Choose Your Weapon: Best of the Best, 2006

Nice read but... one question... is this the buttonwillow I'm thinking of? the one where even a 125 at a relaxed pace will do near a 2:00 min lap time??



and what laptime did I see in there... a 2:58 !! and a 3:00 something?? jeeeez if your gonna go to a track at least push them some!! no wonder the SV could keep up so well.



I hope your all embarased



thanks for the read though.

I have an old Honda 600F4 (10 - 15+ HP down to the latest and greatest, I would guess) and an '04 1000RR.



I preferred the bigger bike when the road was open - but you just can't use it otherwise, in any way, shape or form. You can safely use the top of the power band in 1st and sometimes in 2nd if you're hustling and the road is clear and in good condition. The torque is terrific and that bike in particular is a pleasure to ride just based on the fact that it feels like it was machined out of a single piece of aluminum - but it is a little harder to turn in, and at even a brisk street pace in the mountains with no, um interference, from the authorities, it's not as involving.



I actually found that I rode my 600 more frequently (it's in storage now...so I guess that's a bit inconsistent...I'm a hypocrite, so what?) because you could push it - just a little bit - and not be faced with impending doom. And you had enough time to get it back, usually, if your judgment perhaps was occasionally overwhelmed by you enthusiasm. The 1000 requires...your full attention and even the allegedly mild 1000RR is not to be trifled with.



I'm guessing that 750 is pretty darn sweet, overall. It's not all about what's faster, otherwise, most people that are buying Porsches and Ferraris would instead look to the generally superior Corvettes. And Ducati would never sell a bike. There's an experience out there, though purchased at the cost of a little speed, that is not to be completely rejected.



cdg

Ahem...

We were running a reverse configuration with a longer overall length than the configuration the AFM and CCS use, and only Ole -- who has never raced and only done a few trackdays -- reported his laptimes.

In the AFM Formula III class in March, AFM expert Steve Magri finished on the podium with a 2:02 laptime. If you've raced a 125, you'll know he wasn't running a "relaxed" pace.

By the way, a good rider on an RS125 will have better lap times than most people running an SV650 at a track day. In fact, race laptimes for 650 Twins riders were about the same as the RS125s. Oh, and laptimes for 600 racers are also about the same as those of the 1000cc guys, and only 10 seconds a lap faster than the 125 two-strokes. The first-place FIII finisher would finish aobut mid-pack in Open Production, too.

Jeff Tigert's best time in 600 rpoduction was only .2 of a second slower than Dave Stanton's best time on his GSXR-1000, incidentally. Both riders have a level of skill and bravery that is inconcievable to most normal people.

In fact, I wonder if anybody who has only done track days and never raced (I don't know if you've raced or not) could keep up with a racer on an RS125 on any machine, no matter how powerful or good handling. Michael Corbino did a 2:09 on a 250 Ninja, and I would like to see the average track day guy try to keep up with him. That would be amusing.

Check out the race times yourself at http://www.afmracing.org/downloads/results/2006/bw-0306.html. If you had done so before, you could have saved yourself some embarrassment, too...

By the way, Lee was turning about 2:20 and I was able to get under 2:30, although we didn't take many lap times because we had tire issues in the heat and didn't want to push it much.

Anyway, we appreciate your comments and your subscription. Thanks very much for reading and posting!

-Gabe

Re: Ahem...

I was mostly giving you a hard time heh sorry.

But yea I race a rs125 which is why I knew the lap time for it. But that time was for the setup WERA ran so it sounds like it was different because most were running in the 1:54 range so a 2:02 was at a relaxed pace.

I just didn't realize it was a different config.

2:20 sounds quite good for a track day with that config! Good to see there was some pushing of the bikes heh. I didn't mean go out and crash but I was thinking a 3:00 min lap? that's seems way slow and thought it might be a config difference.

I mean my 2nd time ever on a track (willowsprings), 1st time on that track, 1st time ever riding a RS125 (only did one track day on an EX500 before) it was easy to get with in 20 or 30 seconds of the winning RS125 time. Now the last 5 seconds has been hard!

Thanks for the reply though and clarification!

I'm pretty confident the dodgy low end is due to lean EPA settings and can be fixed. I have a '97 TL1000S now that had the mother of all low end stumbles. It runs super now after some FI fiddling.



Also, Cycle World recently had an article on the R6 and how it responded strongly to FI remapping.



All the OEMs fuel lean at low end to meet EPA regs. They tend to be pretty correct to rich on the top end.



So, to answer your question, yes, I am confident enough that the bike can be improved to buy one. The exhaust pipe bothers me more than an easily remedied FI issue