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Home » online exclusives » Spring Training With Factory Connection’s Geico Powersports Honda MX Race Team – Dirt Rider Magazine

Spring Training With Factory Connection’s Geico Powersports Honda MX Race Team – Dirt Rider Magazine

By: pete peterson

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

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<p>The 2010 Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross Championship is less than a month away. I’m embedded with the Geico Powersports Honda team, and they have nine testing days to get the all-new 2010 Honda CRF250R ready for its motocross debut. Oh, and they’re still racing supercross every weekend. Welcome to the pressure cooker.In addition to finalizing engine, suspension, chassis and component specifications for five riders, this team, like many of America’s elite racing squads, is at the mercy of Mother Nature, available daylight and the inevitable human error. And if a short two-week concentration window between the final supercross checkered flag and the first motocross gate drop wasn’t enough of a challenge, consider that the team riders are spread across the U.S., competing in three different series, on bikes that share little other than the color with the previous year’s model.As I learned in my days with the Geico Honda team, motocross racing isn’t just building a fast bike with expensive suspension and putting a fast kid on it. It’s about unrelenting research and development, attention to detail and lots and lots of hard work. From rider to suspension tech to engine builder to team owner, this is definitely a team sport.The current AMA Pro Motocross rulebook puts heavy modification restrictions on each bike on the line, but race teams push pretty hard and close against those restrictions to develop a bike to its ultimate capabilities. A group of techs with names like Ziggy, Kibby, Scrappy, Schnikey and Kranz don’t sound like a serious bunch, but they are some of the key engineers and mechanics behind big-name racers Trey Canard, Justin Barcia, Brett Metcalfe, Blake Wharton, Kevin Windham and newcomer Eli Tomac. Along with race team co-managers-Darren Borcherding and former motocross and supercross champion Mike LaRocco-they were tasked with getting the new-from-the-ground-up Honda CRF250R ready to do battle at the highest level, on some of the world’s toughest tracks, against the fastest racers on the planet.<br />
<h2>New Kid On The Block</h2>
<p>Honda’s 2010 CRF250R shares almost zero parts with its predecessor. After renegotiating their racing contract details, the Factory Connection boys didn’t get their new bikes until October of 2009, months after the public was texting photos of their new purchases to friends.The team uncrated the bikes, looked on their shelves and realized-nothing fits. Factory Connection would have to start from scratch. The team got in one week of initial outdoor testing to take advantage of the racers being fresh off the 2009 motocross series. MX tracks are also a better place to determine a bike’s general character (for both MX and SX setup) rather than between timing jumps and sweeping bowl turns on a supercross track. But then the team launched into setting the new models up for supercross. That testing, the improvements the team discovered racing under the stadium lights, and the things learned racing the similar 2009 450R did help get a handle on the outdoor bikes’ needs. But as far as a proven outdoor race weapon, they were really starting from zero.
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<h2>New Kid</h2>
<p>If there still weren’t enough variables to keep things interesting, let’s throw in a rookie ready to enter the pro ranks at full throttle. The Factory Connection strategy is to sign and develop amateurs in their final non-pro year to a three-year contract. This gave Eli Tomac a chance to attend test sessions with the team in 2009 to smooth the transition. This strategy has paid off in the past, with Trey Canard winning the East Coast Supercross Lites title in his rookie season, and Justin Barcia leading the majority of his first pro race and later nailing down an overall win at the Southwick National in his rookie Outdoors. Tomac comes in with the same desire to win and shares with Barcia the distinction of “fastest lap of the week” at his final Loretta Lynn’s amateur national. Eli has the added benefit of his father, mountain bike legend John Tomac, who is Eli’s trainer as well as assisting Eli in developing the machinery to work best for him. The testing days would also serve to allow Eli and the techs to get a feel for one another’s vocabulary for bike dynamics, something necessary to communicate what the bike is doing and to determine what changes the bike might need on any given race weekend.<br />
<h2>New Block</h2>
<p>Another switch-up to the already-complicated schedule is Brett Metcalfe, who finished the 2010 Supercross Lites East season with a race and series podium. He will make his step to the 450 class this summer. With zero race experience on a 450 in the U.S. (a fact that changed one week later when he won a Saturday REM race at Glen Helen against Mike Alessi, also besting 250F riders Tommy Searle and Tyla Rattray on his gate), Metcalfe will single-handedly represent the team in the 450 class since Windham will not be racing the Nationals this year.<br />
<h2>Divide And Collaborate</h2>
