View Full Version : Mini Twin Race Bike Pace
Hi,
This is aimed at the minitwin racers on here and might be a tough one to answer but I'm going to give it a go anyway!
I am currently riding an absolutely standard SV650s '99. The only mod is braided hoses everything else is as it was from the factory. I know you are not allowed engine tuning etc but surely uprated suspension, air filter, full system, track brake pads rear sets etc, etc make the bike a fair bit quicker per lap.
So, the question is, if the same rider was to ride my bike round cadwell park and then a well sorted SV race bike, how many seconds a lap quicker would the race bike be?
The reason for the question is that I'm very new to bikes, trackdays etc and I'm already keen to have a bash at the racing thing but don't want to embarrass myself, I'm hoping to give it two summers of trackdays then get involved.
Cheers!
Red Herring
16-08-11, 07:12 AM
The single most effective improvement you can make will be learning to ride the bike, so just get on with that. You ought to make some basic simple mods before going on track, ie: half decent tyres, quality pads, and give the bike, especially the suspension linkages etc, a good service, but get a couple of trackdays under your belt and then start to work on the bike issues that you are finding then, most likely to be suspension based.
Buying/riding a fast bike won't make you fast. I've got a pretty trick GSXR 1000 and run respectfully in the fast group most days, but you would not believe how slow I looked in comparison to the BSB Supersport lads that were buzzing us on a trackday at Silverstone yesterday! It was humbling......
Cheers for the comments. Totally agree! The reason I wanted to know was to get an idea how far off the pace I would be on a Minitwin grid. It's difficult to gauge because my bike is probably not as quick as a race prepped one.
I was at Cadwell last night with my GoPro and was doing 1:57's and it feels like it would go miles faster just by raising the rear sets as my pegs spend half the lap on the ground. I am far more concerned with learning to ride properly than pimping out my bike at the moment and the less I spend on the bike the more I can spend on riding it! One crucial edit though is that I'm riding on Dunlop Qualifiers which are a bit stickier than standard which must be helping a fair bit!
Does anyone know how much quicker a race bike would be per lap? I'm probably down almost 10bhp for starters.
andrewsmith
16-08-11, 08:46 AM
The single most effective improvement you can make will be learning to ride the bike, so just get on with that. You ought to make some basic simple mods before going on track, ie: half decent tyres, quality pads, and give the bike, especially the suspension linkages etc, a good service, but get a couple of trackdays under your belt and then start to work on the bike issues that you are finding then, most likely to be suspension based.
Buying/riding a fast bike won't make you fast. I've got a pretty trick GSXR 1000 and run respectfully in the fast group most days, but you would not believe how slow I looked in comparison to the BSB Supersport lads that were buzzing us on a trackday at Silverstone yesterday! It was humbling......
This
But if your talking times for Cadwell here's the results for BEMSEE at the weekend http://www.bemsee.net/info-centre/doc_download/761-cadwell-park-13-14-august-2011-results
At 1:57 you'd be at the back, but pace comes with practice and set-up
Could be worse then, it was my second track day and I past my test in February so I'm doing ok.
The question I'm trying to get an answer to however is how much quicker the race bikes are to the standard machines once they are set-up. For example if I'm lapping at 1:57secs on my bike would I be 1 second quicker on a race bike 15 seconds quicker?? Surely a minitwin racer would know the answer to this.
andrewsmith
16-08-11, 10:21 AM
its purely down to skill and abilities, some of the guys at the front a semi-pros.
The front runners bikes are running at least 4k of tasty bits on top of the cost of a bike full ohlins, arka/ leo/ m4 race systems etc.., leave this thread a few days and you should get a response from a couple of the guy's.
Red Herring
16-08-11, 11:42 AM
They won't be making that much more power though...Minitwins are limited to a fairly easily attainable 72bhp, the money goes on the suspension and making the bike lighter....and tyres!
Sounds like you have already identified your next step - Rearsets. Just go from there, good luck.
Hello Nomski,
just a bit of info regarding your race prep etc...
I raced my first ever season in Minitwins with the North East club in 2010-haven't been out this year because of serious road rash in sidecar crash!!
My race prep of my 2000 carby was....are you ready??....a can!!
For my first 2 meetings I was even on road tyres-that is the truth!!
So you're desperate to know how I got on-plain last-and lapped!!
However, by race meeting 3 I got some race scrubs-Supercorsas, and by that time I was getting to know my bike and what actually goes on at a race meeting. Hey presto I took 4 seconds off my East Fortune lap time and catapulted to mid pack!!
