Updates from Paul Cavanaugh

Tweaked

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 11:11:13 GMT

Ok, I am starting to see a trend here when it comes to this social networking thing. First we had Myspace, it was the “bomb” according to most high schoolers, until of course a bored Mom started playing games with a teenager on it which resulted in an unhappy ending for the teenager.

Next Facebook took over and is doing rather well if you can put up with all of the Mafia games, someone “sent you a beer” requests, “You acquired a new evil skill” notifications and so and so just found a new egg of some type.

But the one which is getting to me is Twitter. I do not even use it and its language is moving into my world. There is becoming an annoying number of “Twitterisms”. For instance a headline I just read says, “Teacher uses Twitter for "Tweaching".

You have, Twittocracy, Tweeple (The people who Twit, which I would just call them “Twits”, it seems more fitting.), Twittette Syndrome for the Tweeple who Twucking cuss all the Twod damn time in their tweets. Twitterholic is another one for a person who posts over 500 tweets a day. (Twuicide would describe what I would do, if I did nothing better than Tweet 500 times a day.)

Next thing you know we will be going to the Twace Twack to get on our Twotorcycles, Twheelie bars or no Twheelie bars, to Twace. We will sit in the Twaging lane and then go through the Twaterbox in order to do a Twurnout before going to the Twine so we can watch the Twee and hopefully cut a Twerfect Twight instead of a Twed Twight so you can win the Twace. God forbid we have a Twreck on the pass and mess up our Tweathers or much worse suffer a Twingery, have to get in the Twambulance for a Twip to the Twospital.

If all goes well and you win, AMA Twagbike will give you a Twurse, Twontingencies as well as a mention in Twaightliner.

It is not like the English language does not already have enough annoying traits as it is, like my southern accent…(If I could just stop saying “Ya’ll” and cut “Hell” down to one syllable it would not be so bad.) We need to learn how to use the language we already have before we all sound like a bunch of Twittering idiots.

Learning Experiences Racing has to offer.

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 10:54:30 GMT

Some of the things that are taught to us come from the most unexpected places. Over the last 4 years I have been drag racing, some very important fundamental lessons that not only pertain to racing but to life itself have become apparent.

For instance, in regard to relationship communication, I found the GPS is not always correct. While I had adamantly insisted to Stephanie that it was. There was a three-fold lesson in this:

1. Sometimes the good old-fashioned map your significant other is holding is indeed more accurate then the GPS your significant other named with great disdain “Gertrude”.

2. Clear, concise, communication between you and your mate is extremely important in order to back up your RV with trailer a half mile to extricate yourself from the situation “Gertrude” put you in.

3. Explicative’s, whether stated out loud or muttered under your breath do not enhance “clear, concise” communication. In fact, they result in clear, defined dents in your trailer.

Another relationship lesson learned is the one which some of us have done and all of us have the capability of doing. Make sure all parties you are traveling with are indeed in the vehicle when you leave the gas station. I will not go into great detail here, other than the fact I can assure you no good forms of communication result after turning around to go back and pick up the person you failed to notice was missing prior to leaving.

Because of all of the driving we do to get to races, some of us may listen to satellite radio for hours on end. A new thing I have been learning is how to determine what type of audience listens to the XM/Sirius RawDog comedy channel by the commercials it plays. After determining what type of audience I think RawDog Comedy is, I feel like I need to take a shower and evaluate my reasons for liking RawDog.

Commercials are supposed to be targeted towards a specific audience. In the case of RawDog I have come to the conclusion the audience is a bunch of Tax evading, credit card debted, Pencil dicked, get-rich-quick scheming people with big dark ugly bags under their eyes.

First there are the commercials to help people eliminate or at least reduce the money owed on taxes. The guy doing this commercial speaks in a low soft voice much like Marlon Brando in the “Godfather”. I have learned by listening to this commercial I do not want to meet this guy so I will just continue to pay my taxes and avoid an always embarrassing for everyone “horse head” incident.

Then there are the commercials from a company which informs you most of the clients they deal with have credit card debt in between 10,000 and 35,000 dollars. Did you know there is a secret way to reduce your credit card debt by up to 40% and this company can help you accomplish it? It is so secret the credit card companies do not want you to know it. Of course there is always the non-secret way to cure credit card debt, which is to pay the bill each month or just plain not use the card.

Next there is the Prolifix commercial to help thicken your penis. Apparently women like short and thick as opposed to long and thin. This product comes with a free measuring device to check your results. I am guessing this device can also be used to check the ground clearance of your motorcycle in the staging lanes.

The one I like informs you there is a way you can start a business without money or merchandise you have warehouse and still be able to sell the merchandise on Ebay. So let me see if I get this right. I sell an item on Ebay I do not have physical possession of, take the money from someone who bought it. Tell someone else who I have not met, to ship this item I have just sold, then send the shipper of the item “X” percentage of the money I got from the person who bought the item and hope it actually gets shipped to the person. Would it not be easier for the people who have the merchandise to begin with to sell it?

Lastly, I have learned that there is a cure for the dark baggy eyes the Tax evading, credit card debted, Pencil dicked, get-rich-quick scheming people have. It is called Hydrolix and it stops your capillaries located under your eyes from exploding.

I believe this thing called “sleep” works too.

So you see racing does not only provide us with an avenue to cure our “need for speed”, but also helps to improve communication in our relationships and educate us in various other topics, however useless they may be.

See ya on the track!

Update on races and news...

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 08:36:11 GMT

Ok, I have had compaints I am not writng enough new articles here. There are a couple of reasons for that, but first lets discuss the season opener in Valdosta, GA for AMA Dragbike.

Let's see how can I descriptively write what happened... How about, I sucked? Actually that in itself is not an entirely true statement. I only lost by a little bit in all three races in the 1st round. The races could have gone either way.

The big news is that I have been writing columns for www.dragbike.com I also write quite frequently in their forum which provides a great deal of information as well as amusement. http://forums.dragbike.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=11520

If you get a chance go check the articles out and frequent the site as much as possible. If you are into motorcycles you may learn something.

Michael Overson at Bank of America

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 07:22:53 GMT

Typically, what I write about is racing related, but since racing has a degree of finance involved I thought I would share this.

As all of you know, interest rates are falling like a full tree. (Had to throw in some racing imagery.) This made me decide that now is a good time to refinance the house. Currently I am at 6.25%. A phone call placed to Bank of America put me in touch with Mortgage Loan Officer Michael Overson.

Michael was extremely helpful giving me the information I needed to make a decision as to whether or not it would be more cost effective to go with a 15 year or 30 refinance package. Furthermore he did something that hardly anyone ever does in the world of large corporations, he called me back when he said he would. I usually have to call back through the huge intangible maze of prompts in order to find the person.

Thanks to Michael I’ll be going with a 15 year refinance at 4.875% which will save me about 650.00 per month as well as take a few hundred thousand dollars off the interest of my loan.

Just think about all the racing and modifications I can do to my bike with that!

If you would like to contact Mike Overson here is his information:

888-293-0264 (Select option 1 twice) ext. 21548

michael.overson@bankofamerica.com

The choice of a mascot.

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 06:47:37 GMT

LOGANVILLE, GA A lot of the teams have a mascot of sorts or at the very minimum a theme. For instance Debbie Knebel and Pat Jones have Flamingoes and a general feeling of being on a tropical cruise in their pit area. Jimmy and Eeman Heisler have Chester the Cheetos Cheetah (Who occasionally has to get blown because he loses air.) The Paquettes, thanks to their daughter Brooke have Meat, Steak and Ham. Granted, Steak looks a little rough around the edges, but still comes to every race. One of the teams has a huge Florida Gator and the Baumbach’s… Well they have Toney.

So, I decided I needed a mascot to fit my Hayabusa's paint scheme and it had to be something out of the ordinary, after much deliberation and thought I picked an “Abominable Sportbike Snowman”.

It coincides with everything; my bike is blue and has white streaks like ice shards which could represent someplace cold, dark and forbidding where an Abominable Sportbike Snowman might hang out. Also, if you met an Abominable Sportbike Snowman in person, it would be intimidating at the very least.

After looking around the house for a couple of hours I found the things I needed to build an Abominable Sportbike Snowman. It is amazing the places you have to look to find the parts to do this.

During the construction process in the workshop our Jack Russell terrier “Bella” dropped a piece of my Abominable Sportbike Snowman in a small bowl of C-16 I had been meaning to get rid of. I thought that would add character to it, so I kept it. Not to mention an Abominable Sportbike Snowman probably would not be spotless anyway. Once it was finished I brought it upstairs for Stephanie to offer her opinion.

