I feel your pain! after missing almost the entire season last year wrenching, a two week, bank account draining thrash, a shake down run which consisted of backing out of the shop onto a trailer, getting to the track late, going from the trailer to tech and straight to the staging lanes I launched, went to grab second and couldn't shift...an assload of money and time and I ran 9/100ths slower that the year before! Two runs later with no improvement in shifting (and the pit bike not starting argh!) I packed it back on to the trailer and was getting ready to head home when a couple of the old boys showed up and after a bit of checking we discovered the scatter shield was interfering with the clutch fork just enough that when I went to shift under load, the clutch wasn't dis engaging enough to shift...a second set of eyes in the shop would have spotted it! A bit later as I was ranting about this to a friend (also a racer) and three things were pointed out to me 1: you made it down the track in a ride you built yourself-congratulations, 2: you have had about a grand total of 5 minutes seat time in said ride (this includes driving on the trailer and to the staging lanes) and 3: that's racing, odds are pretty darned good a hand built vehicle is gonna require a bit of finessing, get used to it! Well, I simmered down pretty quick and promptly made a list of upgrades for next year: 4:56 gears, a new clutch set up and shifter and a little less psi in the tires...STOKED for next year, see ya at the track!