So, my advice would be-dont bother with too much trick stuff-you wont appreciate it later when you get better. Whack some decent tyres on the old girl and just get out there and race-most people are last and lapped to begin with, it's all about getting your confidence levels up!
So finally, you too could get 'Best Newcommer Award' at your club on a bike whose only mod is decent tyres-well I managed it, so there's hope for everyone!!
Regards
TC 252
Tony C / TC252 are you twins???? lol
Hello matey!!
We certainley are!!
Mini Twins!!
How's it goin?
Pretty good apart from a high side at oulton last month, just bruises and minor damage to bike. Sorted with ebay bits for £40! . I got my acu license and joined preston and district club recently. Still got the old gsxr. Hoping to make my first race in october when I get back from my hols in pre injection class. Will miss sept meet as I dont get back till night before. I am on same bike prep method as you. Bog standard apart from can and second hand supercorsas. Got yorkie chris to service rear shock, stripped and rebuilt forks and brakes with decent pads myself and away you go. It feels alright to my skill levels to me! Checkout the pics on 'easytrack cadwell' thread in trackday section that I did with some fellow orgers! It was talking to the likes of yourself and other lads like Berlin doing it on a budget that made me want to have a go.
How are your injuries coming on? You must have a screw loose to even get in one of them things!
Hello mate,
i'm glad to see you're going down the budget racing line!!
The best thing about that is even if you get thrashed you just think about the money and get a wry smile!!
I've been thinking about giving the CB500 racing a try-that is proper budget racing-and the guy's go like stink!!
My injuries are healing nice and steady-back to work full time now boo hoo!!
I'll probably do a bit of work on Bullseye over the winter and try a couple of track days early next season and see how it feels in my head!
If you ever get the chance of a go on a sidecar-our club have experience rides over lunchtimes-you must try it-it's just a totally different dimension!!
I'm getting excited now-cos i'm off to t' Island to watch the Manx GP practice week-got my old beemer on the road and gonna give the mountain course a good looking at-surely racing there has got to be something to do before you snuff it!!
Keep the power on!!
TC
darrens_here
16-08-11, 06:53 PM
as said above, track time will make you faster.
Im running with BEMSEE novices this year on an r6.
Priori to racing, I was lapping brands inday at 1.03. Got down to 59 seconds at our first meeting there. 5 meetings later, back at brands indy and my times were down to 53 seconds. Thats without training or anything changed on the bike..... just time on the bike and a little confidence.
So, other than the "essesntials" would concentrate on track time / tution to make you faster...
andrewsmith
16-08-11, 08:03 PM
Hello mate,
i'm glad to see you're going down the budget racing line!!
The best thing about that is even if you get thrashed you just think about the money and get a wry smile!!
I've been thinking about giving the CB500 racing a try-that is proper budget racing-and the guy's go like stink!!
My injuries are healing nice and steady-back to work full time now boo hoo!!
I'll probably do a bit of work on Bullseye over the winter and try a couple of track days early next season and see how it feels in my head!
If you ever get the chance of a go on a sidecar-our club have experience rides over lunchtimes-you must try it-it's just a totally different dimension!!
I'm getting excited now-cos i'm off to t' Island to watch the Manx GP practice week-got my old beemer on the road and gonna give the mountain course a good looking at-surely racing there has got to be something to do before you snuff it!!
Keep the power on!!
TC
Glad to here your on the mend mate!
You know where I am if ur needing a hand
Tony please don't remind me about those rides Gordon Shand scared me witless on his manx outfit.
Speak to Rai86 on here as she does a bit of CB500 nutter racing
Cheers for the comments. I'll be booking a couple more days this summer and have found a candidate for giving me some pointers. He's raced for years so hopefully he'll have the knowledge.
What sort of budget (bare minimum and realistic?) do you need for a season of Minitwins at BEMSEE or Gloucester? I assume it's far more than you think at the beginning of the year while your hoping to stay on the bike the whole time!
Budget depends alot on what club/circuits you use plus travelling costs dont forget. Preston and district is cheapest I found and fairly easy for me to get to. However they only tend to use three sisters which is good fun but hardly cadwell! A 2 race entry is £75 + £10 per extra class + £20 transponder hire. So you are over £100 before you even put petrol in your bike.
