my opinion. And in Supermoto, it's all about the suspension. Nigel Pitsch is the man's name, and he's been a resource that we could not do without. When Graham got to the US, he showed up with a very heavy duffel bag containing some forks and a shock. And with the exception of a click or two, he's had nothing but praise for the suspension.

When we go out to the track and I pull my box van in between the KTM factory tractor-trailer rig and the HMC tractor-trailer rig, I always smile We are racing against mega-dollar operations, and we're holding our own. With one rider against their three apiece, we're doing OK. Of course, I'd like to put the yellow and blue bike on the podium and swim against the sea of orange, and I hope that we will. But our team goals are realistic as well, and just getting the 'Bergs out there on the track and in front of the public eye is very important. I'll guarantee that I gave away more Husaberg posters and brochures this weekend than John Zolikoff's and Mitch Hansen's (they run the KTM and HMC efforts) combined interaction with KTM fans, and I love doing it.

So that's the long answer. The short answer ? If we had more resources, ie: full factory support, I'm certain that we could run at the front. And I do hope to build our relationship with the factory so that we become closer. But for now, for the 2004 season anyway, we're doing very well with what we have at hand. Of course, any input from more experienced Husaberg folks is greatly appreciated

Best regards,

Brett Saunders

Brett,
You want to get a ton of Husaberg supporters, get Scott to print off some posters of the Issue #4 SMR **** that you mentioned you were photographing with the Berg. A personal appearance and autograph signing would bring them in by the droves. The Vegas round would be ideal, but the Del Mar race should be close if she is from SoCal.

P.S. If you get her to come out, I'm available to help for free. Otherwise I work for Berg parts. :wink:

LINEAWEAVER said:

Hi Brett,
You silver tongue devil. Now please, what is the answer to the question.

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:lol:

1. Graham has been driving a truck to transport our bike to the races. There is very little downtime at this point in the season.

2. "Spin up faster" is a quote from Cheney, when I asked him what he'd like the motor to do when we rebuild it. I can't make any assumptions on why.

3. Our suspension is great, it's not an issue - Nige is not a sponsor, he's just a guy who helps Graham and me out of friendship. He's paid by another team.

4. In answer to your $64,000 question - I don't have a concise answer. I'm sure that there are many contributing factors. Graham weighs 60 lbs more than Jurgen Kunzel, for example :lol: - Our next race is at Del Mar in Southern CA on October 17 - Please try to make it down, and maybe you and I can put our heads together and come up with an answer.

Best regards,

Brett Saunders

Just to compare...

I don't know exactly what's done on your bikes over there but here most Husabergs that races on level ride with:
Exhaust (a must... Doma, FP, Akra is proven to be good. Domas is run by 70% of the riders)
Highcompression piston (FX470)
Tuning cam (some to choose from)
400 (ignition box or reprogrammed)
And that's about it. This is with the right rider enough to fight for top 10 positions in the WC.
Go further?
Cyl head flowed.

About the revving up issue I have the same experience. My previous bikes I've lightened some but now I bought a semifactory bike off the team I was working for and that already had the MX flywheel wich is neccesairy but I still wasn't comfortable with it and took off the auto decomp from the camsprocket and now it's good. Big difference.

I assume you run 5" rear rims as it's impossible to fight for higher positions without those today. When we started to test them a few years back they took 1 sec off every track we tested them on in comparison to the 4.25.

And in the end:
If you have a rider that looses 3.8 sec off the top times my experience is that 1 of those comes from the tarmac part and the rest from the mx-part. It's there you loose the majority of time almost always.
Only solution:
Ride a lot of offroad, mx-tracks, enduro. WITH the 17" wheels on.

Weight is an issue btw. Over 80kg you dont find a lot of really fast riders. Top, top riders are under 70kg in 80% of the cases.
Chambon, 54kg
VdB, 52kg
Seel, 53kg
Osv...
Count about 1sec per 5kg lost. That's the amont of time I gained during dieting last year anyway.

Daniel

some of that hesitancy can be put down to the E series needle. i should know, i have tested many needles back-to-back and the E series is always short from low revs.

regards

Taffy

You mean to say that over the pond you don't race supermoto when it's raining?

