what

Sticker delivery service was busy yesterday.

No passing, proceed to pit lane at a reasonable speed. Maintain lines unless you have to alter them for liquids/debris. If they are pointing the (black) flag at you specifically, get off the track ASAP because you are probably spilling all kinds of crap all over the place.

A guy in the UK had this exact same failure happen to him and it caused some pretty serious damage to his engine. K&N ended up paying for the repairs but he had to pester them for a while. If there is damage, hound them about it. Dig up purchase records, keep all evidence, etc. They HAVE been paying out and they have known about this problem for years.

Good job keeping it upright, that must has been scary as hell. The oil shot out front first, hit your exhaust and caused all the smoke. There was nothing between the filter and your front tire except for your exhaust so I'm assuming some oil hit the front tire, then splattered all over your rear tire too. Pretty much the worst case scenario with a filter failure... The good thing is it didn't fail 5 seconds earlier when you were doing 110 through the kink. That would have been very very bad.

To elaborate a bit more, the failure was along the dotted red line on the bottom of the nut. Here's a handy dandy image I made:

It was the nut weld. It split on the bottom. Derek can take pics of it later and post up... it's noticeably pushed out/burst.

Opening a new gay bar?

Lunch is around noon. Depends what time first session gets on the track. Everybody has 40 minutes off and 20 minutes on every hour except lunch hour when everybody is off.

Enjoy your new bike.

Assuming that's the FZ you've been talking about?

Try calling a little later today. I'm not aware of any way to check how full a course is online.

Hah! In the "line selection" course towards the end, he uses turn 6/7/8 at Mid-O as an example.

ride safe.

Life is serious, jokes are for children and animals.

If/when I sell the Duc I'm using that money on an XR100. Dirt training to get a feel for drift/loss of traction AND play road rash in real life.

all this shit talk but you guys are going to be passing only when your CR says you can.

I should clarify since that sentence can be misread... Society should make clear that opportunities are available, not society should make opportunities for people. And society does not equal government. Society is the population of the USA. The government can go fuck itself.

It's not a question of one or the other, it's a combination of both. Society should make clear opportunities and individuals within society should have the motivation to make their own situation better. Right now for a lot of people, they see robbery, drugs and violence as the way to a better life because that's what their parents, neighbors, friends and extended family have all done in an effort to better their own lives. There are outliers that will realize there's a better way but they are not the majority.

The whole thing stems from society and its views towards certain minority groups starting back before the founding of this country. Freed slaves were often not educated and had no means to support themselves, their families or communities. They congregated in areas which ended up as ghettos because those were the only places "safe" for them because there's strength in numbers. Anywhere you get a large group of uneducated people living together, the living situation is not going to be ideal, especially when said group is surrounded by vast wealth. The allegory of the cave is a great thing to bring up here. There are groups within our society that don't have any idea that what they are seeing on the wall are shadows and what those shadows actually are. The "American Dream" that you, I and everyone else we are speaking with on these forums does not mean anything to these groups because they can't understand it due to the culture they were raised in and are a member of. Crime/violence/unrest/etc are a symptom of the major underlying problem of non-integration. I'm not placing blame on any specific group here. What we are seeing was set in motion hundreds of years ago. There is a solution, but both sides of the aisle will have to agree that there is nobody to blame, no single entity that's responsible and we need to work together on slowly breaking down social barriers that are currently in place between the different groups of people in this country. When everybody in our society has the same upbringing, has the same or similar values, beliefs and education, then we will see these issues start to disappear. People hating on each other for being racist or lazy or stupid or whatever helps no one. That's the attitude that has led to where we are. Divisiveness. Sadly, this is the platform that both the far left and far right base their policies around and how they sell themselves, "progressive liberals" and "social justice warriors" are probably the biggest offenders right now because they are not trying to fix anything, just use the divisions in society as a way to hold onto power. Politicians won't solve this problem.

I may still have my old one laying around (that was bent back on my low-side). We "straightened" it out by bending it back forward and I rode another 200 miles that day with it. If you bend yours back and head down and I can find mine, I can bring it along as a backup for you. I'm in Dallas until mid-day Sunday so I won't be able to tell you for sure until then though, so not super helpful but...

Be sad to see you go Ryan but being perfectly honest, TN or north GA are somewhere in my 5-year plan. Hope this all works out for you man.

My (previous generation) star is the lightest helmet I have ever owned and it's been comfortable on 12+ hour rides. It is very stable in direct wind with little/no lift even at 120+. My old Shoei used to try to rip my head off of my body at those speeds. I'll more than likely be picking up another Star next season.

I'll be bringing some electrolyte drinks and banaynays to help stave off cramps later in the day. Mid-O provides water for free but it runs out typically after lunch so it's not a bad plan to bring your own.

he's enjoying being mr. mysterious.

Heal up fast Jerry.