Tony, CB500 racing? A gentle way back into the groove? What they lack in power they make up for by elbowing each other to make a pass dont they? lol
andrewsmith
17-08-11, 10:37 AM
Cheers for the comments. I'll be booking a couple more days this summer and have found a candidate for giving me some pointers. He's raced for years so hopefully he'll have the knowledge.
What sort of budget (bare minimum and realistic?) do you need for a season of Minitwins at BEMSEE or Gloucester? I assume it's far more than you think at the beginning of the year while your hoping to stay on the bike the whole time!
Doing 10 meets (entry, transponder, scrubs and fuel) is around £3k a season
Bike, can be done for about £700-£1,000 (depends on how cheap you can get a bike) and thats just making it ACU compliant
Cheers for the comments. Totally agree! The reason I wanted to know was to get an idea how far off the pace I would be on a Minitwin grid. It's difficult to gauge because my bike is probably not as quick as a race prepped one.
I was at Cadwell last night with my GoPro and was doing 1:57's and it feels like it would go miles faster just by raising the rear sets as my pegs spend half the lap on the ground. I am far more concerned with learning to ride properly than pimping out my bike at the moment and the less I spend on the bike the more I can spend on riding it! One crucial edit though is that I'm riding on Dunlop Qualifiers which are a bit stickier than standard which must be helping a fair bit!
Does anyone know how much quicker a race bike would be per lap? I'm probably down almost 10bhp for starters.
At the moment I hold the lap record for the MRO and Bemsee minitwin class at Cadwell of 1.37.9 set in April this year breaking Chris Northovers 2007 record by 0.6 secs. The spec of the bike (for sale on this forum) is about as high you can get within the minitwin regs. Tyres were Pirelli Diablo supercorsa's SC1 front/SC 2 rear - Rear was new for the race. Hot pressures were 31/29. gearing was 14:44. Weather dry and sunny. Rear sag was set at 10mm, Front 25mm. Brakes have stock discs and are crap hot with PF pads well bedded in. Fuel load was as low as possible. Engine was fresh producing bang on 72 HP. Fairings were SDC units with stock screen. Gearbox has racing detent star and spring fitted from JHS.
Record went in last race of the weekend having won 1st, then crashed in 2nd, up to 6th in 3rd race then made 3rd place in last race. Lap record was broken twice in this 5 lap race. Firstly on lap 4 by 0.01 sec chasing the two leaders. Last lap was a last ditch effort to win but failed by 0.4 secs.
So if you add all of this together - high spec bike, experienced rider in 5th season, good conditions and special race circumstances - you have the difference that amounts to 20 seconds between you and me at the moment (with due respect). If i were to apportion the gain between the bike and rider i would say its about 75% rider and 25% bike. Put onto your stock bike I could screw the **** off it as much as possible but it would be significantly down on the front of the pack by around 4 - 6 secs a lap. The other factor is confidence - I wouldnt feel comfortable on your bike as mine is set up to suit me and my riding style.
Anyway, hope this adds some perspective for you.
Sam Cox
darrens_here
18-08-11, 09:13 PM
lol , blantant advert for his bike there !! lol only kidding mate.
Sams point is, I think this..... or at leats what Ive seen of yself.
The rider is more imprtant than the bike unless your running at the front.
For example, with a bit more confidence on my bike, I managed to knock 7 seconds off my lap time, yet I bought the bike from a guy who was still 3 seconds quicker round brands indy than me. SO the bike has it, its me that needs developing..... probably up until a certain level, the bike will be better than you, only when you rech the limits of the bike will you really need to then spend money on it.
ps - sam - might have a look at your bike, thinking of minitwins next yera... fancy swapping wanna r6 ?
Thanks a lot, that's exactly the info I was after. I'll see what I can do for getting involved a bit next season. I'm still far more concerned about my riding to start trying to spend wads of cash on my bike. I think the forks could do with the thick oil, harder springs combo and I definitely need to raise the rear pegs but other than that I'm just going to hammer the riding tech. I think I lose most time on entry speed and braking, i.e. start braking far to early steer in to gently at to slow a speed and then accelerate all the way through the bend carrying good speed through and getting good drive out. Annoying but the higher speed turn in is far more intimidating than once you are in the corner scraping everything on the ground.
The bestest corner in the whole wide world for getting big Kahunnas on corner entry speed is Duffus at Knockhill!!
Talk about going off the edge of the world with ya knee down!!
I'm sure someone else will have a different opinion tho!!
Are you going to the Island on Monday to watch the Manx GP??
Oh it must be me then!!!