<p>I met up with Tomac and Metcalfe, team owner Rick “Ziggy” Zielfelder and a handful of race department techs and mechanics at Pala Raceway for day one of their testing blitz. To keep the days efficient and productive, the team breaks the testing down to two-rider sessions, squeezed in throughout the supercross race schedule. Tomac would share in the discoveries of two prior team test sessions already completed-three test days with Canard and Barcia after the Jacksonville SX, and three days with Canard and Wharton before the Houston SX round. Metcalfe could lean a bit on Dan Reardon’s ’09 MX settings and two seasons of supercross under Kevin Windham, but otherwise everything was on him.Pala Raceway provided some speed and some air, but a Wednesday open track day doesn’t come close to the rough conditions the Nationals would dish out. The two boxvans were loaded up midday and the search for bumps took us to the natural-terrain MX Heaven track in Perris, California. The riders shooed two horses and a pony off the track, then pounded out motos until the sun gave up. It was a long day for the support team, and more so for the riders hitting the roughest sections at the highest possible speed-all the while keeping much of their concentration on evaluating the bucking bike beneath them.The riders are free to select the components and settings that work best for them, but the 250 riders’ setup picks were all becoming a mirror of the others’-with slightly stiffer spring rates on Wharton’s bike being the only significant difference between them-a sure sign the team was finding the machine’s sweet spot. Ziggy believes in “blind testing,” so he’d send the riders out often without telling them what changes or adjustments had been made to the bikes. When the rider pulled in about 15 minutes later, Ziggy would ask questions, being sure not to lead the rider to any conclusions. His calm manner didn’t diffuse the pressure-these subjective decisions made on a windy hill in California would determine the equipment that tackled the U.S. soil at speed all summer.
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<p>Still looming in the future were big full-team testing sessions to finalize everything. Because after all the riders have completed their two-rider test days, everyone comes together for six all-in track days where the intensity and pace are ratcheted up to shake down how the equipment is really performing at full race pace. Yes, nearly a week of straight-up moto smackdowns.<br />
<h2>Pick-A-Part</h2>
<p>This first day with Tomac and Metcalfe was designed to select the “base settings” for the season, and that boils down to picking the hardware that will adorn what the AMA requires remain stock-the cases and frame. From there the racers get their pick of suspension components, from the stock Showa units to the stock KYB 450R components to full Showa A-kit stuff.Ziggy, LaRocco and the techs that turn metal into speed studied the bikes in action from a hilltop at the track’s dead center while the riders wound out, back and overhead. LaRocco could instantly see and hear Metty was getting along better with the A-kit fork. Fifteen moto-minutes later Metty was right there, helmet off, reporting…that he was getting along better with the A-kit fork. LaRocco had a 19-year pro racing career; he knows what he’s talking about.Tomac was steered away from the very rigid A-kits for his 250 for the Outdoors. In fact, last year the team deliberated between the 47mm 2009 stockers and the 49mm A-kit. They even set up a bike with one 47mm fork leg and one 49mm fork leg in an attempt to find the best flex character. What might have been a bizarre option wasn’t necessary-the team was happy to find the stock 2010 250F came with a 48mm fork.Tomac rounded the three-minute track until his hands locked up from the cold air (so much for sunny SoCal conditions). He was trying out what his teammates had experimented with before-linkage rate options, triple clamps (offset and rigidity variances), eccentric steering stem races to change a frame’s rake without breaking any frame modification restrictions, and different peg, bar and seat height positions. There was one particularly nasty bump that upset the bike at speed. Tomac came in and reported the near-crash. So what did the squad do? Pick a new line? Nope, they targeted that kick until they’d developed settings to handle it. Hit the throttle, aim for the one thing that’s trying most to knock you over the bar, and come back and tell us what you think of the new settings. Young Eli and the team finally figured out a combo that allowed the best speed and control as the sun dipped behind the mountains. All the while a second complete bike waited back at the test truck…<br />
<h2>Now You’re Just Being Picky</h2>
<p>Race bike setup is a game of push and pull where “best” really means “perfect compromise,” and every step forward in one track section can drop another out of the acceptable range. With motocross’ high-speed straights, tight turns, huge bumps and huger jumps, it’s a compromise in each area to be the best across them all. Factory Connection strives to get the bike 85-95 percent perfect in each area, without dropping out of that zone for any other track section.Day two started at Glen Helen Raceway. But after a night of rain the track was in no condition to provide valuable motocross feedback. So without unloading the trucks it was back to MX Heaven, which had soaked up the rain beautifully.The mechanics and engineers call day two’s type of testing “whittling.” The bike’s base components have been decided on, and now it’s up to the techs to fine-tune the best internal suspension settings and motor power delivery options to maximize that equipment conglomeration.
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<p>Near the day’s end Eli was very happy with his bike, and that’s when Ziggy sent him out on the second bike. With a lot of radical geometry changes but the identical fork and shock settings, the team was surprised when Eli came back without much of a differing opinion. But it did give Ziggy more conviction that the suspension internals must have found a very good place. The different geometry was something that would have been tested prior to the supercross series, had there been enough time. As it was, six months later, the machine got seven laps then got reshelved. Ziggy will try out all sorts of experimental bike setups on his racers. Some are pretty radical and don’t work; others offer large strides forward. Ziggy’s happy if his “crazy” ideas can bat .600, or a three out of five success rate.<br />
