Team Charm has a shitie 1999 season…L

Well, it's been quite a while since we've updated the Team Charm web page, and with good reason… we've had very little good news to report. As you may recall, last fall Steve purchased a new Suzuki TLR, and Rich blew up the motor in his EX500 in the last race of the season. Currently the EX still sits, in a pool of its own oil, in the Team Charm storage shed (Maryland Division) and the TLR has taken us through a slow and frustrating suspension development.

Driving down together Scooter Racing’s Scooter Ball and Michael Myers hopped in the Team’s new transporter (a van and enclosed trailer) for the drive down to the CCS season opener at Roebling Road Raceway.

Practice on Friday went well, the bike still head-shaked, but at least we made some setup changes that should us a whole slew of things that did not help the problem. Three different brands of tires were tried, incl. Michelin Pilot slicks, a Michelin DOT front, Dunlap D207’s, and Bridgestone Dot’s. (On a side note on of the more shocking things discovered about the TL is its ability to devour tires. The set Steve used for racing were worn down to the wear markers after three races, two of which were run in the wet…)

Rich got his first chance to ride the monster TL and experience firsthand the terror of high speed instability. Friday evening Steve settled on D207’s while Scooter decided to mount bridgestones for Saturday. Scooter also gave his rear damper to Traxxion Dynamics to change the fluid & clean out.

Saturday morning the conditions were great. Clear and warm the day promised good things. This promise appears not to have applied to Steve who was disappointed that a cure for the vexing handling seemed just out of reach. Most of the changes centered around adding rear ride height while reducing front ride height. This is because at the last were event we tried going in the opposite direction and it did not improve the problem. Steve entered the 35 min expert gto endurance event and was all over last place from the first lap. Completely discouraged at the bike handling, Steve sought refuge in an alcoholic sanctuary Saturday night. Just as everyone was going to bed, on possible glimmer of hope appeared. The weather forecast for Sunday was calling for 70% chance of rain. Steve, who had not planned to race on Sunday, boasted that in the rain he had a chance and vowed to blitz the competition in the advent of precipitation.

Sunday the group awoke hung over to the sound of a very cold rain in the hotel parking lot. Both Steve and Scooter entered Unlimited Supersport (allegedly Suzuiki was to be paying in this class, but from the schedule it appears that Daytona is the first Suzuiki $ race) and supertwins. Rich borrowed a EX500 Saturday night and entered lgt wt sprtsmn. All thru the wet morning practice Steve proved to be making good on his boast of speed in the rain. For the first race of the day Steve and Scooter were gridded on the last row. At the drop of the flag Steve got a fairly poor start, diving boldly into turn one in second place behind a rain tire shod 750 that proved to be the only bike in practice that Steve could not pass at will. By turn three the red flag came out, the result of an accident stemming from the second wave. The re-start saw a re-peat of Steve’s poor launch, to be made up by brave work on the entry into one. Again turn 4 the red flag came out, this time cause by a Scooter’s crash who was trying to avoid a rider who had slowed unexpectedly going into turn one. Scooter’s injuries proved to be worse than originally thought, but his day was done. Steve, while sorry for Scooters misfortune, was rather giggly to be mixing things up with the race leaders. Most of the guys were the same racers who had easily lapped him the day before, only now to be staring at this odd fellow on DOT tires who seem to have eaten his Wheaties.

For the third attempt at a successful start to the race Steve again came off the line poorly, but managed to get a caught back up going into T1. The first three bikes almost took each other out and Steve stayed clear rather than push pass all three. During the remainder of the race the positions changed a little, but for the most part the 750 with rain tires in the front pulled away to a strong lead, Steve finishing soundly in fourth.

Rich:

For Steve’s second race the conditions had improved for everyone else by drying out somewhat. Donnie Unger had crashed in the race prior to supertwins. On the warm up lap it was clear that a pretty dry line had formed altering Steve’s advantage. At the start of the race Bill Dietz, who had just come off the track in the prior race, stomped away to a commanding lead, only to pull off the track on lap three. Steve, who was in third place at the time, ended up getting second behind a southeast TL-S rider. A rookie from the second wave had worked his way up and was first overall, but as a yellow plate-er he was not in Steve’s race. Rich and Steve loaded the trailer up still awaiting Scooter’s & Michael’s return from the hospital.