The first thing she said once she walked in the door was, “What is that smell?”

This is when I proudly displayed to her my Abominable Sportbike Snowman. Then I proceeded to tell Stephanie how the dog managed to get race fuel all over my Abominable Sportbike Snowman and that is why it had an odor.

Later, I explained how I picked my Abominable Sportbike Snowman to be our mascot and how difficult it was to find all the parts to make my Abominable Sportbike Snowman. She looked at me with that look that women do so well, the one where they feel sorry for you, but don’t want you to know they do, because it might hurt your feelings after all the work you put into the ridiculous thing you are so proud of and said, “You suffer from Hebephrenia.”

After all of that work, I ended up feeling like an ASS.

So much for the mascot.

The AMA Dragbike 08 race year in reflection

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:39:29 GMT

Loganville, GA I was going to write this long drawn out month by month review of what happened this year in racing. Then I thought to myself, why would I do that? If everyone has read all of my previous articles they would already know what happened during the year.

So I decided to do this… I raced, raced again, raced again, melted the engine, fixed the engine, raced again and again and again.

Now I am to November and the World AMA Dragbike Finals in Valdosta, GA. (Who needs time travel?) Friday the 7th we were able to do 3 time trial runs. I had excellent lights .025 .027 and a .040. That was a good sign because the last few races you would think that I was taking Lunesta before each run. ( I like the moth in that commercial…)

The bike ran its usual numbers 9.53, 9.57 and a 9.81 in Street Fighter. Which absolutely chaps my @$%. Street Fighter is a 9.50 index class and I should run a 9.5 for qualifying. As it turns out I always screw up and run a number that is not even remotely close to the index.

On Saturday we had 2 more qualifying runs in each division. Sometime during the night, the “dark motorcycle imp” came in our RV, opened my brain and stole my reaction times. I had a -.063 a .114 followed by a .124 Not only did the imp take my reaction times, it screwed with the Hayabusa on the way out. Now the bike was running 9.6’s.

I had been having issues with the header bolts coming out after the last engine rebuild so I decided to take off the fairings on the turbo side and look at the bolts. They were all in. While I had the fairing off, I decided to clean the turbo filter. Typically I use a toothbrush to clean it after every race. This time I held it up to the light and noticed that some of the holes looked like they were clogged. Vince Woska let me borrow some brake cleaner and I shot it out.

My next run was a 9.414 at 150 mph. This is 2/10’s faster than I previously went and 6 mph faster. My next run I went 9.35. Now I have a problem, I do not know what to dial in at. This is the fastest I have ever ridden the bike.

Saturday night I had my first Pro ET race. I dialed in at 9.40 and ran a 9.31. That was letting off the throttle at the 1,000‘mark.
Sunday morning in Street ET I dialed in at 9.39. The first guy had a -.114 light to my .040 light. (The Motorcycle Imp gave back my reaction times.) I ran the bike out the backend to a 9.35.

In Street Fighter I lost with a 9.41 on a breakout pass. No more for me. I finished 12th overall in this division.

In the next round of Street ET I cut a .002 light to my opponents .269 light. Needless to say I caught up with him by the 1/8 mile mark and proceeded to feather the throttle for the rest of the race. I ran a 9.63 at 118 mph on a 9.39 dial in. The next round I got the bye run due to the previous good reaction time.

The next round I had to run Jimmy Heisler. He is a good friend, along with his wife Eeman. Currently, Jimmy was in 2nd place in the points and needed to get by me to win 1st place for the season. I told him he was going to have to beat me because I was not going to let him have it. He asked if I would take 250.00 to throw the race. I told him he would not be happy if he won the race knowing I threw it. After a brief pause he said, “Yes I would.”

Jimmy dialed in at 10.31 I stayed at 9.39. Jimmy cut a .100 light to my .063. I caught him at the 1,000 ‘ mark, chopped the throttle and got on the brakes. I ran a 9.361 at 135 mph to his 10.38 at 118 mph. Back at the line Stephanie and Eeman were wondering what the hell we were doing, they did not think we were really going to race that hard. If they were in our shoes, they would have said their bike broke for the other person to win the championship.

That win gave Jimmy the Street ET Championship and me a respectable 6th place finish for the season. There were 196 bikes in the division. For me that race was the most fun of all of them.

Before we could go home we had to go to Santa Fe College in Gainesville, FL to talk to some students in the automotive class. Around 11pm on Sunday night I pulled into an RV park in Alachua, FL. Typically, there is a late night drop box for hookup fees. At this place there was a sign that said to pay at the front desk in the morning.

I had to be at the school at 8:30am, so at 8 am we pulled up to the office and I went in to pay. I handed her my debit card with teeth marks from a Jack Russell on it. She pointed to a sign under the glass on the counter that said, “ No Credit or Debit Cards. Cash or Checks only”. I don’t know about all of you but I have not used a check in 9 years, I had 5 bucks in my wallet and when I pooled that with all of Stephanie’s money I had 5 bucks.

The lady suggested I go down the road to the gas station to use the ATM. We get to the gas station and I figure I’ll fill the RV up while I go in and get some cash. When I come out the pump had stopped at the irritating 75.00 mark when the pump should know damn well I am filling up an RV and go to 150.00. I figure that is good enough to get to the college, jump in the RV and head back to the RV park.

Once in the RV I start ranting to Stephanie as to how stupid it is in this day and time that they do not take debit cards. This rant went on until I pulled up to the office.

Right then my phone rings, I look and see that it is a Florida prefix. I figure it is the college calling to reschedule.

“Hello.”

“Did you forget something?!” Says an irritated voice that sounds like Stephanie.

“Stephanie? Where are you calling from?”

“I am at the gas station where you left me!”

Apparently, she got out of the RV to get a cup of coffee while I was there.

The ride home was largely conversation free.

See you all next year! Have a great holiday season!

Norwalk Fall Nationals AMA Dragbike Race #7

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 08:23:30 GMT

Loganville, GA I apologize to those of you who actually take the time to read my articles for not writing in a timely fashion. I have been quite busy recruiting students for next year’s Heidelberg apprentice program and have finally got a chance to write.

As those of you who read my articles know, my engine was melted and is now back together. Prior to the Ohio race I went to Maryland International Raceway to do some shakedown runs and possibly get a spot on Rich Christensen’s new endeavor “Arm Drop Racing”. It is kind of a mix of “PINKS” and “PINKS All Out”.

I did not get on that, but I did have a good weekend testing the bike. It ran fine and I was awesome on the tree. My worst light was a .047.

On the way to Norwalk we had to stop at 2 Technical Colleges. Also, we had our new Jack Russell Terrier “Bella” with us for her first extended road trip.

When we got to Ohio for a meeting at Owens Tech in Toledo, we decided to stay in an RV park just over the border of Michigan in Monroe. It was a KOA that apparently doubled as a park for the locals. It had a catch release pond and next to that a pond for swimming with a beach type area along with a bunch of structures for kids to play on. You can tell this place had been here awhile because it had not come to terms with rest of the world concerning lawsuits and playground equipment.

It had the old fashioned kind of equipment that we look at nowadays as Spanish Inquisition torture devices. You remember the 10 x 10 X 10 foot tall cube made of 2” pipe as a kid? We used to play “King of the mountain” on one like it. When you knocked someone down through it, they looked like they were falling through a Pachinko machine. I never knew a body could contort in so many ways. This may be the only one still in existence, other than the one in Wisconsin at the Museum of Historic Torture Devices.

The catch and release pond was supposedly filled with Bass, Bream and Catfish. I am guessing the later was the only fish in there. I fished it in the evenings and did not see a thing along the edges let alone get a bite. It may have had something to do with the artificial looking teal green water.

While there we had to do laundry, so I went to the office to get quarters for the machines. There was a guy in the store who seemed to run the place. When he handed me my quarters he completely missed my hand and they fell back down on the lower part of the counter by him. He picked them up and went to put them in my hand, only to miss again by a few inches. After the third time he lays his hand flat on the counter top and says, “Notice anything”. I wanted to say, “Other than your lack of coordination, no”. Fortunately, before that came out of my mouth, I noticed he was missing his pointer finger. He told me he still thinks the finger is there and always misses when trying to put change in someone’s hand. I was going to suggest the fact he has a perfectly good left hand, but decided to let it go.

What does all of this have to do with racing you may ask?

Nothing.

Friday night they offered test and tune for 25.00, so I took advantage of it, as well as 300 other people. So I got 2 passes. Both were 9.53 and some change. Two things became apparent in these passes, one, my shift light developed a mind of its own and two, my lights suck, both were over .119.