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Actually, there were special circumstances in this case. The race was on city streets with manhole covers, double yellow lines, and other street hazards. The course was lined with people only separated by portable fences and hay bails. Safety was a big consideration. Hiting a wet manhole or painted line at speed can mean certain downage with lots of spectators in the line of fire. I think the management did the right thing delaying the race until things dried up. In fact, I had to get out of the way of a tumbling bike at one corner I was standing at.

It really does crack me up something rotten to think the AMA premier class is made up of 450s and you only race in the dry

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Actually, looking at lap times, the 450's are running about the same pace as the unlimited class. The big US names coming from motocross and other motor sport venues seem to prefer the 450's for whatever reason. For instance, the fastest lap time in the 450 race was a 1:10.992 by Doug Henry. The fastest lap time in the unlimited race was a 1:10.720 by Jugen Kunzel. Not a whole lot of difference there.

- Craig

Brett

by involving dale you do realise that what you pay out for his proffesional skills you more than get back in saving development time and reliability.

having seen and been in this scenario myself i think dale needs to appreciate that you need to learn how a basic bike rides to give feedback to customers but that you also need to know exactly what was done to the bikes and why?

this should easily be negotiable. what gets done to the bikes gets explained and if you can't explain that don't work together!

at the end of the day brett, if you have the budget-SAVE money by having it prepped by dale.

and dale, they know they don't know what you know. but give their team the space to learn as they go. just like your children they'll eventually want and need to be independant so you have to key that all into the equation before you all start.

brett you have to find a way of making this a financially viable proposition for dale. you hold a totally different set of cards that would dovetail dale's. paying straight cash as a customer-in your case-won't work because you stand to gain financially very well out of the publicity that (succesful) racing brings. you're not the average customer and unless you both go into it proffesionally i'm afraid brett you look to be gaining information on the cheap!

i realise that right now you're learning tons but life is too short for you to take three seasons to find out everything-and more! i lost a whole season in 1983 to a change of oil and the resulting carnage internally.

if that happened to you, because the husey bottom end can only cope with 70.5bhp and not a drop more! -for example, then you'll lose any decent riders and sponsorship you've gained. can you or your business afford that? nope! didn't think so!

so it's up to you brett to budget in a good engine builder and development engineer. you run the team and learn about the game by all means but just don't go down the route of learning everything the bloody hard way all the time!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i'm sure the pair of you can work it.

regards

Taffy

ypvs said:

Just to compare...

400 (ignition box or reprogrammed)

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Are they just running the 400 boxes, or the 470 and 450 boxes also? And what is the rev limit difference if anyone knows?

ypvs said:

I assume you run 5" rear rims as it's impossible to fight for higher positions without those today. When we started to test them a few years back they took 1 sec off every track we tested them on in comparison to the 4.25.

Click to expand...

Most have actually moved up to 5.5" rears.

PowerFiend said:

ypvs said:

Just to compare...

400 (ignition box or reprogrammed)

Click to expand...

Are they just running the 400 boxes, or the 470 and 450 boxes also? And what is the rev limit difference if anyone knows?

ypvs said:

I assume you run 5" rear rims as it's impossible to fight for higher positions without those today. When we started to test them a few years back they took 1 sec off every track we tested them on in comparison to the 4.25.

Click to expand...

Most have actually moved up to 5.5" rears.

Click to expand...

Don't think the 450 is compatible actually. (with the 2003s that is)
400 box will give you 1000rpms more. Belive it's 10500rpms.

Yeah 5.5s has been in and out of a lot of teams.
In the end of 2002 we had a lot of teams switching to them for a few races and then going back to 5s but now again they're back here and there. Mainly KTMs though. They are not that good on the Husas as the swingarm is not that well suited for them. But with a bit of work changing wheels and some extra tire cutting it's ok. Husaberg WC and national championship riders over here are back on 5s anyway in 90% of the cases.

Daniel

bigger isn't always better with wheels and tyres. the shape of the tyre changes and also the heat they achieve.

ignition
it's the stroke length that PROBABLY dictates your rev ceiling. so if it has the same stroke as the 400 - it should have the same rev limiter.

Taffy