Dadej Wins USGPRU Round At Streets Of Willow

Dadej Wins USGPRU Round At Streets Of Willow

© 2002, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

Categories:

From a press releas:

Eric Dadej wins USGPRU National Championship Western Round 2 at Streets of Willow

Eric Dadej rode to a spectacular win
aboard the Gray Matter Racing-Ian E. Race Engineering-BPS Honda on Sunday in windy, extreme temperatures over 100 degrees F.

Gapping his nearest competitor by over 14 seconds by lap 7 Eric put on a stunning show, lapping over half of the field, one rider twice.

Second place rider Quentin Wilson said after the race, “[this] race was brutal, 18 laps around the streets is a large amount of work. I had absolutely no answer for Eric’s speed, he was amazing both in his consistency and endurance.”

Quentin Wilson and Williard Ivins fought throughout the race for the final podium spots, both vying hard for the second position but Wilson won out in the end taking second by over 6 seconds.

Gray Matter Racing’s team owner and tuner Jonathan Flack struggled all weekend with the high temperatures trying to coax any extra power from the bike he could. “We went through about 3 different changes to the ignition maps and I moved the power jet cutoff points more times than I can remember to try and compensate for both the high altitude and the temperature, it was an uphill fight all weekend with all the wind and the heat. We knew after practice on Saturday that we had more power than the rest of the field
so we were reluctant to make changes to the head volumes. The gearing was perfect so we spent the vast majority of our time tweaking the BPS ignition to make the bike both faster and did what we could to correct for areas of the track that were proving really hard on the motor.”

Saturday night they pulled the piston from the bike to find massive detonation damage. “We knew the bike was really heating up in the fast 5th gear section leading back to the front of the course and, with the headwind, the bike was just detonating its brains out in that section of the track. In the end we had to run just a hair richer than we wanted to because there was no way the bike would have lasted through that section 19 times without coming apart. We even had to manufacture ad-hoc air deflectors on Saturday night to try and force more air into the radiator for the race just to keep the engine in the 60s, we would have made more power if we could have maintained 50-53C but it was just not possible given the conditions.”

After the win Jonathan noted, “we were always able to get the power to run at the front of the field but the danger was with the engine retaining so much heat with the ambient air around 38C, we were afraid it would grenade before we could get to the finish. The BPS Ignition was fabulous and I think we were able to run far faster just due to the fact that we could control the power jet cutoff per gear and use it to stop detonation in areas of the track that were straight into that brutal headwind. I couldn’t believe the motor held together when we checked the telemetry after the race. We had over 2000 detonations but it was all on throttle rolloff and because this track is so short we were able to get away with it and keep the motor together. God only knows what the piston will look like when we get it out of there.”

Final Results for Western Region Round 2 of the USGPRU 125GP National Championship are as follows:

1) Eric Dadej
2) Quentin Wilson
3) Williard Ivins
4) Leonard Meliguen
5) Stewart Aitken-Cade
6) Sean McNew
7) Scott Jackson
8) Shawn Herrera
9) John Rabasa
10) Russell
11) Orien
12) Phillip Krenn
13) Loren Chun
14) Jerry Berkey
15) Henderson
16) Melissa Shimmin
17) Tiffany Ragasa
18) Jeff Lim
19) John Lee

Latest Posts

Inside Michelin’s Top-Secret MotoGP Tire Lab, In The April Issue

Featured In the April 2024 issue of Roadracing World:  ...

Oxley Bom MotoGP Podcast: MotoGP – Scoops From The Spies

Roadracing World MotoGP Editor and Isle of Man TT winner...

MotoAmerica: Injury Updates On Baz, Escalante, Flinders

Loris Baz, Richie Escalante, and Max Flinders all suffered...

MotoGP: Ducati Lenovo Team Ready For Spanish Grand Prix

The Ducati Lenovo Team returns to the track this...

Roadracing World Young Guns 2024: Max Van

Roadracing World started this exclusive special feature recognizing the most...