STARTING OVER
Getting down to business, Ritchie at full tilt at Snetterton on the spare ZX7-R.
At the end of last season, we were all completely worn out, including the bike, which was well and truly broken. We took it apart so many times last year we just couldn’t go through another year doing the same. But now we start to rebuild it with renewed energy and enthusiasm for the coming season.
The savagery of Snetterton. Our engine threw a rod, right through the crankcase, after the morning practice.
This year it’s more about the bike and where we can race it, rather than another exhausting season competing in a championship. So, we’ve gone right back to square one so to speak – lightening the crank, re-boring another set of cylinders, fitting brand new Carrillo rods with Wiseco pistons and rings; we’ve also had the cylinder head skimmed and we’ll be lapping in some new valves and replacing all the seals. Once again, even though we are not competing in a championship this year, we have to thank Wiseco, through Race Winning Brands, for supplying us with all these new parts. We’re really pleased that our loyal sponsors are staying with us, even though Ritchie will be having a comparatively quiet season, big thanks to R&G Racing, OPIE oils, Cradley Kawasaki for this.
Crank up the power; a nice job of lightning and balancing has been carried out by Roland Alsop.
An engineering shop with character – you might say.
Now we just need to stick it all back together.
There are a few meetings we want to compete in though, and possibly a trip – finances permitting – to a pro-classic meeting in Europe. http://www.proclassic.fr/articles.php?lng=en&pg=4046&
Pro-Classic racing at some France’s best-known circuits.
But the one we’re really looking forward to is the Bemsee meeting on the long GP circuit at Brands Hatch, a proper superbike circuit for a proper superbike. Ritchie can’t wait for that one in June.
Ritchie looking forward to putting the ZX7-R through its paces on the GP circuit at Brands Hatch.
We’ve put the ZX7-R on a diet again to shed some weight and we’ll be running without a starter motor to save even more; it’s about 3.5 Kg if you add it up with the starter motor gears and drive.
To start it up Ritchie is busy welding a sturdy frame to house an electric motor that will drive wheel rollers – hooking up to the back tyre – cranking up those 824cc’s. Our mission was always to get the bike as close as possible to a Superbike of the Golden Era and we keep making small improvements to edge it ever closer.
We’ll be missing the first few meetings, because right now we’re waiting for another set of crankcase halves from the USA to be delivered, and we’ve only just picked up all the other engine parts for the rebuild. But this year we’re not in a race to get the bike ready, we’ll be saving our energy for the track and not burning it all up in the garage. Once the engine is run in, we’ll be taking a trip to the Dyno to see how many horses our bike is actually putting out. Thinking back, we’ve had the bike for years and never had the time to test it properly on a Dyno. Well, now we’ll have the time to do all those things we never had chance to do before. Still, there’s nothing like racing, and we’ll be doing some of that pretty soon once the ZX7-R is ready. Right now, it’s easy does it with the rebuild, as we get the bike ready to do what it does best; go as fast as it can, so Ritchie can enjoy riding it, to get the most out of it, and hopefully win some more races.
Watch out for more news and a new video soon.
