News at 737Racing.sportbikesnw.com

Dale Johnson and Team R&D Machine Racing/Columbia River Moto-Sports experience a little Rock Star Treatment at the track 8/19/2006.

737Racing — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 05:06:00 +0000

Bonny Tuller from Wild Child Magazine was on location at PIR to meet the members of Team R&D Machine Racing/Columbia River Moto-Sports road racing team from Portland/Vancouver. Accompanied by her photographer, she conducted interviews and recorded some team photographs and some candid photos as well. Her magazine is due to be published on its registered domain www.wildchildmag.com and currently resides on www.myspace.com/wildchildmag . On top of his first interview, Dale had his first request for an autograph. To borrow a quote from Luke Morgan, a racer from the same club, “I’m not a fast guy, I just play one on the internet.” Its surreal to look around and see all these guys who are fast and inspiring to me, to have a half way decent riding position and lean angle apexing what I like to call Kodak Corner (PIR’s turn 9). Our photographer Jon Fitch of http://.darkroom.orebrds.net produce an awesome set of enlarged photographs offering one to me for a signature on the other for him.
It took me fully 15 minutes to decide which one I would be walking away with. One was a large standard print, the other a large special silver print that almost looked engraved. The detail was incredible. I settled on taking the less fancy of the two, figuring Jon would be able to further market his talent with the silver photo.

Ciao!

737Racing

OMRRA Club Award Banquet held November 19, 2005

737Racing — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 04:52:00 +0000

During the November 19 Club banquet, trophys were distributed, a silent auction was held to raise money for additional airfence installation.
The 2006 board and race schedule have been selected.
Look for additional news as the season draws near.

Season Ends with a bang.

737Racing — Thu, 27 Oct 2005 20:09:00 +0000

The last race of the season went by and team R&D Machine Racing's Dave, Steve and myself ended the season with a crash or two under our belts, and much experience to draw from next year. Dave got a top 10 finish in 450 SB, Sven and Steve have both achieved their goals of graduating from Novice Class this year as well.
Sven experienced some engine trouble in his last MWSB race but has the determination to flush out the bugs and attack next year with gusto. Steve was our ace in the hole. He came out in the endurance race and clicked off a few :15's and had promise to be a top ten finisher on his first expert race had he not had that unfortunate slide in Turn 3 during his first qualifier. We got his bike repaired in time to run his mains and are happy to report he finished both races having gained several positions each race from his starting grid position.

In other news, the results came back from the lab. Its official, I get to keep my finger. Encondroma. The finger has been cleaned out and backfilled with bone from my wrist. Both are healed with cool scars and I'm gaining strength and flexibility.
I had enough to ride the October race, but I took the side of caution to let both heal fully in preparation for next year. Look for more news as the team makes preparations and perhaps a winter excursion to warmer climates for some track time in California.

Stay tuned!

-Dale

Keith Pinkstaff; the memory of a great community leader lost to the street:

737Racing — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 17:38:00 +0000

Still working out the impact of the crashes that Brad and Vincent endured, I was shocked to learn that one of the most positive and influential individuals; Keith Pinkstaff was killed over the weekend on a street ride. Here is the post on sportbikes.ws about his passing, and the community's response: http://www.sportbikes.ws/showthread.php?t=64588&goto=newpost

I met Keith during a classroom instruction at my first trackday in June of 2004. He has since helped me with advice, and personal intervention when I decided to try my hand at offroading at the infamous Cyclone at Thunderhill.
He stopped his R1 on the track to signal traffic around me, while I tried to get my R6 out of the mud. He also was the guy to stop to check on me and and help me get my bike to the wall outside T1 at PIR when I lowsided during a trackday.
He also allowed me a free afternoon session on a later trackday to get my bike sorted out after that crash. I will be forever indebted to Keith for his kindness and the advice and help he's offered me since we met.

I'll never forget filling up the bikes at the 76 station outside the track. We were holding up the line chatting even after our tanks were filled. We both laughed and got in our respective rigs to get setup at the track. He always had a kind thing to say, even when he was joking around. He never made me feel inferior. Even though I will always be to riders like Keith.
I still see him standing on the table at the track introducing the instructors and cornerworkers at the PSSR trackdays he and fellow racers organized.
He was a 1994 track record holder, an influential family member to up coming racers, and a pillar of our racing/trackriding community here in Portland, OR. RIP Keith, we'll miss you.