The shift light continued to have issues throughout the whole weekend. It would start blinking whenever, sometimes it would stay on. Needless to say I had to use the tach.

My lights also continued to have issues, I looked like I had never raced before. My best light for the whole race was the -.006 I cut in Street Fighter.

The other thing that was amazing was my times. I ran 9.53 all weekend except for one 9.48 pass , a 9.51 and two 9.7’s. The problem with the 9.7’s was that I ran it in a 9.50 index class. Go figure.

Yet another problem was our dog was acting like a female dog in heat. Because she was. Stephanie had sheets all over everything to keep the place from looking like a scene from "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre".

In my first Street ET race I won because the other guy went red. In my 2^nd Street ET race I went red. This seriously sucked because the guy I was racing had a pin fall out of his air shifter and could not change gears. The ease of winning this race for me would have been the equivalent of walking up behind Helen Keller, tapping her on the shoulder and saying, “Your it”. (Obviously this was the Helen Keller prior to regaining all of her senses. Something I still find incredulous...)

In Street Fighter I red lit. No surprise there.

Incredibly, I am in 9^th place in both Street ET and Street Fighter with a shot at getting in the top 5 with the last race in Valdosta, GA.

Hopefully by then I will be able to cut a light again…

Ruh Roh Rorge.

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 08:05:12 GMT

Loganville, GA The last race in Indy did not go so well due to engine problems.

One thing I failed to mention in my previous article is the fact denial also plays a large part in the racers psychological profile.

You see, I knew I had something going on in my engine, and I wanted to tell myself it was a simple head gasket issue. Denial was giving me the confidence to ignore my sub-conscious which was telling me it was something much more complicated and expensive.

So up until Saturday when I received a phone call from Brian Livengood, I was feeling pretty good about the head gasket theory.

When in fact it was my pistons had melted. This is significantly different than a head gasket issue. Not to mention significantly more expensive.

Apparently two things could have happened.

1. The compression was higher in the cylinders than we thought it would be based on what we were told about the piston specifications.

2. I ran lean.

Option 2 does not seem possible since we dyno tuned the bike and the air fuel was set to the specifications of Velocity Turbo.

Option 1 may be the case although we hope not.

During the piston cookout, my valve may have taken a beating. Also my cylinders lost some plating due to the heat. So these items are going to need some repair also.

If any of you faithful readers want to have a hand in the repair of my bike so I can continue racing and therefore be able to write these insightful blogs, feel free to make donations to my Paypal account under paulcav@earthlink.net. If you do make a donation of 10.00 or more, send me your address and I will send you an autographed 28x40 poster.

If you don’t… you can still read my blogs, I am going to fix the bike and keep writing anyway.

New video added about the Heidelberg Apprentice Pr...

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 15:53:24 GMT

New video added about the Heidelberg Apprentice Program if you are looking for a job. I am hiring.

Mental Illness and how it pertains to racing.

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 04:24:56 GMT

Ok, first I would like to state the fact I am not a psychologist (A person who holds a doctorate in psychology) or a psychiatrist (A person who holds a medical degree along with a doctorate in psychology.). So anything stated from here on out is purely speculation based on my actual psychosis or from personal observation of other people with mental issues.

As a racer it has been posed to me that I must be “crazy” to drag race a motorcycle. (Which makes me speculate as to whether or not people would think this if I drag raced a car?) (Which also makes me question the roll cage rule a car has, I go just as fast and I don’t have to have one… but I digress.) (Sentences in parenthesis are possibly a form of schizophrenia, “voices in the head” thing.) I have also been told that I am “insane” to participate in such a sport.

Growing up, psychological assessments were never thrown around so flippantly. If you were in school and one of your classmates was bouncing off the walls, it was because he had been eating contraband candy bars he bought from the black market playground candy dealer. Back then you just called them “Hyper” or “Spaz” which was slang for spastic. I knew plenty of kids whom were “hyper”. Nowadays, we use the term ADD or ADHD. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, a mental illness that has a name and a very detailed description, with no known cure other than prescribing a bunch of Ritalin. Ritalin is basically a drug that reduces the exuberance a child may exhibit.

I am glad this new term was not around when I was growing up. It was a lot more fun to say, “Dude you are such a spaz!” Than to try and say, “Dude are you Attention Deficit… “you get my point.

Another term that flys around quite a bit is OCD for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. The term I was familiar with until this one came along was “Anal Retentive”. Basically, this mental issue encompasses ones desire to perform various rituals in order to get through their day. A thing like making sure the front door is locked before going to bed… 8 times. Brushing your teeth… 10 times per tooth after cleaning the toothbrush every 7th brush stroke. Making sure the lights are turned off in a room, by flicking the switch 12 times to make sure it stays in the off position.

The problem with people who are OCD is that they exhibit a huge amount of anxiety if they do not perform these rituals. This usually leads to the manufacturing of more rituals to make sure the other rituals are done. Ultimately, there are too many to remember and the result is a complete mental critical mass, a Chernobyl of the brain.

Bi-polar is one of my personal favorites. Do you realize someone came up with the term Bi-polar because it sounded better than Manic-Depressive?. Apparently, there is a stigma with the words manic and depressive being used to describe someone. That’s funny, because nobody seems to think there is a stigma when the word “Asshole” is used to describe a person with bi-polar tendencies.

A person with bi-polar disorder bounces off the walls, wants to be everyone’s friend, feels amplified exhilaration and likes to party until the world ends one minute. Then wants to be behind four walls, stay away from everyone they know, become insanely depressed and be the reason the world ends the next. They are like magnets with no control over their poles. The strange thing is bi-polar tendencies are very difficult to diagnose and multiple assessments are needed by many different people to determine whether or not someone has it.

CFS or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is another relatively new one that was popular in the mid 90’s. According to the CDC in Atlanta in 2006 it affects more women than men between the age of 40 and 50. In essence the description of the malady is one day your fine and you like to work and the next day your tired and do not ever go back to work.

In some psychological circles the shorter description of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is “Lazy”. I am guessing amongst the professional crowd there is a stigma associated with using this word to describe a patient also.

I think people afflicted with CFS did not want to be called lazy anymore so they formed a committee with a group of psychologists and came up with CFS. It was a win, win situation. The lazy people did not have to be called lazy anymore and the psychologists could charge for the treatment of laziness.

In practice this back fired for both parties.

For the psychologist a couch potato with CFS was too enraptured with Oprah, Ellen and Tyra Banks to come to their appointments. In a group of people with other mental disorders, the person with CFS ran in to the problem illustrated below:

Telling everyone you are ADD is kind of cool because you can blow it off as being interested in a lot of things and not being able to stay with one too long or you get bored. A person who is OCD can brush it off by saying they were just making sure all of the dishes were stacked in the same place they were an hour ago. Bi-polar is cool because your fun at least half of the time. But if you pull out the CFS card all of the other mentals look at each other then point at you and say “Lazy bum”.

This stopped CFS from becoming a “chic” mental illness.

Now I know after this huge education on the popular mental illnesses, you are wondering how it pertains to racing. I’ll show you…

I am having a great day; I am at the race track with Stephanie, all of my friends and fellow racers. I love being with everyone. The weather is not as good as it could be but who cares I am racing. This is what it is all about.

They just called Street ET so I have to get ready; I grab my helmet and gloves off of the shelf in the trailer, the leather jacket off of the hook. I have to pump up the air pressure for the air shifter to 100 psi. I roll the bike out of the trailer, pull the fast idle, start it and wait until it gets to 160 degrees, turn off the fast idle and drive to the line.

In line before the burnout box I put on my safety kill tether. Then I drive to the water box. I back in to it, spin the tire up to get it wet, roll forward, pop the clutch at 4k rpms while holding the front brake, rock the bike to the right, then to the left, then to the middle, pull the clutch, let off the brake, ease out the clutch and drive to the stage lights.

I pull down my visor, roll forward until the first beam is lit and wait for the other racer to light his first bulb, then roll the throttle to 5500 rpms and roll towards the second stage light.

Now I am waiting for the other guy to light up his second stage light. What is taking him so long? Is he an idiot or something? Is he going to eating lunch or what? What the hell? Crap, do they just let anyone race? Let’s go already! Does he have a clue what he is doing? Finally! He staged, it’s about time.

The lights are coming down 1, 2, 3, GO!

SH$%, DA^&, F$%^, I red lit! I hate this friggin sport. Why the hell is it so damn hot out anyway? I am sweating like a 12 year old at Neverland. What kind of fool would wear leathers in this heat? I am such an idiot; it was entirely my own fault for being impatient. It was not my fault, something must have been wrong with the staging lights. It was someone else’s fault.

