THE HOW TRACTION CONTROL AND OTHER CRASH ELECTRONIC AIDS ARE RUINING RACING PAGE Reprint Courtesy of Roadracing World www.roadracingworld.com

Volume 17, Number 9 September 2007 $399U.S. $499 Canada www.roadracingworld.com RIDINGRIDING BOULDERBOULDER HE’S CONQUERED AMERICA AND SEES HIS FORMER TEAMMATE MOTORSPORTS’MOTORSPORTS’ MAKING MILLIONS. NOW AMA SUPERBIKE CHAMPION 850cc850cc DUCATIDUCATI 749R749R IS HEADED AMAAMA FORMULAFORMULA FOR MotoGP XTREMEXTREME RACEBIKERACEBIKE On Racing Against AMA Superbike’s Factory Few, And The Trouble With Unobtanium Parts: MICHAEL JORDAN And Ducati March On In MotoGP

RIDERSRIDERS VERSUSVERSUS THETHE TRACKTRACK ININ MOTO-STMOTO-ST

INSIDEINSIDE INFOINFO •• LIDZ: LIDZ: HELMETSHELMETS OFOF THETHE STARSSTARS •• NEWNEW PRODUCTSPRODUCTS •• CRIBS: CRIBS: JORDANJORDAN SZOKESZOKE •• MotoGPMotoGP TRIVIATRIVIA •• JOHNJOHN HOPKINS:HOPKINS: HOPPER!HOPPER! •• GIRLGIRL RACERRACER •• RACING,RACING, TRACKTRACK DAYDAY ANDAND SCHOOLSCHOOL CALENDARCALENDAR •• THETHE KIDSKIDS PAGEPAGE •• ASRA/CCSASRA/CCS NEWSLETTERNEWSLETTER •• MOTO-ST MOTO-ST NEWSLETTERNEWSLETTER • • WANTWANT ADSADS •• HIGH-PERFORMANCEHIGH-PERFORMANCE PARTSPARTS && SERVICESSERVICES DIRECTORYDIRECTORY •• Riding Marty Craggill’s 850cc Ducati 749R Formula Xtreme Racebike Tooele, Utah FXFX RxRx ByBy DavidDavid SwartsSwarts

’m standing at pit wall along Sucks and Steaming Pile of Slag. racebike. And the story of how formance Ducati tuning shop. Miller Motorsports Park’s front They don’t laugh and can barely the BMS Ducati effort came to be Sharp didn’t have to be asked Istraightaway with Boulder fake smiles. is just as good. twice and packed up his wife and Motor Sports Ducati Team Man- Then Ulrich roared by, tucked Sharp, 35, previously worked their three children and headed ager/Crew Chief Brian Sharp, under the paint, throttle pinned, for Advanced Motor Sports (AMS) north to Colorado to open Boul- Mechanic Jeff Leef and rider Marty and the stopwatch read 2:01.9. Ducati’s Jeff Nash, a New Zealan- der Motor Sports. Craggill, and we’re waiting for “He just went fast enough to have der who won the AMA Pro Thun- “We started off with getting Racing Editor Chris Ulrich to qualified for the AMA Formula der Championship as a rider in the shop going,” said Sharp, who appear out of the final corner and Xtreme race on his very first 2000 and then won it again in with the help of his wife, Kim, complete his first flying lap of the lap on the bike,” I said. A col- 2002 as a team owner with Aus- runs the small but busy tuning 3.048-mile AMA course on the lective sigh of relief was heard. tralian Kirk McCarthy riding and shop, “and then we introduced team’s 848cc Ducati 749R AMA Ulrich rode the bike for a total Sharp wrenching on a 748. racing into it as a way to promote Formula Xtreme racer. of three short sessions during an Fast forward a few years. The it and kick the shop off. That’s Knowing Ulrich can be a APEX Trackdays event, got his original AMS shop grew into an the reason you saw me at Day- harsh critic of motorcycles at lap times down to 1:57 (which, if award-winning Ducati dealership tona in October with .” times and that he just finished repeated 13 times, could have and Nash then opened a second Polen rode a Boulder Motor riding his own 1000cc Super- earned him a top-10 finish in the dealership in downtown Dallas, Sports Ducati 999R to win the stock racebike for four days on AMA Formula Xtreme race) and which Sharp was in charge of CCS SuperTwins National Cham- the same track, including tak- did it all without changing any- running. Sharp was then pionship at Daytona, and with ing seventh in the AMA Super- thing on the bike except for the approached by a Ducati enthu- it a $10,000 contingency award stock race, Sharp, Leef and shifter position. This is not what siast and business investor from from Ducati. But to truly pro- Craggill are somewhat appre- normally happens when moto- his hometown of Boulder, Col- mote the shop, Sharp knew hensive. I do nothing to help journalists test front-line race- orado. The investor, whose name he had to keep racing, and AMA their mood when I jokingly give bikes, but then again Ulrich isn’t Sharp declined to reveal, asked Formula Xtreme seemed like them Ulrich’s rating scale: Pretty your typical editor and the BMS Sharp if he would like to return the perfect match. Good, OK, Sucks, Completely Ducati isn’t just your average to Boulder to open a high-per- “The AMA rules made sense

