The team was in high spirits in anticipation of the first weekend in many that Vince was finally able to board the bike in its full aesthetic.  Thanks to the venerable Möbius Racing Associate, NSP Racing, the action faction of our own proud sponsor NSP Paint Concepts and its Owner, Lead Rider, and Chief of Operations, Mike Lytle, the team was able to roll out the #224 TZ250 in all her glory.  As the new pix show, the 'jet-black rocket' as she is now affectionately dubbed is finally pleasing again to the eye.  Mike was able to transform the crusty '93 OEM lower, previously bearing the old Stars 'n Stripes scheme of yore, into a matched piece with the new 'racer-friendly' black that the team has currently adopted.  Personally, this author believes the new piece to look absolutely smashing!

 

As the weekend approached and the weather was consolidated to be steady rain for the early part of the weekend, the team opted to hold off on heading to the track until Saturday.  Arriving midday, the pit was setup and by the time the team was settled in the sun began to poke through the clouds, signaling good weather ahead and allowing the opportunity to photographically document the new façade of the TZ. 

 

After dining with the 2T boys at one of Rosamond's finest and only Thai establishment, it was lights out and time for rest.  The wind picked up a bit overnight and as Sunday morning dawned it was eerily calm.  If you go up to Willow enough times, sooner or later - usually the former - you encounter its famous winds.  With two previous outings of calm atmosphere, March was decidedly different.  Calm at dawn means nothing in the CA high desert and this was clear as the clock wound on through morning warmup.  The winds steadily increased and would remain in this state throughout the day.

 

Vince, unusually prepared this morning, was able to make the first practice for a quick shakedown of the bike.  As his time on the bike increases and a baseline more firmly established, the team has begun the endless process of now going about fine-tuning the myriad of adjustments on the 250.  First, of couse, is the suspension, which quickly revealed something was not quite right.  When Vince returned from the session, the report was that of the front end 'skipping' as he went through the long, and fast T8, and to a slightly lesser degree, T2.  T8 at Willow is not the place to have the front-end start acting up, so the team went about addressing the issue.

 

First consultation was with local fast-guy and team friend Mark Watts.  Watts is generally the man to beat at Willow, the only problem being that no one is usually able to stay with him past the first curve!  Its a problem the team is currently working out, but until then we tend to use his resource as we can.  The consensus from Watts was that the damping on the front of the Möbius bike was far too underdamped, particularly with regards to the rebound.  Vince, always the skeptic, next consulted the NSP camp, which revealed a synonomous conclusion.  On the recommendation of another, the bike was finally wheeled over to the Roadracing World garage to have 'the man', Ed Sorbo, lend his evaluation.  Sorbo is a no-nonsense guy, as must be some requirement for employment by RRW, and is a not-so-unenviable trait in terms of efficiency.  In any event, he quickly queried Vince and established his knowledge with interesting questions.  The most quickly revealed was a fork oil height ~35mm too high (alot).  This was causing the fork to become quite harsh when loaded, as is the case in the fast turns 2 & 8.  Sorbo next pointed out the imbalance betwixt the front and rear of the machine, with the front underdamped - as pointed out by Watts and Lytle - and the rear overdamped as well as suffering from an abundance of spring preload.  Vince was sent off with instructions to remove fork oil and slow down the front rebound while also backing off the rear spring and taking out some of the rear rebound damping to quicken it up a bit.

 

The result, in quantitative terms, will have to wait as no lap times were recorded over the weekend, this despite the newly acquired - and now mandatory at WSMC - timing transponder.  Its another matter for the team to reconcile, but the subjective results were mixed:  Although the bike did feel improved (always dangerous to go by 'feel'), the race result was less exciting.

 

Starting from 3rd on the grid, Vince, for the second month in a row and in no small part due to the pre-race replacement of the clutch frictions, got an absolutely cracking start and drove for the first curve in full confidence of leading the field to T2.  Unfortunately, Watts, from his pole position, had other plans and made no bones about slamming the door on Vince from the outside.  Vince reportedly was forced to let off the throttle, if but for a moment, and with this watch Watts outdrive the #224 bike toward T2.  Worse, it allowed young-gun and perennial runner-up to Watts, Brad Adams, use his late model TZ's extra power to full advantage as he drove up on the inside of Vince on the entrance to T2, in full pursuit of Watts.  Content to let the two faster riders battle it out for the top step on the podium, Vince settled in on the increasingly common 3rd position, completely unaware of the action going on behind him.  As this reporter witnessed via video tape, the field was heading to T2, and it was Robert Gosney fighting TZ's and RS Hondas on his underpowered Aprilia 250.  A good start saw Gosney up in the field, not far behind Vince.  As Gosney headed for T2, Mike Lytle was lining him up to go by on the outside while part-time Willow participant and Ex AMA pro Billy Dalu, from his last row starting spot, was lining up Gosney to make an inside move into T2.  The threesome was followed by Joel Manes on his RS250 Honda, who fortunately for the record had his forward-mounted video camera rolling to capture the ensuing events.  What the video appeared to show was Dalu on the inside shooting up past Gosney.  Perhaps about to turn in and startled by Dalu, Gosney hesitated on the turn-in as Lytle, hung out on the outside of the three-abreast parade followed his line and started heading up the hill.  Unfortunately for all but Dalu, Gosney's delay in getting turned had Lytle leaning on him trying to make the turn but it was all for naught as the two riders went shooting off into the CA desert, followed closely by Manes who got caught up in a bit of target fixation (making for great video, but a poor result!).  On the positive side, all three riders were able to quickly get back on track with nothing more than dirt covered tires, Lytle able to recover to a respectable finish.

 

In the meantime, Dalu was on the hunt and the next victim in line was Vince himself.  Not realizing Dalu was behind him, Vince was on cruise control for the first lap, and able to stay - partly - with the lead duo of Watts and Adams.  It was into T2 on the 3rd lap that Dalu finally made his move.  Vince, yielding to the faster bike was able to stay with Dalu closely through the curves, with the more seasoned Dalu able to get better drives out of T2 & 6.  Able to make some ground back up, actually, going into T8, Vince lost touch with 3rd position going through lapped traffic in the final curve, ruining his drive back onto Willows long, fast straight and effectively consolidating 4th place.  Some more lapped riders as the 8 laps wound down was the only remaining source of interest.  All in all not bad, but next time the team is hoping to be able to give Dalu a run.  The wind was strong enough to hamper any heroics this month, what with the new paint and all, and Dalu's bike is decidedly faster in a straight line, but another day and some more work with the suspension and we'll keep our toes x'd.