FEATURE
A TEST OF TIME
PROJECT 37
With a lap time to beat and a crowd to please, Timmy gave it his all on the mighty GSX-8R.
WORDS: TIMMY
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
PICS: CHAPPO
Ready and waiting..
Finally, the day had dawned – it was Project 37 day at Cadwell Park. The sun was shining, the bike was sitting pretty, laden with new race part goodies, and my new Shark Aeron GP lid was polished and ready for action. It was crunch time. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous, and that would be thanks to the build-up and hype we (or should I say, I) had given it leading up to this day. I desperately wanted to achieve the lap record target, and since the first two parts of the YouTube series had already aired, I was going to make a monumental clown of myself if I couldn’t deliver after all of the big talk. The tension was real, and to make matters worse, it was Suzuki Live day at Cadwell, so all the bigwigs were there to watch their new mid-weight stomper attempt to take on the record. No pressure, then.
With such limited track time on the day, I’m so pleased I took the chance to have a cheeky test run on the bike ahead of Suzuki Live for a general shakedown to make sure that the new parts we’d fitted in the Powerslide Motorcycles workshop weren’t going to fall off, that the brakes weren’t going to need bleeding again, and that the gearing was going to be up to the job. It’s safe to say it paid dividends heading up for the extra track time, and after knocking off a whopping three seconds in the first session alone, I was feeling positive, but the extra pace meant I’d already run into a new issue. The standard road gearing was now a problem, and I found myself hitting the rev limiter way too early going into the Gooseneck and on the exit of Mansfield, so I needed to swap the rear sprocket for a tooth less, which meant chopping in the road-going 525 chain for a racing 520 pitch set-up, along with the front sprocket. One tooth might not sound much, but on an 81bhp motorcycle, it makes a huge difference. Not only could I carry more corner speed now, but it also improved the engine braking characteristics by reducing the pull-back so the bike didn’t ‘back in’ so much.