Back at the trailer Stephanie comes up to me for consolation. I would like to be alone right now, I want to sit in the RV, I don’t feel like talking. Yes, I realize the light went red, thank you for pointing out the fact I screwed up. Are you against me now?

Does anyone have any Paxil or Zoloft? I am tired, I don’t feel like racing anymore.

Atlanta Points Race #8 on 7/19 and AMA Dragbike In...

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 08:16:21 GMT

Loganville, GA I have quite a bit to catch up on here...

Lets start with the Atlanta race. It was not a great showing for me. I am having a hard time with the track conditions. There seems to be a break point in horsepower for motorcycles in relation to their ability to have traction. I am past that point.

Whenever I change to 2nd or 3rd gear the back tire comes loose. Once that happens I am toast.

The other problem I have been having regards the air shifter. It does not want to change from 3rd to 4th. Att first I thought it was due to bent shift forks in the transmission. Now I have come to find out that air shifters need to be under load to work. If they are not (As in the back tire spinning.) it will not shift.

Because of these issues, I did poorly in the Atlanta race. Currently, I am in in suckville as to my location on the points standing.

Indianapolis Thunder Nationals AMA Dragbike.

This is one of my favorite tracks, in the past two years I have been runner up in Street ET and ended up in the semi's in PRO ET.

That stopped with this weekend.

If I would have been dialing in based on my mile per hour, I would have womped everyone. I ran consistent 138 mph passes. The problem with this is, I typically run 146 mph.

The bike just seemed to be lagging, towards the end of the day it was a slug. Amazingly enough I managed to get to the semi's in PRO ET before I identified the problem. My Head Gasket had blown.

The telltail sign was the water in my overflow resevoir kept over flowing due to the turbo pressure and heat. So I pulled up to the line on the last run just in case my oponent red lit. He didn't. Although, he did in the next round, Go figure.

This dilema caused me not to be able to race in Street ET and Street Fighter on Sunday which I was in 6th place in for both. That probably is not the case now. You can check these links to see. http://www.amadragbike.com/points/2008/SF.asp http://www.amadragbike.com/points/2008/SET.asp

On Sunday I basically took the time to help my other friends who were racing. It was the first time in awhile that I actually got to watch the races.

The next race is in Atco, NJ Sept. 12th. Everything should be back together then so I can make another end of season push.

Atlanta points race #7 on 7/12/08

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 04:16:44 GMT

Loganville, GA The race season is now taking place during the hottest time of the year. As I have mentioned before, I must be out of my mind actually wearing full race leathers in this heat.

The track temp was around 140 degrees. It was 95 degrees in the sun. Nothing like losing 12 lbs of water weight.

The best part was the fact that our RV generator died in Bristol, TN and I have not been able to get it repaired yet. I'll have that done by this weekends race. Because of this we had no AC in the RV.

As for the race...

I ran two time trials, in the first one the bike took off for about 5 feet and then decided it wanted to take a look at the weather conditions by standing up on its rear wheel. This was not the type of wheelie that you stay on the throttle with. Not unless of course you wanted to be laying on your back. This run result in a 9.945 pass at 144mph.

The next run was much better time wise except for the fact the bike did not want to change from 3rd to 4th gear. So I ran a 9.57 at 135 mph.

With those numbers I decided to dial in at a 9.57.

My first run against my friend and mentor, Don Chavous, was dicey at best. He cut a .182 light and I cut a .187. Neither of these lights warranted a letter home to Mom about. At the 1,000 foot mark Don passed me then let off the throttle thinking that he might be on a breakout run. He let off too much and I took the stripe by .0064 of a second. The bad thing was my bike did not shift between 3rd and 4th again.

The next run I had Howard Bowman on his wifes trusty Harley Sportster. He got a 6 second start on me due to the fact he dials in at 14.84. 6 seconds seems like an eternity watching him go down the track. Finally I take off. Right at the end of the track I catch him, my shift light comes on to go from 3rd to 4th so I push the button, nothing happens, I push it again, nothing happens. Crap! he wins by .06 seconds.

This Friday I am going to the track to figure out what is wrong with the shifting. It may just be I do not have enough delay in the MPS box.

I'll keep you posted.

Bristol, TN race and completion of Atlanta Rainout...

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:15:19 GMT

Loganville, GA The AMA Dragbike series continued in Bristol, TN at the the NHRA Thunder Valley track. This was the 4th race in the 8 race season. While there, we were also going to complete the Atlanta race which was rained out in April.

I arrived at the track on Thursday afternoon after visiting with Ron Smith at Northeast Technical college. The track was having a 10 dollar test and tune so I figured I would get a few passes in that. Unfortunately, I was not able to gather much data as the track was not prepped well and I could not get any traction.

Since I have installed the polyurethane cush drive bushings I have been losing traction when changing to 2nd gear and in some instances right from the line. This only happens on tracks that are not prepped for racing.

Friday we were to get our time passes for the Saturday race and we were also going to complete the Atlanta race. This time the track was prepped under the supervision of AMA's Tony Williams. I no longer had traction issues.

What I did have is altitude issues.

This is the first time I have raced at an altitude of 3,500 feet. This makes a significant difference in ET's. I was 2/10's off on my runs. The nice thing is that it did not matter as I just changed my dial in accordingly. I ended up finishing in the semi-finals of the Atlanta race in Street ET and in the 1/4 finals of the Pro ET division.

On Saturday night I ran the first PRO ET of the Bristol race. On a 9.8 dial-in I ran a 9.799. So I was down for the count on that race.

Sunday I ran Street ET first thing in the morning and got knocked out of it for sleeping at the tree. The next race was Street Fighter which I knew was going to be an issue as it is a 9.50 heads up class and I was running no where near 9.50. At least until my first race where I ran a 9.481 and lost due to a breakout.

Next in the series is Indianapolis, IN. This track has been good luck for me in the past. Hopefully the luck will continue...

Article from the Walton Tribune

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 12:02:24 GMT

Loganville racer in fast lane

By Danny Daniels
The Walton Tribune

Published June 22, 2008

LOGANVILLE — Paul Cavanaugh of Loganville decided nearly three years ago, after the purchase of a Suzuki GSXR 1300 Hayabusa, to test the bike’s reputation of being the fastest production motorcycle in the world by taking it to “Georgia’s House of Speed,” the Atlanta Dragway track in Commerce.

After finishing in third place in his first race as an amateur motorcycle drag racer, Cavanaugh was completely hooked.

“The adrenaline of racing someone down a quarter-mile track in a straight line on this machine was incredible,” he said. “It was and remains a feeling of anxiety and great anticipation. The fact that I had just turned 41 years old did not hinder my desire to race. If anything, I was more inspired to take on the challenge.”

Cavanaugh decided that if he went to the track as much as possible to practice his racing skills, really got to know this bike and participated in all of the home races, he could possibly win the Atlanta point series.

All this would somehow have to take place in between his full-time profession as an apprentice development manager for the world’s largest printing press manufacturer.

Fortunately, Cavanaugh’s dedication and consistency led to an Atlanta Dragway Motorcycle Track Championship in 2006.

Last year was an interesting time. Cavanaugh started off pretty well. However, less than half way through the season he decided to give his bike a little more horsepower by adding a Turbo.

“Shortly thereafter, each time I would climb onto my bike I would get an interesting surprise,” he remembered. “There were tuning issues and the motorcycle’s fuel map was way off. It even started shutting off mid-way down the track.

“As frustrating as this was, I learned years ago when I owned a motorcycle for transportation and tooling around on the weekends that you have to know and respect your motorcycle for whatever purpose that you ride it.”

The mechanical issues started to become a distraction. Cavanaugh found himself unable to completely focus on the things he should have concentrated on.

Important aspects of racing such as the starting tree, how much throttle he was giving the bike, if he was dumping the clutch in time and the shift light were being pushed to the back of his mind.

“I spent sleepless nights trying to figure out what was going on and had a great deal of input from a lot of my fellow racers,” said Cavanaugh. “Thanks to the expertise of Brian Livengood at Livengood Motorsports in Loganville, I got the bike on the dyno and we quickly figured out the problems and got them resolved in time for me to climb back on motorcycle and somewhat redeem myself before the race season ended.”

So far, 2008 has been a much better year, even though Cavanaugh took on the personal challenge of rebuilding his motorcycle engine before the race season begin. He had tinkered on muscle cars most of his life and had developed a good mechanical aptitude. On the other hand, he had never built a motorcycle engine and found the experience humbling.

The bike is running faster this year than the previous few years. At an AMA race back in Memphis at the beginning of May, the bike ran 9.41 seconds in the quarter mile with a little turbo (boost) at the top end and Cavanaugh getting out of it before hitting the quarter-mile mark.

