Team S-Works Miller Update

June 17, 2008

Miller May 30-31 2008

Team S-Works left Infineon with a feeling of progress and confidence moving into the fifth AMA round of the season. Bruce and Susie drove the rig from Infineon to Miller so that Bruce could do some engine work before the Miller round. We were fortunate enough to have an invitation by Accolade Motorsports (Triumph dealer) of North Salt Lake City to have access to their shop and dyno. That was a huge help in getting motor work done on the road. Our truck and bikes have not been back at our shop since the first week of April. Bruce did two motors over and was able to get both bikes running well and tuned properly on the dyno. We are still down on power from where we would like to be but in the interest of reliability, have not gone too far, plus with being on the road for so long, are limited in what we can do. Miller is definitely a beautiful facility, like Barber but 10 times bigger. What a surrounding with the mountains and big valley. Nice layout, garages, services, etc. We were wondering how the SBK and AMA combination would work, and found it to be very convenient and rubbing elbows with those guys in the paddock was very cool. The level of preparation and livery of the SBK program is phenomenal. Anyway, back in our world, we did the promoter practice on Wednesday as the entire schedule was planned to be moved up a day due to the combined event. The track used for AMA was the full course of 4.4 miles. That must be a lot to try to get a rhythm going on, and Shane was out all day making forward progress with each session. It is one thing to run a typical course of 2 miles and 12 or so turns, making it easy to work on technical sections each lap with it fresh in your mind. With a lap time of close to 3:00 minutes, it is not so easy. There is a nice mix of high speed sections and tight technical sections with the course used. Shane was happy with the layout and flow all things considered. The schedule got condensed a little, and it was announced that the FX race was moved to Sunday at 4PM. This caused a bad reaction among FX competitors, and was quickly changed back to Friday as originally planned.  The promoter practice went well and we were in the top 20 for times pretty quickly. Thursday AMA timed practice went well with a best lap time of 3:02.6 in good putting us 17^th quickest. On the 1000, we were about the same lap time or 1.5 seconds quicker. Friday’s practice netted a better time of 3:00.4 in FX on the 675 and 2:58.7 on the 1000. Qualifying for FX was in less than ideal conditions with wind blowing hard down the front straight against us. We ended up 14^th with a best time of 3:01.5 and that was a good result. We qualified 18^th on the 1000 with a best time of 2:55.9 which was a 3 second improvement. Unfortunately, we knew we would be bagging the Superstock race due to Shane needing to be back in New England on Saturday to attend the funeral of one of his best friends, Alex Lyskawa, who at 13 was racing with very good results, but was tragically killed in an accident at Summit Point WV on Memorial Day while competing in the 125 GP race. This obviously weighed on Shane throughout the Miller event, and he was given the option of not racing at all, but decided to go through with the FX race and fly home on Friday night. The result of the FX race was a solid 18^th place, and for the length of the course and our being down on power after suffering a bottom end bearing failure on the A-bike, was a respectable finish by Shane and the team. Also a big thumbs up to Brad Hendry who rode the Foothills Triumph 675 to 16^th place. Brad like us was at a power deficit and lost touch with the next group ahead, but made a last lap pass on a much faster 848 Ducati to grab 16^th I left the bikes on display on Saturday and had a flood of people coming by and checking them out. It is as always nice to see so many Triumph enthusiasts come over to talk to us. I apologize that we couldn’t have the rider and team together then, but the need to be back in New England was far more important. I stayed behind to pack up and get the rig to Road America for the following weekend where horsepower is even more critical, but at least Shane has ridden there before. We are still gaining momentum and are really looking forward to Mid-Ohio where the bikes will have the best situation of a technical course with a shorter distance track. The event is preceded by the AHRMA weekend and Triumph is the marque of the year, so we will be doing it up big on behalf of Triumph with Pres. of TMA Mark Kennedy and Grand Marshall Gene Romero doing some laps of honor on our bikes. We look forward to seeing a good showing of Triumph supporters there and will have some good things going on. We would like to acknowledge the following list of companies who help to make our program successful:

Triumph Motorcycles America, Commonwealth Motorcycles, Meyers Performance, Regina Chain, T Man Suspension, Chickenhawk Tire Warmers, Dunlop, Pit Bull, Vanson, Pipercross, Helmet House/ TCX Boots, Yoyodyne, VP Fuel, Held, Arai, Woodcraft