Buttonwillow went really well this past weekend. I haven’t ridden anything but Dunlops since I started roadracing and I was really looking forward to trying out the Pirelli’s for the first time. Saturday morning warmups went well, the tires worked great and I ran some competitive lap times. The solo race started around one o’clock and the track temperature had climbed a few degrees to about 140. Since WERA isn’t one of our regular series, Jett and I both had to start from the back. I made a few good passes on the first lap and caught up with the leaders. It was a long race so I decided to hang back and check out the first two guys and see where their strengths and weaknesses were. After following them for a while I found a few good spots to pass and decided to take the lead. I tried to do some fast laps and put some distance between us. After a few laps I slowed down to a comfortable pace and ended up winning by about 20 seconds.

After resting up and heading back to the track for Sundays races, I definitely felt very confident in the tires. The races started a little earlier and the track temperature wasn’t as hot, so we decided to run soft tires and see what we could do. My first race was 600 Superbike and immediately my Champ Racing Honda Pro Oils CBR600RR was working great. I ended up riding what would be my fastest time of the weekend with a 1:49, and won the race.

We had a pretty good gap between the first and second event which was 600 Superstock. Again, I started from the back and made my way through the pack. But right off the bat though, something wasn’t feeling right with the bike. It wouldn’t turn in the faster parts of the track and I did what I could to finish the race with a best lap time of 1:51. I came into the pits to realize that my left handlebar had loosened and was moving back and forth under breaking and acceleration. I was happy to win the race.

My final race of the weekend was 750 Superstock. Since we were there testing new tires we decided to put a medium on the rear to see how it would work. We lost a little grip and I really had to ride to stay up front. I had a good race with another 600 for a few laps. Second place crashed with two laps to go and I ended up winning all four of my races.

It was a great weekend and I’ve got to say thanks to Doug and Jerry for getting the bikes ready and also to Pirelli for all their help. Additionally I want to thank Honda for giving us an excellent platform to build from and Rick Mitchell from Honda Pro Oils for his great support of Champ Racing.

Garrett Willis #80

Tags: Garrett Willis by Garrett Willis
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Well the boys finally got to go racing again, the last time they got to race was the week before Moto GP up in Portland. It was OK but allot of damage. So I had to rebuild allot of the stuff and to be honest I didn’t think we where going to make it. I had Sherry’s dad help me get the engines back together earlier in the week, but we still had to run them in and build new fuel maps for them both because we have new harness and ecu’s for the bikes, Ended up Garrett got the new engine and Jett got the new harness.

The race was at Button willow, it was a WERA race and also it was going to be the first race for us to try Pirelli tires. I also wanted to try some slicks on my bike so I took one of our race bikes out there to try some tires. Wanted to do this because I was very disappointed in Dunlop after Laguna, we got some bad tires and was never really well informed on a few other things. Pirelli offered me some tires to try and at a much better deal than I had with Dunlop, so it made sense to give them a try and if it worked out we would be allot further ahead with our funding.

It ended up going really well, I just rode on Saturday to get a feel of the tires and thought they had a good rear tire but needed some work on the front for more grip but still won my 20 lap race and ran close to the track record. The boy’s had a good Saturday as well, Garrett won there solo race and Jett came home in fourth. Not a bad start for not being able to race in over a month. Sunday was just as good, Garrett won all four of there classes and ran some very fast lap times for a 600. Jett took a little time to get going but seems to be getting back on track and finished, 6th, 8th and then a 3rd. He had some issues that he finally got over on the last race and ended up setting his fastest time of the weekend in his last race. So I thought it was a very good weekend, no broken or crashed bikes and had some new tires to get a feel for that didn’t seem to be any problem what so ever. So just wanting to say thanks to all of you who have helped get this put together and are helping keeping it going, It means allot to me and the boys and we all thank you for your support.

Thanks
Doug

Tags: Doug Chandler by Doug Chandler
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