“The bike is capable of running in the 8.90s, but it is just a matter of me getting comfortable with sitting on that much power,” he said. “Memphis did prove to be an overall good race with me finishing second in the Street Fighter class. I look forward to the upcoming races.”

Motorcycle drag racing instantly became a passion for Cavanaugh, who found it to be a fun and enjoyable hobby that requires practice and some talent.

“Some of the greatest aspects of motorcycle drag racing is that it is very family oriented and it does not discriminate,” Cavanaugh said. “I have had the good fortune of being able to race with and meet people from all across the country and abroad— both men and women of all ages and all backgrounds. It is a great feeling to see the racers along with their family and friends functioning as their ‘pit crew’ by assisting with the motorcycle, cheering them on and offering moral support. Stephanie Fisher is my pit crew chief, my videographer, my cheerleader and my constructive critic.”

For detailed information on the bike class requirements, upcoming events, records and miscellaneous motorcycle information, visit www.amadragbike.com (American Motorcycle Association — the world’s largest all motorcycle drag racing sanctioned body).

If you are interested in joining the NHRA (National Hot Rod Association), visit www.nhra.com.

Piedmont 20K Race

Tue, 27 May 2008 11:13:00 GMT

Loganville, GA I first heard about this race from Andy Baumbach in Commerce, GA at the April AMA Dragbike race. He asked if I was going to enter it since this is the kind of racing I do. No boxes and no throttle stops.

I had completely forgotten about it until I was on www.Dragbike.com and saw the notice for the race. After reading it I forwarded the page to my manager/girlfriend to get her view on it. She immediately responded with a, “Have you signed up yet?”

The deal was awesome. A $20,000 payout for first place (That is not a typo.) $5,000.00 for 2^nd 1,250.00 for ¼ finals, $500.00 for Semi’s and $100.00 per round from 3^rd round on. There was also a $5,000.00 race scheduled for Sunday May 25^th that broke down the same way, with smaller dollar amount s of course.

All this for a $300.00 entry fee if you paid before the 19^th.

The rules were simple. No boxes, no delay boxes. You could enter the same bike twice if you wanted ($600.00 entry fee). Wheelie bar bikes ran against each other for the first 2 rounds as did the no bar bikes. First round buy backs had to run each other and then were put back in their respective groups for the 2^nd round. In the 3^rd round wheelie bar bikes and no bar bikes were thrown together. There was a 2 hour test and tune prior to the race, I made 5 passes, I could have made 20.

The track was an 1/8^th of a mile, I prefer ¼ but 1/8 is a great way to practice for ¼. There is no room for mistakes. (They just bought the property at the end of the track and are planning to go to a ¼ mile track.) www.piedmontdragway.com/

I had been talking with Mike, whom I believe is the track owner, via e-mail about some of the details. He was always quick to answer and assured me the race would happen even if he was going to lose money. I told him I would try and get some of the people I race with to go. I do not like to see anyone lose money especially if they are trying to do something like this. Nobody does this.

All the people I called bailed out due to gas costs, it being a holiday weekend or their bike was in pieces. I also had a few people warn me about potential cheating and the track was probably not that good. One person just plain told me he sucked at racing and had no chance, unless of course he could hire a sniper. I told him I thought someone would probably see a pattern after the 2^nd rider was shot racing against him.

It turned out the track was awesome. It was built in the 50’s and had rubber on it to prove it. I never once had my back tire come loose. It was every bit as good as a fully prepped AMA Dragbike Track. My only complaint would be that the slow down area was a bit short, but that is only my perception. I get carried away after a race and like to glide a bit before hitting the brakes. There were Pro Mod bikes running in the 4’s that were stopping fine. The track also had cement walls through the 1/8 giving way to the motorcycle racers nightmare steel guard rails. Although, these went all the way down to the ground and were far enough from the sides of the track that something would have to have gone seriously wrong for you to hit them.

The race was a blast. The competition was tight, very rarely were the racers running more than a few hundredths off their dial ins. In a lot of instances the wheelie bar bikes were only thousandths over. You had to cut a good light on a no bar bike to have a chance. I did that through 4 rounds before getting knocked out by Joe Procopio, who went on to pull 2^nd place. .02 of a second was the difference in my loss to him, what made matters worse was that I had him by .08 at the light. The whole Procopio family is a tough group to beat.

Ultimately, I only walked away with a $100.00 bill. Which was fine by me, I have to work much harder in AMA Dragbike to do that. I also have to say that the payouts were all cash.

There was no cheating, all the track employees were nothing but nice and the track was easy to find. I’ll go back as soon as Mike announces the next race. Next time I’ll get more money…

Loss of a Crewmember

Thu, 22 May 2008 20:48:22 GMT

Loganville, GA. I am going to make this as brief as possible as there is much pain in our loss. Typically I write with a hint of humor but none comes to me right now.

Our beagle Andante was hit by a car in our front yard on 5/21/08. He has been with Stephanie and I since May of 98. The loss is tremendous, as he enlightened our lives in a way that is unexplainable. All I can atrribute it to, is that God needed one of his angels back.

For those of you that have not had the pleasure of meeting him, I have assemled a video in his remembrance. It is in the Video section under Andante the Pit Beagle.

Hopefully it captures the life he spent with us and leaves some of his magic with you.

Paul and Stephanie.

Memphis Spring Nationals 2008

Tue, 06 May 2008 04:57:55 GMT

Loganville, GA This was an interesting trip.

We had a friend of ours on a Funny Bike go off the track, a swarm of bees descend upon our pit area and I went a lot of rounds.

On Saturday during qualifying a friend of ours from Michigan, Mark Paquette made a 6.67 1/4 mile pass at 203 mph. It was the fastest of the weekend for Funny Bike and the fastest he had ever run. Unfortunately the throttle was stuck wide open after he passed the finish line and he was not able to stop the bike. Mark managed to point it in the sand trap and jump off.

The bike rolled a few times and came to rest with the engine still running wide open. Mark ran over to shut it down but it died on its own. Fortunately for Mark he walked away with a sore wrist.

Sunday a huge swarm of bees descended upon the canopy of another racer right across from us and decided to set up a honey factory. Another racer from the Memphis area knew a bee keeper and called him out to come collect them. Only 3 people were stung. I'll post some video.

As for me...

In Street ET I made it to the Semi finals before breaking out. I dialed in at 9.62 in the first race and ran a 9.624 for the win. In the next race I lowere my time to 9.60 and ran a 9.621. The next race I kept the same dial in and ran a 9.621 again. In my last race I ran a 9.414. Oops!

In the Semi - pro class Street Fighter, which is a heads up 9.50 class on a Pro Tree I came in 2nd place. In all of the rounds I was in the 9.57 range until the last race when I broke out by running a 9.481.

All in all it was a great weekend. Stephanie video taped all of the races and helped out as a crew member for the whole weekend. It was very cool.

The next race is June 20th in Bristol, TN where I will complete the Atlanta race that was not completed due to a rain out and I will also run the Bristol race.

Keep checking back for new video.

Atlanta Dragway points series Race 1 and 2.

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 17:43:01 GMT

St. Louis, MO I am in sitting in a hotel room on business and thought I would write about the exciting first two races of the Atlanta Dragway points series.

I really do not know where to start since it is hard to contain myself when I think about them.

Starting with the first race seems logical. It was cancelled due to 40 degree weather and high winds.

Not much data gathering in that race.

Race two was much different. It was windy but not cold. The wind was coming straight down the track towards us. Otherwise known as a headwind.

There were 50 junior dragsters there. Granted these kids are the future of NHRA, but that does not mean I have to lie and tell you the cars do not sound like really pissed off weedeaters. With all of the same annoyance that comes with a neighbor weedeating early on a Saturday morning after a rough night of barhopping.

Typically these guys are done around noon. Not today. They were not finished at 5pm.

Also, 170 plus super pro cars showed up with about the same amount of pro cars. Amazingly, there did not seem to be as many sportsman cars.

As for the motorcycles, there were 20 of us. Most were wheelie bar bikes. My guess they were getting ready for the upcoming AMA Dragbike race.

At 2pm we got our first time run. I had a decent .067 light and then complete mental breakdown, along with some mechanical issues. First I missed changing gears from 1st to 2nd. Then from 2nd to 3rd the shift light decided it would cut corners and just stay on for the rest of the run. When I hit the button to go from 3rd to 4th, the gear did not change, then I hit it again. Same outcome. So I hit it a 3rd time, 3 is a charm. I laid down a blazing 10.1 second pass.

