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Paul Coste

Privateer Tools takes 3rd place in SBCE at TWS2

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Texas World Speedway is always a fun place to race. This weekend we enjoyed fantastic weather and great racing. We also had a chance to review our spare parts and test the maximum battery life of our power tools.

Friday practice felt good as Olay and Sean worked all day to dial in our suspension. We were confident our setup was good to go for all members of our team.

On the first lap of the Saturday practice a bike ahead of us blew an engine. Olay hit the oil slick and went down. Upon arriving back to the pits the team came together to repair the damage to our bike. We did so much drilling that we used up one of our battery packs. We finished up with enough time to for one shakedown lap before we grid up for the race.

Olay got us off to a good start and it appeared our repair job was holding together because he managed to put up a team best 1:51 lap time. We were in 5th place when he handed the bike off to Brad. Brad and Mike put together the next two hours of flawless consistent laps.

A few laps after I got on the bike my stint was cut short by a red flag. As I sat in the pits waiting for the restart it occurred to me that I had not started a single race this year. I was unfamiliar with the light system and I had never started an I4 600 under race conditions. Thanks to the fine work of my team, I was able to grid up in row 2.

As the lights went out and the race started, I realized that our R6 has considerably less torque at low RPMs than my Triumph. I watched the entire field pass me on the start as I waited for the engine to spin up into the correct operating range. Lesson learned, practice starting even if you aren't the starter for your team.

Sean took the bike from me with about an hour and ten minutes left in the race. We knew we didn't have enough gas to finish. After an hour of solid endurance ridging, Sean dropped the bike off to Olay for a splash and go. Olay brought us home in a comfortable 3rd in class and 4th place overall.

We are excited about the final race of the season in three weeks.




Privateer Tools would like to thank our sponsors: M4 Exhaust, USB Consulting

Comments

  1. marcus mcbain's Avatar
    Nice job guys. 4th FREAKIN' Overall...not bad stuff!