<h2>Ponies</h2>
<p>Ever wonder how many engines and chassis a huge effort like this works with? Try 30 engines and 10 complete chassis, then add in a few more of each for dyno testing, product fitment and more of Ziggy’s wild departure attempts.Each racer has his race bike that lives at the shop (and on the road) and a practice bike that lives with him. Race bikes are assigned three complete race engines, and each practice bike also gets three full-race engines. The outdoor race bikes are fully replaced every three races, with the motors getting a full teardown every two hours (the run time for one MX event), even though the motors are designed strong enough to give a 100 percent survival rate if they were to be run for a full season (24 hours). The practice engines are kept in near-constant rotation as one will be in the practice bike, one being rebuilt at the shop and the third at the racer’s home base awaiting the motor in the bike to hit that magic replacement interval time-five to 10 hours for an inspection, 15 hours for each “major birthday” full rebuild back at the shop. The practice bike’s chassis is given until 100 hours before it’s retired. Much of its race equipment is destroyed by that time since, even though you or I might think differently, it is junk. Try not to think about that, though.When developing those motors, power quality and delivery is equally important to output. Here Factory Connection partners with several other companies, including on-track rival Pro Circuit. Working with Factory Connection’s specs, Pro Circuit handles the motors’ porting and top end parts. But don’t think Pro Circuit has a handle on everything inside those motors. During assembly back at the secret Factory Connection race shop the heads are mated to Factory Connection’s flywheel, crank counterbalancing, gearing, ignition, clutch pack, fuel injector and cam degree tweaks. But more so than with the chassis/suspension settings, most of the engine results can be predicted. It’s more about math, less about feel, and an engine’s character can be well understood before it leaves the bench and dyno. Of course, how each rider will respond to that engine requires…testing. Also, power delivery is another variable that can knock some of the suspension/chassis settings out of their acceptable compromise range. Those limited test days really seem short now, huh?Metty is free to run anything, but the team tries to keep the 250F guys to the same engine specs. It’s not a hard-and-fast rule, but with so many engines swapping and shipping and being rebuilt, it’s a logistical consideration. A lot of people think Justin Barcia, with his wide-open (even in the air) style, would require unique engine specs, components or service time limits. That’s not the case. Tapping at the bike’s electronic rev-limiter sounds like it’s tearing the engine in half from the inside out, but that noise is the motor preserving itself by cutting spark. Barcia is hard on transmissions and shift components, but the engines on this schedule don’t mind the howling so much.
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<p>FC also had to learn fuel injection, but it’s had that since the 450 supercross effort last year with Kevin Windham. The team still went through a lot of testing to determine if they wanted to stick with the stock 250F’s smooth delivery or try to add a hit or step. They decided, based on both rider preference and lap times, that smooth was best, and the tweaks didn’t stray far from the stock bike’s personality, just added more of it with help from companies like Vortex and Injectioneering.<br />
<h2>Details</h2>
<p>Every item on a race bike gets special consideration, even something as seemingly mundane as a gas tank. The team will simulate races (30 minutes plus two laps) then remove the bike’s tank and empty it into a beaker. During racing they will do the same after the first moto to decide if steps need to be taken to ensure a moto two finish. Notes from past seasons of racing are used to determine which tracks require the most fuel (Texas’ sandy and wide-open Freestone was the thirstiest track last year), sometimes requiring a larger-than-stock aluminum tank or an air- and heat-expanded stock tank in an emergency fix between motos. But with the all-new Honda, this info only helps the team guess where fuel capacity might be a concern. They won’t know for sure until after each first moto of each race in the summer of 2010.<br />
<h2>End Of The Beginning</h2>
<p>I left the Factory Connection guys before their final all-in test sessions. Ziggy was very secretive about the methods used but assured me he would have the bikes flying at moto-win speed with a small army of mechanics and engineers standing by to make any adjustments. The rules may state that works bikes don’t exist anymore, but those bikes always came down to the people and expertise that made them. And as the Factory Connection team proves, that supreme effort is still alive, but with mostly retail-available parts. And everything the team riders and techs learn trickles down to the company’s retail suspension and hardware services. You’ll likely see these guys and these bikes atop the podium several times this summer, and there’s a good chance one will be wearing a number one plate by the time all the dust settles. Because when it comes to a serious race effort and serious race equipment, it has always been about the people and not just the sum of the parts, even if some of those parts are Kibby, Scrappy, Schnikey, Kranz, Ziggy and a Rock…<br />
<h5>Thanks to <em><a href="" rel="nofollow" onclick="javascript:window.open(

www.factoryconnection.com, www.mxheaven-usa.com and www.palaraceway.com.

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