At 5:30 pm we got our 2nd time run. This one rocked! I took off with a .047 reaction, the shift light worked perfectly and I hit all of my gears. When I got to the time slip booth I told Wayne (He hands out the tickets) that had to be a good run. He looked at me and shook his head as if to say, "If you think so". I looked at the ticket and it said 10.4. "This has to be a typo!" It should be a 9.4.

On hindsight I did notice that the usual "pull like a frieght train" feeling was not apparent on that pass. So I went to the trailer and pulled off the fairing to find my hose that connects the turbo to the plenum had come off. Basically I was running on all motor.

Everyone is going to think I am the worst sandbagger, everytime I run that bike I suck in time trials and then hit my numbers when it is time to race. I am the only turbo out there that seems to run a 10 second quarter mile during time runs.

In between runs there were 5 oil downs which took around 4 hours to clean up. By 10pm we still had not started to race. So Ray (Track manager) called the race due to wind, temperature falling and deteriorating track conditions.

This is going to make for an interesting season, considering now there are only 8 races left and I am going to miss 2 of them.

We'll see what happens.

Engine completion and AMA Dragbike Valdosta, GA

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 08:31:13 GMT

Engine complete!

Final days before AMA Dragbike race.

Loganville, GA

Ok everyone, this is how the engine build went down…

2/20/08 I took off of work to start assembling the engine. I had some errands to run in the morning so I got a late start on actually assembling the motor. The first step was to cycle the rod bolts five times for each rod per instructions from Falicon. I started this at 3pm, by 4 pm I was done and ready to put the rods on the crankshaft.

This is when I came to my first issue.

Not enough bearings for the rods or the crank. When I ordered them I assumed they came in sets like they do for cars. NOT! They come individually. This means I had half the amount of bearings I actually needed. In a panic, I called everyone I knew to find the other half. Livengood Motorsports came through by finding a set of them locally. Dodged the first bullet.

2/21/08 I delivered the engine block to Livengood Motorsports so Brian could install the head and degree the cams. Brian did a fantastic job of cleaning up the inside of the head. (See the before and after pictures.)

Brian looks at my handy work and I notice a change in the composure of his face ever so slightly. My heightened sense of panic causes me to ask him what I did wrong. He told me the pistons were in backwards. Much to my displeasure, he was correct. So I proceeded to repair that issue in his shop. Dodged the second bullet… After an hour of work. He would have the head on by Friday afternoon.

2/22/08 My third day off of work to get this completed. I went to McDaniels Collision to finish repairing the fairings for the bike. James touched up some of the battle wounds I suffered in Atco, NJ. While I was buffing the fairings, Brian called to let me know the engine was ready. Then the phone rang again, it was Stephanie calling to let me know the Corvette we own stranded her in a parking lot.

At 1:30pm I went to pick up the engine from Brian, then to go rescue my damsel in a dress. (Notice the order of priority…)

3:30pm I am back home and ready to start the engine installation. (After a brief and unpleasant conversation concerning my order of priorities.) Picture this; one person with mechanical ability, none having to do with a Hayabusa . Another person, being female with little mechanical ability, a bad back, one 350 lb engine and one frame that would like to have an engine back in it.

I have to admit, Stephanie saved the bike from falling off the stands once, this made up for the time one year ago, almost to the day, when she knocked it over in Valdosta.

Other than that near miss I got the engine in largely on my own.

At 2am I started the bike briefly and went to bed.

2/23/08 I start the bike and run it up to temperature per Brian Livengood’s instructions. Next I load it up in the trailer and take it to Livengood Motorsports for the dyno break in and tune up. While on the dyno I realize something that had a very high potential suckage factor. The bike would not downshift past 4^th gear. Something in my gut told me this bullet was not going to be dodged like the previous ones. Brian thought it might be something as simple as the shift mechanism.

I took it home and proceeded to dismantle the shift mechanism. Unfortunately, everything seemed fine.

2/24/08 I talk with a friend, “PT”, who confirmed what I already feared. The issue was in the transmission. Good news is I do not have to dismantle the cylinders or head to address the problem. Bad news is the engine has to come out of the bike.

After 4 hours of work removing the engine and dismantling the lower case, I get to the output shaft where I suspect the problem is since I had replaced the output shaft with an APE billet one. Sure enough, I find were I had installed a #%&*ing spacer in the wrong place. Who would have thought something 1mm thick could cause this much work?

By midnight I have the engine back together again.

2/25/08 I call Jon Hawkins from JR Motorsports for help. I am not going to try and put this engine in by myself again. I already blew my left nut down my leg trying to get the thing in by on my own two days before. I kind of wanted to keep my right nut intact and in its correct location.

Around 8 pm we started and had the engine in by 9pm, much easier with two people. By midnight I had everything connected and ready for fluids.

2/26/08 Back to Livengood Motorsports for the dyno run. We start the bike up, do some engine break in runs and watch water leak from the bike. I end up tightening some hoses and the water stops leaking. When we were finally finished the bike had 223 hp at 6lbs of boost and 269 hp at 10 lbs of boost which I never run at.

Next problem, as we go to take the bike off the dyno there was another puddle of water. I figured the bike scared the piss out of itself, but my brain told me that was an unreasonable hope. Brian told me what it really probably was, a bad water pump. Now it is 4pm and I have to find a water pump, get it on the bike, load up the RV and be on the road by 9pm.

A good friend and fellow racer Don Chavous had another one laying around. I met him, ran home installed it, started the bike and no more water leak. Another dodged bullet.

At 9:18pm the RV was loaded and ready to go… or so I thought. I hit the systems test button on the control panel of the RV and realize we have no fresh water. 30 minutes later that was taken care of and now we are on the road.

2/27/08 I go to Valdosta Technical college to do some recruiting. On the way there my Tom Tom navigator gets a bit confused and sends me down an access road along Interstate 75. My gut tells me this not the right direction as I head in to some mangroves and 75 disappears behind me. Sure enough 3 miles later I am facing a dead end on a 2 lane road with a 33 foot RV and a 12 foot trailer. Some new cuss words were brought to existence at this juncture. I had to back up a half a mile to an area where there was a cell phone tower and a narrow service access to it. After bouncing off the fence a few times, Stephanie got me guided in and I was able to turn around. That was a very effective way to test the strength of your relationship with your partner.

2/29/08 I took the bike to tech inspection, while waiting in line I look down at the ground and have a heart attack. The bike was leaking water again, back to the trailer I go to see what it was. I am not able to find anything. I tighten a few hoses and drive it back up to tech. No water leaking. This is starting to cause concern.

3/1/08 In the morning I start to warm the bike up before my first time trial. Everything looks good. I go in to change into my leathers come out and there is the water puddle again. A good friend, and once again, fellow racer Bruce Sampson, gives me a little nugget to chew on. Maybe your head gasket is leaking. ARGHHHHH!!!! Is what I think.

Now I start ripping off fairings and lift the tank. At this point another good friend and fellow racer Pat comes over. Ever the optimist, Pat tells me it will be something simple and stupid, he adds. Two minutes later I find the water neck loose to the back of the head. No more water leak! I dodged another bullet.

To sum things up for the race. The bike ran a 9.3 at 147 which is the fastest I have ever been. The run was not very good considering my 60 foot time was 1.8 secs when I normally run low 1.6’s. I went 2 rounds in PRO ET 1 and 2 Rounds in Street ET. I got waxed in Street Fighter because I ran through some oil on the track and lost traction.

The bike runs great and I have to thank Brian Livengood, Ken over at Velocity Turbo, Jon Hawkins at JR Motorsports, Stephanie for her constant support, Cliston “PT” Williams, Don Chavous, James at McDaniels Collision, Scott at CP Pistons, Sean at Falicon, APE and Jason Keranen at AMSOIL. Everyone of these people gave me some form of advice that helped make this project work.

Now it is time to win some races….

The parts list for the rebuild.

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 18:03:00 GMT

Loganville, GA - For those of you who are interested in what is being done to the engine in the off season I will give yo the list.

For those of you who could care less or have no clue what goes into a race engine, I'll post a video so you do not have to read. You will have to wait until the whole thing is done, so check back in a few weeks.

Here is the list:

APE Billet output shaft.

APE billet clutch basket and hub.

APE cylinder studs.

The head is being port and polished with a few other tricks. Brian Livengood is doing this work.

APE 65lbs valve springs.

APE Titanium retainers.

Yosimura intake cam.

Suzuki intake cam on the exhaust side.

Crankshaft balanced by Falicon.

Falicon knife rods.

CP pistons 11:1 compression.

Ceramic bearings on cams, transmission and wheels.