Article detailing Keith's trackrecord. http://www.motorcycle.com/mo/mcmail/road/trakrec94.html

Dale Johnson makes name in official press release

737Racing — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 15:37:00 +0000

Ok, the article isn't about me. In fact it covers a 12 year old girl from California who won the respect and hearts of all the volunteers and racers - well maybe except the points leader of her class ;-)

Elena was impressive to watch both from on the track and off.
For her first weekend, she learned the track quickly and made perfect, friendly passes, and graduated the same weekend.

My glory is much less impressive, but just the same, it feels great to make it onto a press release. My ranking in the 600 SB and SS Senior (bikes at least 5 years old) and riders (well we won't go there, I'm still living my youth a decade or two late) has placed me on a racing magazine news release found here at RoadRacing World online.

http://www.roadracingworld.com/news/article/?article=23468

Happy reading, and congratulations Elena. Your riding was superb!

OMRRA Posts June 26th Results

737Racing — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 20:34:00 +0000

I received word that OMRRA posted the results from June's races.
On my first weekend in expert, and my first time using race fuel, I finished 5th in 600SS Senior putting me 5th in points and 2nd in 600SB Senior putting me 4th in points. My goal is to continue to improve, be consistent, and not crash. I've identified areas of improvement and will be working on them on this next trackday prior to the July race.
My post crash confidence is coming back slowly. There are some areas I didn't feel as comfortable committing to, but it was satisfying to learn that I could place while running at a comfortable pace. Now that I can see third place however, I'm hungry to go faster. My goal is to podium this year and take home a season trophy. Exciting times!
Look for more news from 737Racing.

See you at the track!

-Dale

Facing the inevitable

737Racing — Mon, 23 May 2005 20:13:00 +0000

On Thursday, the inevitable happened. I threw the bike away in Turn 1 at PIR.
The story has several unfortunates, and several fortunate points.

To begin, we were at a recent track day with the intention of determining if a gearbox issue existed and if possible to get some good laps in to drop my laptimes and spend time riding with friends. The former hasn't been determined yet, but doesn't look good.
The latter did happen and, due to the low turnout, we were allowed to ride in multiple groups.
We all improved our times and got significant practice laps in despite the crash and the weather.

On what must have been the third A session of the day, after some good laps following one of the faster guys in the organization, disaster struck. I decided to cool it down a notch when he fell in behind me to evaluate my lines. Only seconds out of the brake zone, after executing the countersteer and tip in, the front let go before I could roll on the gas.
Just that fast, I'm sliding next to my bike which is throwing impressive sparks off of the hard parts. My slide had me in a slow rotation and soon I found myself sliding headfirst off the track onto the grass in an open run off area. I came to a stop and heard my bike running nearby.
I jumped up, ran over and hit the kill switch and began to evaluate the damage on the bike to see if it was ridable. Keith Pinkstaff was the first to my aid and helped me push it out of the impact zone to the tirewall. There we tried to start it and determine the best way to get it back to the pits. A stuck throttle cable decided that route, so I got a ride back to get my truck and tow it back.
Upon returning it to the pits, I surveyed the damage to my bike and my leathers.
The bike had broken sections on all three aftermarket fairing pieces, missing brake lever, bent left and right handlebars, the right peg was ground down to half of its original length, and the pavement refinished the bottom corner of my titanium can and aftermarket timing cover.
Dan Wilson had a spare set of bars. So Sven Bohringer, Dave Wallway and I settled in replacing what needed to be and repairing what could be. Long story short, I had the bike re-teched and back on the track after lunch.
My leathers fared much better. The slide off the track was relatively short, so the only thing that took any form of damage was the right forearm and the right knee just above the kneepuck. Some cosmetic piping was ground off and two very small areas had stitching break.
I came away completely unscathed save a bruise on the inside of my left forearm.

