Jump to content

Project: Endurance Bike/Team and template for future teams


jbot

Recommended Posts

This thread is to document and serve as a guide (or warning, depending on how this all turns out lol) to those who want to form an endurance team like the one we're thinking of fielding for the motoseries 3 hour endurance series.

In this thread, we will discuss how to arrange for expense distribution, seat time, handling crashes and related repairs and expenses (and subsequent beat down penalties for crashing) and all the fun/ugly aspects of team endurance racing. If we get lucky, we'll also post up a template to use for a team agreement (ie, a contract involving multiple parties).

To start, I will be volunteering my precious but really BTS honda cbr 600rr as a bike. As more details emerge, it will be posted after making the rambling conversations and thoughts a bit more concise. Unlike this first post.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Who is "we"?

"We" is just a term used to denote people in general. More specifically, those of us on ORDN that tend to frequent the Moto Series road race championship, and have expressed interest in forming an endurance team.

Hope that clears things up for you. ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am obviously way behind the racing 8 ball relative to you guys, so my sights for a team would be next season. But I would like to be at least a fly on the wall for this "conversation".

Except for madcat. You took my angle. Dick. :p

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since most of us didn't start some form of road racing at age 5, I'm thinking we should focus on having fun. If we finish well, get podiums, great. If not, oh well. I'm more interested in having fun and getting better at riding.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, we used to run the WERA National Endurance Series for Kawasaki and did a fairly decent job considering the teams we were up against and one of the few teams that can say they beat AOD when they used to have such riders like some punk kid named Spies, etc...

I can offer ideas as to how we did things, what to expect and the formula that most national teams used to go by for the races themselves. Let me know what you would like to hear and I can chime in or just create a list...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you could start with what you believe were essential to good team operation, that would be great. I'm sure we'll have lots of questions from there.

Edited by jbot
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are some serious issues you need to address as priority.

1) Budget. You really should do everything in advance. We essentially sat down and sorted EVERY detail we could think of from bike to entry fees to tires oil to truck maintenance to food to crashes, etc. Once you have a figure that is realistic, you need to divide it by the number of riders. That is your target and really, what you should get up front.

However, a lot of guys are not going to be able to pony that and what we did was take the amount and do 1/2 from each rider. That was still a big chunk, but what it allowed for was to cover things that popped up on us in say, round three of ten... Know what I mean?

2) Bikes. Yes, bikes plural. To do endurance the right way, you need 2-3 bikes total. One, seat time. Try splitting the limited endurance practices. Doesn't work well. 10 minutes each? Really? Two bikes minimum and allows for the most seat time for set up and practice. Fastest guy stays out the longest if need be to do set up. Or, best set up guy. You get the idea...

The other idea behind two bikes is two fold. Spares. Crash replacement. You crash and total the "A" bike and have 2 hours and 45 minutes left, you need a "B" bike. 30 minutes to go? Nope...

Finally, the bikes have to come from someone. DO NOT split a bike or bikes. Unless you have two bikes and two guys each buy one. The reason is if the bike/s is/are split three ways for example and one gets totaled, what do you do? But, if a guy buys a bike, that lessens his cost of the split. In other words, anyone that thinks they can do a Moto Series round for $300 each rider ($900) total is insane.

Here's a break down:

Bike maintaining expense - $20 ($60 min oil - 4 qts)

Bike maintaining expense - $3+ ($9-$10 filter)

Bike maintaining expense - $30-$40 each ($100-$120 a set brake pads)

Bike maintaining expense - $30 chain (Three chains for 9 rounds at $100 each)

Bike maintaining expense - $200-$265 tires (two sets @ $300 - $400/set. No way you can do one set per weekend...)

Entry fees - $94 entry fees - ($250 per round plus $10 gate fee)

Food - $10 each (water, cold sandwiches, snacks, etc.)

Fuel - $27/each - 20+ gallons for practice and race (3.5 gallons plus per 45 minutes so, 4 fill ups.)

JUST to run the race, you are looking at about $400-$450 each per round to just do that. Not including the truck oil change, fuel for the ride up and back, hotel, dinner, breakfast, wear and tear cost on bike, etc.

Also, you need to consider these costs:

Spares - wheels, radiator, clip-ons, rearsets, bodywork, etc. You really need to consider a second bike really, but if not, these are MINIMUM to have on hand. You are looking at anywhere from $800-$1000 plus or $300-ish each just to start the season.

Then, you need to make sure the bike is fresh at the end of the season. Price motor refreshening and you will find that you'll have another $700 plus each. This gets the bike back where it started. As it should be...

Now, you are looking at a 9 round season costing each rider (Moto Series) to be around $4500-$5k or about $15k a season total... Just to give you an idea, to do a WERA National season, we were running close to $40-$45k a season... Divided by 3-4 riders depending on the race length. Easily.

That was 3 bikes for the most part depending on the model changes and what Kawasaki could send us, having a substantial parts budget that was free and free allocation of tires up to a set number total. We had free oil, free plastics, free pads, etc . All motors were a superbike build and had top end components with custom quick change and high capacity fuel tanks with quick fill setup.

You also have to get your head around a crash repair. What do you do?

It is a team, guys. 3 riders? Split a crash 3 ways. Now, rider goes out and bone heads another rider and totals the bike because he was an idiot, he pays. Simple. But, team is a team and the payment needs to be split.

Now, again... the guy who buys the bike may be a lesser amount. At the end of the year, in refreshes, etc., it was equal as he raced the bike equally. Think if totaled. If a $10k bike is totaled, he has a pile of aluminum.

Then, contingency... Split three ways and is handed out every check. DO NOT think to cover expenses with contingency. DO NOT bank on winning, an amount, etc... It is a year end spoil.

That's it for now that I remember...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am definitely going to watch this. I am not really experienced on the track but I am hoping that by the end of the season I might have a race license. I can be of a bit of use though with bike maintenance, tire changes, pit bitch, redneck engineering etc.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...