New Timing chain.

APE Manual cam chain tensioner.

There you have it. Hopefully when this is all done I should be in the neighborhood of 280hp. I should have everything done by the middle of February.

We'll see.

Is it really sponsorship?

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 15:27:37 GMT

Sponsorship is a funny thing.

We as racers need support. We participate in activities that challenge our skill levels and make us better competitors or in some instances kill and maim us.

Most of us started out competing in our various sports as amateurs. It was a way to use up our spare time and see what we were really made of.

Along the way some of us took it a little more serious than a hobby or past time. We started to win and get in newspapers, show up on websites and for the lucky ones get some TV time. (For the unlucky ones we filed for divorce or watch a girlfriend leave.)

We also realized that in order to become a winner it took practice, a lot of it. Practice equates to another word that most of us do not have large extra amounts of… Money. (Hence, the reason for the previously mentioned divorce. Women typically would rather have a new kitchen set than a ported and polished cylinder head.)

So we seek out sponsorship. Asking for sponsorship equates to a concept. Begging.

The goal is to find someone who has a product, that is somehow related to the audience you are winning in front of. The ideal sponsor understands what you do, how difficult it is and exactly how much it costs. In reality no sponsor understands this. What most potential sponsors see is a person who is trying to find away to support his or her addiction. Because in reality that is what we are, addicts.

That fact being pointed out, an addict has to support their habit.

Sponsorhouse is an innovative way to do this, although it is not without its own issues. Most of the potential sponsors here have found a way to hawk their wares. Fortunately in my instance I have become selective and use the ones whose products actually work for my chosen sport. I am grateful for the discounts I am given.

The problem is the ones that have no intention of sponsorship, they sell products in order to build their “Network” or “Team” or as I like to call it “Pyramid”. They offer products that cure pretty much all ailments. I have been approached by one that has a product which will, sharpen my focus, reduce my cholesterol, keep me alert, help me sleep, reduce my weight, make me more relaxed, boost my immune system and alleviate all my aches and pains. I am pretty sure it can heal ingrown toenails also. The reason it can do this is because of some past cataclysmic event which wiped out a forest in another country, probably killed a lot of small furry animals and enriched the soil with its comet dust along with the animal’s remains. May they rest in peace.

For those of us who are semi-professional, winning in national events, large local events, getting magazine time and website time. This kind of sponsor offer is in short, lame. Offering a product at reduced rate which is still higher than you would pay for a product of this sort is ridiculous. If it were my company I would pick competitors that seemed to be serious and give them the product to try. If it works great, you have a person who will promote it for you, if not, no love lost. Both sides win.

Now if a company or individual is approaching athletes to try and sell them a product, the company should tell the athlete that up front. Do not hide it as a sponsorship offer and we will not hide our begging for their money as asking for sponsorship.

Most companies on Sponsorhouse have a very good program. Obviously a company is not able to give everyone product. So offering it to everyone at a reduced rate is a fantastic deal. This is why some sponsors have a tiered program; I can assure you there are plenty of people on this site who do not have to pay for product.

My point is to watch out for the “predator” sponsors. Chose the ones that closely match the sport you are competing in. This way when you get good at your sport, you will grow with the products you actually used. You will also save money by not buying items which do not work and are not from companies or individuals that will help promote you to higher levels of sponsorship later.

Now I have got that off my chest, next I have to figure out if I can cure the Asian bird flu with the 144.00 worth of miracle juice I have left.

Tear down in process.

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 07:31:54 GMT

Loganville, GA. The process of freshening up the motor for next year has begun.

The head is at Livengood motorsports where Brian is going to do some porting and polishing. We are also going to do the intake cam modification. After talking with Ken at Velocity Turbo he recommended it.

APE is sending out the 65lb valve springs, studs, a billet output shaft for the transmission and a few other various items.

CP is going to supply the pistons for the bike and I am still on the fence about rods. Carillo, Falicon or the new Crower rods that just came out. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

The hopes of this process is not to build more horsepower but to make the engine more reliable. My fear is that the stock bottom end will not hold up through the next season. I have no proof of this, just a gut feeling.

While all this is being done I am also redoing the clearcoat on the fairings and touching up my mistake from Atco, NJ. Over the last few seasons the bike has aquired its share of battle scars.

If everything goes smoothly I should have it all back together by the end of January.

When finished I will do new dyno runs and post the horsepower ratings.

2007 Season Recap

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 07:53:00 GMT

Loganville, GA The 2007 race season is over. I can honestly say that this year was much more difficult than last year mainly due to the self imposed handicap of adding a turbo to the bike in mid season. Anyone who knows me will tell you that patience is not one of my virtues. Actually I do not think anyone I know can attest to my having any virtues…

The beginning of the season started off with my brother Michael taking an early lead at the Atlanta Dragway points series. That was quickly surpassed by a new up and comer Ryan Coover who started to walk away with the points series. About this time I added a turbo and began to look like a fool in search of a new Shakespeare play to be in.

Towards the end of that points series I started to make a comeback only to be knocked out of 2^nd place by a multi-time track champion on an old school Kawasaki 500 drag bike, Jay “Bird” Rhyne. Jay only came to a few races and won most of them. I have raced him 4 times now and have not been able to beat him. He is about as consistent as an enema induced bowel movement, minus the mess of course.

For Atlanta Dragway I ended up salvaging a 3^rd place trophy along with the “Best looking motorcycle” plaque.

PROSTAR is the series I wanted. It is the NHRA of motorcycle drag racing. It was bought out last year and the new owners are really turning it around. We had a lot more bikes this year and spectators.

Last year, before they were bought out, the stands looked about as full as a pep rally in a mortuary. Not that I care if anyone is watching, although it is kind of cool when you start winning rounds and people are cheering for you as you comeback down the return lane from a race. (I first noticed this in Atco, NJ this year when I went 12 rounds total in 3 different divisions.)

Ok here is a not so quick recap of the 8 races for PROSTAR:

Valdosta, GA. This was Stephanie’s 1^st PROSTAR Race, we slept in the motorcycle trailer on an air mattress. The temperature dropped down to 30 degrees and I woke up at 2am because the air mattress felt like one of those 25 cent vibrating beds in a “Breeder room” Motel . (I have never actually seen one of these beds, but they still use them in movies.) It turned out that Stephanie was sound asleep, shivering, with frost on her lips. I took all of our clothes out of the suit case and piled them on her. She looked like a laundry heap. Due to lack of sleep I went 2 rounds at the season opener in Street ET, 2 rounds in PRO ET 1 and 2 rounds in PRO ET 2.
Atlanta, GA. In order to keep Stephanie warm I bought a 19,000.00 sleeping bag. Granted it looks much like an RV. Now we can take the dog who has now earned the nick name “Pit Beagle”. The Atlanta race started out good for me; I made it through 2 rounds of Street ET before the rain came and cancelled the race. I also made it through 2 rounds of PRO ET 1 and 2.
Richmond, VA. This was the first long trip for the RV and the “Pit Beagle”. He sleeps with his head over my shoulder and breathes warm, wet air on my neck. I also was able to mix business with racing for the first time at this race. One of the apprentices lived in Richmond and I had him come to the track for an interview. This turned out to be quite interesting in itself. The RV had a brand new awning that I had never opened before. We extended the awning and set up a table so we could do the interview outside. Some storm clouds began to move in and it started to get a little windy causing the papers to blow around so we moved into the RV. While we were inside, the wind picked up dramatically and 60 mph gusts caused the whole RV to rock all over the place. I looked out the window and the rain was coming down in horizontal sheets, not too mention my new awning had a 3 foot tear in it. So I went out side to roll up the awning. (This was almost impossible due to the fact I was drowning.) Then I noticed the table and chairs that were racing each other through the parking lot. So I took off in pursuit of them. By the time I got back in the RV I looked like I had been fishing for Alaskan King Crab. As for the race, I pulled 2^nd place in Street ET for the completion of the rained out Atlanta race. Then I got knocked out in all of the 1^st rounds of the Richmond race.
Memphis, TN. This was the first debut race of the turbo. It was hot as hell. Went out in the 1^st round in everything. It was kind of hard to win when the bike had about a 2 second leeway in dial in times.
Columbus, OH This race was about as exciting as the Memphis race. I went out in the 1^st round for all of the races I entered. Now I am beginning to wonder if faster is better… I almost forgot, our rear driver’s side inner tire blew on the way to this race. It took me 2 days to fix all of the damage.
Indy, IN I finally took the bike in to Livengood Motorsports and got the thing on the dyno so I could get my fuel map looking more like a tabletop than a lunar landscape. The bike at this race was producing 212 hp at 6 lbs of boost and 258 at 10 lbs. I ended up going to the semi-finals, but it was not due to me. The race gods felt sorry for me and had the first 4 people I raced either break at the line or red light. My ET’s were all over the board because my chain kept stretching. Apparently a turbo is hard on a new chain. The RV also decided to blow a front drivers side tire on the way home from this race.
Atco, NJ. Stephanie and I almost killed each other on the way to this race. I now know there are 2 surefire ways to end a relationship. One is to let your significant other navigate through rush hour traffic in Philadelphia and Newark, NJ with a 33 foot long RV pulling a 12 foot trailer. The other is to have your significant other help you erect a pop up shade tent, otherwise known amongst racers as the “Pop-up Homewrecker”. At this race I realized I had a chance at the championship. I also realized I could drop my motorcycle in the water box. Unfortunately, I was not the only one who realized it. It is on the www.reelvue.com website for everyone to see, as many times as they want. I made it through 4 rounds of Street ET, 3 rounds of PRO ET 1 (Which we could not finish, we would have to complete this at the Gainesville race.) and 4 rounds of PRO ET 2.
Gainesville, FL. Everything was in place for me to win the Street ET Championship, the weather was perfect, the birds were singing and I think I could hear angels playing a lute…Then I made my first practice pass. The bike was flying right up until I passed the 1/8^th mile then it decided to turn off, then turn back on, then turn off, then back on, etc. Let me explain something here. The motorcycle goes from 0-60 in around 1 second. So now you are pinned to the back of the hump. At the 1/8^th mile I am doing 120mph. Now the engine turns off. At this point your body flies forward and just before your helmet hits the windshield the engine and boost comes back under full power. Now you fly backwards until your tail bone stops you on the hump. Imagine this happening four times in 1 second intervals. I am guessing this is how it would feel if you were being dribbled by Shaquille O’Neal. It happened on my second time pass also. The good thing was I ran 2 passes at 10.9 seconds. My feeling was, as bad as this sucked, at least my times were consistent. So I dialed in at a 10.9 for the completion of my PRO ET from Atco. This time the bike runs fine, causing me to breakout miserably even though I was on the brakes. From here on out the bike decided it wanted to race and I had fun. I did not win the championship, but I had fun and I gave it a fight. Also I must mention Jimmy and Eeman hosted the Annual PROSTAR Academy Awards in which the Academy so graciously chose me to be selected for the "I've fallen and can't get my Busa up" Award. My Atco faux pas will never go away...