TC252
darrens_here
19-08-11, 02:31 PM
bit like paddock at brands hatch. I had been told its proper scarey..... and to be honet, never found it that bad..... until i upped my pace..... going into it, flat out, knee on the deck, not seeing wheer your heading, and HOPING its still there...... as you go over brow of the hill,,, the cambers going the wrong way, you can see the massive gravel trap that plenty have been into, the bike goes light, you pray the fornt sticks... then just as you think its all over,,,, you hit the bottom and you guts fall out your ****...........
scarey but bloody good fun !!!!
Hey TC, I'd agree with that :-) Especially when the river is running across the track just over the blind crest on an other wise dry track! Blind crest entry, full knee down, adverse camber and a track that turns hard right. I lost both tyres on the SRAd there quit a few times. The BSB guys cut the curbs on the left ahnd kink and on the right too!.
Hows the injuries healing?
C
Hello big fella-how ya deein like???
I'm doin fine mate-all healed up apart from a bit of restricted movement in right shoulder-consultant reckons it's the plate and he may remove it in Feb-been told not to crash till then!!
I've been back on the road on the old beemer and off to Manx GP on Monday-whoopee doooo!!
I'm sooo missin our tussles on track-it's 12 months since Leeming-that was a superb day eh??
How's it goin ower the water?
Take it easy mate-good to hear from ya!
TC
only when you rech the limits of the bike will you really need to then spend money on it.
ps - sam - might have a look at your bike, thinking of minitwins next yera... fancy swapping wanna r6 ?
Agreed on first point - our minitwin has had lots spent on it to get reliability and performance (now for sale on this forum) and i honestly think its at the limit of lap times you could get on a minitwin. It wouldnt surprise me though if the sub 51 barrier went at brands in the last round of the MRO series - Helm, Cousins and Cox all vying for the top three places.
Sorry darren we have already gotten a new T3 Triumph 675 in preparation for next years Triumph Challenge series and am testing it now at various tracks. In a way this shows that minitwins are good for race development as well as a stepping stone to quicker classes.
holy crap! Opening the throttle on the 675 is like the difference between a bus accelerating and a souped up lotus! Still love that old bus though....
firestorm996
26-11-11, 02:33 PM
I second Richard "Whitty" on it being cheap at three sisters,done a year there and aint broke the bank.Whitty fella well done for getting rider of the day at the last round,you told me it was your first time there, as we were sat on the line in the rookie race.You back next year? Rick #18,fourth behind you in the rookie,and my first trophy for third in the twins class,you got two trophies,good on ya! Could do with more twins to race against next year,more the merrier.Off to Anglesey 4th December,whats a respectable time for a first timer round there then? although it will probably be brass monkeys! Coastal circuit too.
When you say it hasn't broken the bank, how much are we talking? I'm going to try and get at least one or two races done this year and need to start figuring out the costs. It looks like it'll set me back about £600 for an ACU licence!!! Do you have to do the course or can you just take the test? Well I've got a bike sorted anyway just need to do the rest.
firestorm996
27-11-11, 11:55 AM
:cool:Hi mate,did my acu last year at warrington.It was run by the wirral100 club and cost 100 quid for the course plus 15 quid to join the club.At end of the course they stamped up my acu licence application form,therefore you need to do the course to get your licence.When you have got that all important stamp,send it off to acu with a 50 quid cheque(And 7 quid for your novice bib). I have a full bike licence so got a clubman "A".Not sure what your status is pal,but 600 quid seems a bit steep.All in mine cost me 172 all in.
Did not even bother with wirral,coz joined Preston and district instead,race entries were 65 quid per class so 2 races there,and 10 quid for any extra classes.So 4 races in a day for 75 quid,or 6 for 85.All be it they are rather short 5-7 lappers.But coz of the nature of sisters,and my lack of fitness,i found that was enough!....Now then tyres thats the biggest expense.But not to bad depending on what you think you need.At the beginning of the year i had my old peugeot and single bike trailer,and a cr**py gazebo from argos.Even dossed in the car parked up next to some fancy set-ups,nobody cares pal,its just the fact that you are there that counts.At Preston it is real friendly,with no big eds,an everyone helps out.Good luck anyways fella.
firestorm996
27-11-11, 11:59 AM
P.s pal its not a test as such,you just have to attend, and do a multi guess at the end.You cant just do the test.But it is worth doing,just for the safety side of it.Phone acu and ask where and when your nearest course is.Probs next year now pal.
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