Velocity Racing's 'Honey Badger' Blog

All photos by Oxymoron Photography   To say that the last couple years of “racing” (I’ll use the term loosely) have been frustrating would be an understatement. First, there was the broken leg saga that lasted nearly all of last year (still hasn’t even been a year since my last surgery), trying to adjust to the new, completely different bike, and then the bike problems. Oh, the bike problems! After the last round, when the bike really started to act up, I decided to go and pull the transmission out myself (after arguing with everyone about what was the problem and finally replacing nearly the entire electrical system) only to find it destroyed. Good thing was I pulled it before it tried really, really, hard to kill me, although I’m still fairly certain that was the primary cause of my highside back at round 2. I ordered parts, and one gear was on backorder, and since I wanted to rebuild this right I decided to gut my street bike and put that transmission and clutc...

Races were coming quickly and furiously. With only two weekends between rounds, finances, time, and mental stability were all getting stretched. After Round 4 I had decided I needed to upgrade to the Race Kit ECU and harness, in order to eliminate problems and have the ability to adjust things on the bike that needed adjusting. I came across a screaming deal on one, and it showed up on Thursday. I installed it that night, the bike ran, so I headed up to the track early Friday to avoid traffic. I still had to work, and money was tight, so there was no riding to be done, but I took the bike around the parking lot to be sure it shifted and such. It seemed fine, so I looked forward to spending Saturday getting used to the new mapping and power and making any needed adjustments. Going into the weekend, I knew there was a chance things wouldn’t work and I may end up scratching the weekend. Coming into it with that mental outset probably kept me from freaking out all day Saturda...