As he entered turn four, he heard a sharp cracking sound and felt an impact underneath the seat. "At first, I thought a wheel weight must have flown off of the rear wheel and smashed into the seat," said Rich, "but after a few more turns, I was wondering if the rear tire had started to come apart because I was chattering terribly on all of the right-handers. Then, I thought maybe it was a wheel weight after all and it was just making the wheel bounce in all the right-handers because of the nature of the track or the way I was riding. Then, I realized it may not have anything to do with the wheel because the seat was flopping all around as I changed direction. After processing through all of these different possibilities, I found myself still steadily pulling away from second place so I decided to not worry about it anymore and ride as hard as I could with the bike I had underneath me.
'To compensate for the bike, I changed my body position, my acceleration points, slowed down my cornering speed and decreased all of my braking distances. This kept the chatter to a minimum and the lap times as quick as possilble.
'I finally found the problem when I dismounted the bike in victory circle. All that had happened was one of the sub frame bolts that holds the seat on had snapped, dropped into the spinning rear wheel and had been shot back out into the seat underneath me. So, it wasn't the wheel weight, it wasn't the tire, it was just a simple bolt that changed the weight bias by dropping the seat down and moving me too far back on the bike, overloading the rear tire.
'I can honestly say that the training I do in the Rich Oliver Mystery School helped me adapt quickly to a difficult situation and still grind out relatively quick lap times on a bike that was not up to par."
The final 250 AMA series will conclude at Barber in September. It's your last chance ever to see the blue missile streak around the course! We hope to see you there and encourage you to browse the site for more information on the Mystery School and abstract art!
Next Race: Barber Motorsports Complex, September 19-21!
DAYTONA, FONTANA, SONOMA, ATLANTA, ELKHART, PIKES PEAK, BRAINERD, LAGUNA SECA, MID OHIO.......