Roadracing World, September 2007 for us to race Formula Xtreme,” the stock 94mm bore pistons Sharp said he didn’t get 150 mark,” said Sharp, who has said Sharp. “I didn’t really see out and putting 100mm (Pistal baseline horsepower numbers done porting work to increase it as a viable option to race in brand) pistons (which are lighter when his bikes were still in 749 flow through the cylinder heads. Superbike this year, judging by even though they are larger) trim, but according to Andrews’ “And it’s pretty broad. The torque what’s happened the last cou- in bored-out cylinders,” said father and former Crew Chief curve is really good. It does tend ple of years. They were going Sharp. “The cams are just the Mark Andrews, their bikes made to make more power up top. pretty good but not at the level 749R kit cams. Stock rods. Stock about 130-135 rear-wheel horse- That’s where the cams work.” where they needed to be. Then crank. It’s essentially a 749R power on a Dynojet dyno. Ducati recommends that a the AMA said, ‘OK, you can run with bigger slugs in it.” “We’re pretty close to the 749R World Supersport race an 850 (in FX) now.’ Just on paper it made a lot of sense, that we could be competitive continued with the 600s.” Next, Sharp needed a rider, and he already had someone in mind, saying, “I used to work with Marty’s best friend, Kirk McCarthy. I sort of kept track of what Marty was up to. I saw that he was with Mat (Mladin Motorsports). I kept in touch with him. At Mid-Ohio, the last round (of 2006), I asked him if he had interest in doing some- thing this year.” In November of 2006, Crag- gill accompanied Sharp to headquarters in Italy, where Craggill (a two-time Aus- tralian Superbike Champion and former World and British Superbike competitor) used his contacts to facilitate a sup- port deal for the team. But after that trip, the racing team was put on hold while the final prepa- rations were made to officially open Boulder Motor Sports in January. One month later, Sharp and his business investor had another meeting with Ducati Corse to finalize some details, and the race team was given its final green light. “After that it was go, go, go,” said Sharp, who said he slept very little from that point until the season-opener four weeks later at Daytona. He had to final- ize Craggill’s deal, purchase the ex-Parts Unlimited Ducati semi- truck and get it to Colorado, obtain three Ducati 749Rs (two that were ex-Ryan Andrews race- bikes, which were ridden by before Andrews raced them, and one World Supersport-spec machine directly from Ducati Corse) and prepare the machines to go AMA For- mula Xtreme racing. (Opposite page) Chris Ulrich’s first flying lap on the Boulder Motorsports Ducati at Miller Motorsports Park Sharp says that increasing would have been fast enough to qualify for the previous weekend’s AMA Formula Xtreme race. (Above) A the displacement of the Ducati pair of 100mm pistons brings the 749R’s displacement up to 848cc, and raises horsepower on a Dynojet 749R to 848cc was very straight- Dyno from about 135 to about 150. Photos by Brian J. Nelson. forward. “It’s basically taking www.roadracingworld.com Roadracing World, September 2007 FX Ducati continued engine be torn down, inspected and rebuilt every 750 kilometers, or 466 miles. Sharp does this 20- man-hour task each time one of his six engines reaches 300- 400 km, or 186-248 miles. “It’s more a preventative maintenance type thing,” said Sharp. “I probably could go fur- ther on them. And honestly, when I’ve been pulling them down between 300 and 400 kilo- meters, the rod bearings and everything looks pretty good. But at this level, competing against the factory guys, it’s something that you can’t not do. You can’t let it go and have it come back to bite you.” As far as the engine per- formance goes, the team is very happy. Peak power comes at Chris Ulrich found that the Boulder Motorsports Ducati 749R turned very but nothing is holding him back 12,700 rpm and the rev-limiter well, easily finishing the corner. Photo by Brian J. Nelson. more right now than that dip kicks in at a conservative 13,000 in the midrange of the power- rpm, even though stock-bore band. World Supersport 749Rs can by the end of July, a little bit more Thursday talking to people with “We’re trying to work that be revved over 14,000 rpm. The engine management stuff, some experience riding Ducatis try- out,” said Craggill, “because I’m team’s only real engine concern wheel speed sensor stuff, poten- ing to figure out what to do, and finding where I’ve been losing is a pronounced dip in the mid- tiometers on the suspension so I was still sucking. Then I talked the guys is out of the slow cor- range, between 7000 and 10,000 we can really see what it’s doing. about it with someone else I ners, where typically that should rpm, which complicates gear- But Marty’s a really good gauge respected in the paddock, and be a strong point with all the ing set-up and hurts Crag- for what’s happening. He’s obvi- he said, ‘It’s a motorbike just torque. It’s good up top, and it’s gill’s drives compared to riders ously very knowledgeable for like any other. It doesn’t need really good aerodynamically. on the the 600cc Inline Fours what the bike is doing and what anything special.’ So we put set- When I get into someone’s draft he races against. it needs, but to have the data up numbers from my it sucks really well and sling- “That’s one of our major helps a lot. Plus, in the future GSX-R1000 on there, and I shots past really well.” goals during the break,” said having data from some of these instantly went three seconds Another area the team has Sharp, referring to the FX class racetracks will help later down faster than what I had been been working on is the clutch not racing at the U.S. Grand the road.” doing. I ended up getting fourth in hopes of improving Craggill’s Prix at Laguna Seca. “That dip Even without data acqui- that weekend.” launches while still working tends to be where you’re com- sition or any real testing, Crag- But it wasn’t quite that sim- at corner entries. “My starts ing off the corners, so that seems gill has been able to get his ple, as Craggill admitted the haven’t been great,” said Crag- to be where we’re struggling a Ducati to handle very much crew had to sort through gill, “so we’ve been going back- little bit. If we can get a little to his liking and very unlike the valving, spring rates and oil wards and forwards with clutch more power out of the corner it hard-to-turn-or-transition rep- heights with the Öhlins set-ups, spring rates and pack would help.” utation the brand has carried FG700 forks and different thicknesses. We’re getting bet- And to help diagnose and for many years. steering head angles before ter.” According to Sharp, they fix problems like the dip, the “It was like that when I first they got the front-end set- have also tried two different team first needs to get a full got on it,” said Craggill, who was up dialed. Lately, Craggill styles of clutches, a 12-tooth data acquisition system on the 13th in the Championship stand- and company have been Ducati Corse unit and a 48- machine to monitor and record ings with three top-six finishes focusing on the rear sus- tooth clutch from STM. information while the bike is and three DNFs after six of 10 pension, using five different Tires are a non-issue partly circulating the track. Currently rounds. “When I first rode the Öhlins shocks, each set up because the Ducati and Crag- the bike only runs a repro- bike at Barber, which was the with a slightly different spec, gill are easy on tires, and partly grammed, stock Magneti-Marelli first time I got to ride the bike to cover as much ground as because Dunlop only offers two ECU, no traction control, no launch properly, it was like that. I was possible in the limited choices, front and rear, each control. hanging off, looking around the amount of FX track time on weekend. Typically, Craggill has “We have limited data, very corner but going over there an AMA weekend. Craggill been running the 3136/Medium limited compared to what we’re (points away from the direction added that the bike is also rear, instead of the harder 3167, competing against,” said Sharp. he is looking). very sensitive to the posi- and the 758/Medium front, instead “We should have some stuff here “I spent all day that first tion of the rear axle (wheelbase), of the harder 336 choice. Roadracing World, September 2007 The first thing Ulrich noticed 310mm dual Brembo rotors in five flying laps (for a total of done quick enough with the clutch. about the Boulder Motor Sports grabbed by monobloc radial- nine) and a best time—while nego- But the more comfortable I got Ducati was the seating posi- mount Brembo calipers with tita- tiating trackday traffic—of 1:57.8, with the clutch the easier it was tion. “It’s amazing. This is the first nium pistons, Brembo pads and which would’ve qualified him 16th to get the downshifts.” racebike I’ve gotten on that fits plumbed with a Brembo radial for the FX race at Miller. But Asked to sum up his expe- me,” said Ulrich, who at six-foot- master cylinder. More than enough the bike wasn’t