Team Charm came home in the CCS points lead for Mid Atlantic riders in expert Supertwins and expert Lgt Wgt Sptsmn. Steve’s fourth in Unlimited Supersport is nothing to be ashamed of, but the bad news is the vexing problems with the handling remain.

Finally, as of the August 1^st WERA race at Summit Point, we can smile and say that we enjoy racing once again. Steve, Rich, Brian Summers, and guest rider Joe Wooten joined forces to tackle the TLR for a four-hour endurance race, and we all walked away smiling. We finished 22^nd of 41 bikes, and each rider dropped into the 1:25 lap times. Steve was able to turn 1:24s and Joe bested us all with a number of laps in the 1:23s. Why, you may ask, are we so happy with a mid-pack finish and lap times that are 3-5 seconds off the decent pace? To understand our misplaced euphoria, you need to suffer through the background of the big twin.

It sounds great on paper; 116hp at the rear wheel, top-quality front end components, an aluminum frame and an aggressive racing geometry. The 500# weight of the bike is troublesome, but with all that horsepower who cares, right? All the magazines and anyone who had ridden the new bike raved about the precise handling and awesome acceleration. And when we first put the bike on the pavement, in spirited street riding during engine break in, it felt confident and capable. But on the track, pushed to the limit, the TLR quickly lost composure.

The first few races, in the fall of last year, revealed heart-stopping head-shake at high speed (for you non-racers, a head-shake is when the bike becomes dynamically unstable and the front wheel oscillates uncontrollably from side-to-side, sometimes violently enough to throw the rider off the bike). This problem continued into February at Roebling Road. It were in fact to bad that a number of riders who passed us on the straight would only do so after swinging to the edge of the track - fearing that to get close to the violently shaking machine would take them down as well.

Stability improved as we learned more about the bikes geometry setup, but mid-turn predictability was troublesome, and the bike proved difficult to control precisely. Many, many suspension setting were tried over half a dozen practice days from March until June. Afraid that we where just a couple of idiots an forgot how to race, we even had ex-track record holder Dave Yaakov test the bike. He did one lap, returned to the pits and advised Steve to sell the bike.

Finally cured the head shake problem on the TL-R - Steering head bearings were the culprit.

At the 4/10-4/11 WERA races at Summit Point we made this discovery. We had been chasing a head shake problem since the bike was new. It did not shake at all on the street while I was breaking in the motor, but once at the track it had a shake over 115mph above 3/4 throttle (in a straight line only) that was quite violent.

We had tried a lot of things chasing the problem; beefie aftermarket steering damper mounted on the side, changing front and rear ride height, changing fork valving, disassembly & inspecting stock steering head bearings, changing rear damper fluid, four different sets of tires (dot's & slicks tried), all did not cure it. Finally in desperation we changed the stock ball bearings to some taper units and the problem solved.

If you have a TL-R with a head shake on the straight, change the head bearings to taper roller units even if they feel tight with no side to side binding, have no peen marks on the races, and are installed correctly. In 10 years of racing it was the best $54 we ever spent.

Undaunted by the growing cost of developing the suspension, Steve purchased an Ohlins rear shock to replace rotary unit. The new shock cost more that the entire bike that Steve raced in 1998, but it improved the TLR's handling substantially. At the July practice day Rich and Brian confirmed that the new rear shock turned the bike into a ill-mannered machined, a vast improvement over the un-ridable demon that it had long been. Finally able to cruise the track at a reasonable rate, other issues surfaced. The front springs were still too weak, and the brakes were insufficient now that the riders could utilize the strong and reliable motor. Throttle response was poor in the slow turns, and the rear shock needed some fine tuning.

More time was invested in practice days, and Steve dutifully installed whatever changes Rich or Brian asked for. We agreed to race the bike at the WERA National Endurance race on August 1^st. Fine tuning of the suspension resulted in the four of us ready for the race with a bike that was at least predictable and primarily stable. The suspension still protested under braking, and the front end would threaten to head-shake whenever you were in the draft of another bike. While some of these characteristics may be tuned out of the suspension, some of it may just be part of the game when you're racing bike bikes. All of the riders have a long history of racing lightweight bikes, and despise the extra pounds associated with the big-bore rides.

It may be necessary to alter our riding techniques, also.

Be sure to visit our sponsors: Fast Lane Cycles, Michelin Tires, Jack Smith at Sport Cycle Products, EBC Brakes, Vortex Sprockets, Elf Fuels, and check out photographer Glen Ouye's new web page.