After a few days to slow the crash down to a mental frame by frame to see where the mistake was, its still hard to determine exactly what led to the lowside. I wasn't on the brakes, I had slowed even more prior to entry than on previous laps, it wasn't raining yet, nor were my tires worn or cold. I had been dealing with a downshifting issue which I was working on the shift linkage to sort out. I'm not sure if I had successfully made 4th gear prior to tip in.
If I were in 5th and rolled on, the power might have not been there as expected, which would explain why the front was still unusually weighted. I've since pulled the GP shifting conversion cam and am running standard shifting. I need a break in the weather so I can have one final testing day before I crack the case and start replacing forks and gears.
I was really hoping the bike would last until the end of the season.
I hadn't expected to graduate from Novice so soon, so I had planned on riding this one in Novice and possibly make Expert next year. Well, its not in the cards. I received my graduated license on Thursday. I've got to get the bike back in working order for next month to run with the big boys. Look for a report next month if I'm able to get the gear box sorted, and all the crash damage repaired in time.

Ciao!
-Dale at 737Racing.

Fellow Racer Brad Hochhalter impacted wall at PIR

737Racing — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 18:32:00 +0000

A friend, mentor and fellow racer impacted the wall at the front straight at PIR at over 150mph on Saturday, April 9th during an OMRRA practice session as a result of a violent headshake and loss of control resulting in impact of a normally unthreatening portion wall.

He sustained massive injuries and had to be transported to the hospital where the quick response by the Ambulance service and the ASSET team saved the rider's life.

An outpouring of support has come from around the nation and several news sources have posted the news of this unusual accident.
A website dedicated to communication between riding enthusiasts contains links to the news feeds as well as an updated post of the rider's condition can be found here:
http://www.sportbikes.ws/forumdisplay.php?f=163

OMRRA, the race organization he's a member of, has setup a donation link to donate funds to offset the medical costs incurred as a result of this accident.
Look here for the link: http://www.omrra.com/

At 737Racing, our hearts and prayers go out to Brad and his family.
Please do what you can to assist the family in this time of strife.

Alright, got the site working. We had our first te...

737Racing — Mon, 28 Mar 2005 23:20:00 +0000

Alright, got the site working.
We had our first test trackday for the season. The bike ran and felt great.
The weather did a 180 on us and we had a nice day when everyone was expecting rain and a cold day that turned to rain at the end of second day.

The suspension guy came by on Monday although he didn't plan on coming out.
He made some quick damping adjustments and softened the front end up quite a bit.
I had reinserted the forks a week before when I got them back, but dropped them by about 5mm from before. The bike still tipped in rather well and I found myself having to adjust a few times to keep from running up over the inside curbing. The front tire gave me great feedback for having them in warmers in between sessions and the ambient temperature in the 50's on the first day. I felt like I dropped my laptimes considerably compared to last season.
Dave got a laptimer, but was having trouble getting it working, so we went by wristwatch.

The motor felt strong all weekend. I got a false neutral, the first time on this bike, in the middle of wide open Turn 6. I also had an oil level scare on the second day. I'm familiar with the oil level false indications under hard acceleration and/or stopping, but this was after it sat during lunch. Need I mention that it was cold? I had to choke the bike to start after an hour and 40 min of no running. The warmers were cool everywhere around except directly under the fender. The east wind just had a heat robbing bite that kept the fingers cold, warmers working harder, and everyone huddling in their jackets, or in the Rosecup room for warmth.
Paint and numbers goes on this week. I'm sticking with the original butterscotch yellow since trashing my spare (dented) tank trying to prep it for new paint. Pulling the dents out proved unsuccessful.
So, I'm running with my good tank with another dented one as a spare.
Next Saturday is our "pre-tech" inspection at Pro Caliber. Seven days after that, we're racing!
Check back for updates!

Ok, got the formatting a little more like I want i...

737Racing — Sat, 19 Mar 2005 00:46:00 +0000

Ok, got the formatting a little more like I want it. We'll run with this for now.....

So this is the Friday before the beginning of track season.
The bike and gear are done except for paint. I'll be picking that up tomorrow.
I was going to go with a bright yellow like my pit partner. However a failed attempt at removing dents from my race tank ended that project. Now to save time and money, the bike will be the original Butterscotch color. Good thing too, because I just saw a posting on sb.ws on another yellow bike that would have been identical to mine. Gotta be different you know?

Monday is the beginning of Cascade Tracktime's track days and our first opportunity to sort out the bikes short of riding on the street. We all know where that would lead....

New Page added to 737Racing

737Racing — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 23:23:00 +0000

I finally added a blog to the page. I look forward to entering updates this way.
I think I'm going to create my report with this tool. We'll see. Still working on the look and feel.

#737