perfect, as Crag- rience with the Boulder Motor tall, is just an inch shorter than for the 363-pound machine (13 gill had already said. Sports Ducati 749/848R, Ulrich Craggill. pounds over the class’ minimum “If you get it down in sec- said, “This is not an inline Four. “I actually do fit on it very weight limit), according to Ulrich, ond gear it takes it a while to This is a Twin. You hop off an well,” said Craggill, who uses cus- who said, “It stops on a frickin’ get spun up,” said Ulrich. “It Inline Four 1000 and hop on tom clip-ons that are pushed for- dime! makes all the power up top. It’s one of these it’s night and day. ward, lowered footpegs and extra “I just remember some other got to be above 9000, or above It’s comparing apples to oranges, seat foam to get that fit. “I can get my knees in front of my elbows going down the straight. I could- n’t do that on the Suzuki 1000. You would think it would be the other way around.” “The tach is all LCD, so it’s hard to read a little bit,” Ulrich said after his very short first session on the bike. “It took me the first lap to learn it’s got a three-stage shift light—blue, orange, red and then you shift it. The shifter was a little low. I’m just trying to figure out the gears and all that stuff. “The clutch has got a really heavy pull to it. And I almost stalled it coming out of the pits because first gear is so tall. I was having a little bit of a hard time (down) shifting it because it has such a heavy clutch pull. Upshifting is no problem, but the shifter kill is really sensi- tive. I kept finding myself hit- ting it. If you put your foot on it at all you’re gonna kill the engine. It’s got good power. It’s The Boulder Motorsports crew, with Chris Ulrich at Miller Motorsports Park. (From left) Walter Trujillo, Chad got more torque, way more Kemmerlin, Marty Craggill, Ulrich, Brian Sharp, Jeff Leef. Photo by Brian J. Nelson. torque than a 600cc FX bike.” In Ulrich’s second session, he got three flying laps of the Ducati FX racers complaining 8000 at least. A lot of people because you have to ride the long circuit, recorded a best about his bike not turning,” said say it has so much more accel- thing so differently. I’m just now time of 1:58.4 and came back Ulrich. “Maybe those guys need eration, but talking to Marty, starting to push the bike into to report: “So far it’s pretty good. to go to the gym and lift more he said the 600s pull him off corners as opposed to what you I’m still using my 1000cc brak- weights or something, because the corners. I can actually see do on a 1000—get it in there, ing markers. Like in Turn One, this thing is perfectly fine. It how, because you get on the gas square it off and fire it out. This I know I can go past the four turns really easily. It finishes and open the throttle and it gets thing you have to carry a lot but I haven’t quite got there yet. the corner. But then again I am to a certain rpm and then it just more corner speed. I’m chang- In a few other places, it seems still running off the (winning) takes off. It’s not really a hole. ing my lines and adapting to it, like you have to carry a lot of pace. It’s more a lag. It just takes a but it’s such a different beast corner speed on this. It’s got “I think I saw 13,000 rpm little while to get it wound up compared to my bike. I would decent power down low and indicated on the tach. It revs in second gear. But you can pick need at least a day on it to get all through the range, but some- pretty high for a Twin, I think. the throttle up so early on it. down to a decent lap time and times the shifter is really touchy. It’s fast down a straightline, It’s easy. It terms of performance, then two or three days to be able And it doesn’t like to shift if 100%, it’s fast. I know there’s once you get it spooled up it goes. to push with the front run- you’re on the rev-limiter. It kind more time in it. You’ve just It’s fast! It’s holy crap fast for a ners and be competitive. But of weeble-wobbles when it slides. got to be on it. I’m going to try 600. it’s definitely really nice. It’s got It has a bit of flex to it. The forks some new lines and shift points “The biggest problem I have a lot of potential.” RW feel pretty good. The brakes are this next session and see what right now, I can run it in harder really powerful.” happens.” on the brakes, but I wasn’t 100% © Reprint courtesy of Craggill’s bike stops with Ulrich’s final session resulted sure I could get the downshifts Roadracing World www.roadracingworld.com Roadracing World, September 2007