At this moment I would like to give a big thanks to all of the people who made this happen:

Stephanie for her support, great video tape (Ow! I am going to feel this) and finding us some really cool campgrounds. My family for coming to some of the races. Jon Hawkins for all of the motorcycle parts and advice he has given me over the past 2 years. Steve Gould for the photographs and suggestions, he really has an eye for my mistakes. Brian Livengood for finally getting my fuel map straight. Jason Keranen and his AMSOIL that has kept my engine in one piece. James McDaniels for the use of his body shop and paint booth to repair my bike, my RV and paint god knows how many other bikes. Heidelberg for allowing me to mix racing with work. Suzuki, Blur, Vortex, Dynojet and VP fuels for their contingencies. Brock Davidson for his help with some problems on the bike I had at the track. Barry Henson for all of his troubleshooting tips when I was acclimating to the turbo. Johnny “Turbo” Dobrin and all of his help at Columbus, OH when I first got the bike on the track. Steve Brookes for finding the Hayabusa in the first place and getting me into this mess. The whole crew at Atlanta Dragway, Ray, Debbie, Wayne, Lester, Michelle, Crystal, Mark, Mike, John, and forgive me for the ones I am forgetting. Finally all of the people I race with, PT / Cliston, Tony, Don, Jimmy, Eeman, Debbie, Pat, Ricky, Curtis, Steve, Jeff, Mary, Ryan, Scott, Jay, Howard and the rest.

(That looks like the inside of a CD jacket. I should have added some fake names like MC Bika Z, Mo Betta and Fasta P to make it look more urban and hip.)

See ya next year!

Quick update on the PROSTAR Finals

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 08:10:19 GMT

Loganville, GA. Just a quick note for those of you who have been patiently waiting to see how I finished.

I took 3rd place over all out of a 197 bike field in Street ET. http://www.amaprostar.com/points/2007/SET.htm

In PRO ET which is a more difficult division I landed in 16th place out of a 274 bike field. http://www.amaprostar.com/points/2007/PET.htm

This weekend I will write a detailed article about the whole season and post some video.

Training program for PROSTAR in Gainesville, FL.

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 07:00:49 GMT

Loganville, GA Ok, here is the strenuous program I have been going through to ensure my win in Gainesville on 11/9 - 11/11.

As all of you know athletes must train in order to become the best in their sport.

Tiger Woods started when he was 5. At first I do not think he considered it training. At 5 years old the concept of training is probably non-existent. Tiger figured he was out there with a stick that happened to have some big round thing attached to the end and his dad wanted him to hit a small white ball with it. So he did. My guess, it was fun at first. At some point he probably wished his dad would let him play Nintendo more often. Now he is probably glad that he has enough money to own the Nintendo factory.

The Williams sisters in tennis trained extensively. Because their dad made them do it. They did it on a tennis court that had no net and drive by shootings going on. That was good training, they had to keep moving or they would get shot. There was a problem associated with this, it also helped train the shooters in the cars.

Mike Tyson in the winning part of his career trained pretty heavily. It mostly consisted of Assault and Battery, but it was training all the same. His career started to slide when he turned to rape, that is the wrong type of training for boxing, especially when the guy you are boxing does not want to be raped and has the ability to defend himself.

In light of all these examples I set out to train for what I hope will be my championship run in PROSTAR Street ET.

The first thing I did was look back in my life to see what my parents had taught me so I could have the heart of a champion. I realized as hard as they tried, it just did not take. As a matter of fact I hardly ever played in any sports.

I wanted to learn martial arts when I was about 10. My Mom figured I would kill someone so she would not let me do that. I tried out for little league and turned out to have a good arm for pitching, although this ended up being more of an education in politics than sports, the coach's son always gets to be the pitcher. There are apparently instances where talent is no substitute for nepotism.

My Mom was a tournament bowler and tried to teach me to bowl, two things happened. I sucked and she ran out of patience, a combination that produces a person who will attain a level of competence in a given sport which ranks very much below mediocrity.

In essence I have nothing from my childhood to give me the heart of a champion, at least in the form of sports. (A disclaimer to put out there in the event my parents read this.)

So this means I must physically train in the hopes of developing the will to win. Look at all the NASCAR drivers and Formula 1 drivers. Even the NHRA guys train. Are there any people in the higher levels of racing that are not genetically perfect?

I started to lift weights, twice. Way too much work. Besides, I came this far without being in shape. Not too mention the stress of lifting weights might give me a heart attack or something. How healthy can that be? You definitely can't win by having a heart attack.

Next, I decided the least I can do is start eating healthy. After all this is a no stress win win situation. You eat better, it is easy and your body gets in shape without working out.

This turned out to be a total pain. First of all I do not want to read every friggin RDA fact on everything I eat. Who came up with the calorie intake per day thing anyway? Then I started reading about good cholesterol, bad cholesterol and cholesterol that mugs other cholesterol. Then there are lipids, lipos and some creature called a triglyceride. That must be like a microscopic triceratops which must have to protect itself from some kind of T-rexiglyceride. Why else would it have three glycerides on it?

All this did was stress me out, because now I know more about what is inside of me. None of which is good. Ignorance really is bliss.

In summary I have decided that mentally, physically and nutritionally I have absolutely no competitive edge. This led me to do three things in preparation for this race:

1. I did two practice starts at 6,000 rpms in my driveway Sunday. I am pretty sure the neighbors love this at 8am. I figure they were getting up to go to church anyway.

2. I read something that requires no work at all other than to try and follow the rules. It is by a guy named Lao Tse and he wrote it in a book called the "Tao Te Ching" as a guideline in order to become a better emperor. This was written somewhere around 400-600 BC. I am not quite sure what kind of drag racing they had in China at this time period, but if they did, the people pulling the rickshaws could have followed this.

He does not show himself, therefore he is luminous. He does not define himself, therefore he is distinct. He does not assert himself, therefore he succeeds. He does not boast of his work, therefore it endures for long. It is precisely because he does not compete, that the world cannot compete with him.

3. I am going to have fun, just like I have had all season, regardless of whether I win or lose.

Donations for this training regimen will be greatly appreciated. You can put them directly in my PAYPAL account under the e-mail address paulcav@earthlink.net .