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Round three of the 2010 Australian Formula Xtreme Championship was a bitter sweet affair for South Australian Paul McMenamin (Honda CB400F).
With a firm grasp on 4th place in the Naked Bikes class, if lady luck smiled just right, a move to 3rd place was on the cards. The 45 points he should have accumulated over the three races would have lifted him into 3rd place behind Jesse Mueller (Yamaha FZ6) and Ric Wilkinson (Hyosung 650).
But it was not to be, problems with the throttle position sensor saw him sidelined for the meeting.
Advisor Mike Flaherty offered the following explanation:
“Both Honda’s were fitted with Ohlins shock absorbers sourced from the FJ 1200 parts bin, as suggested by a race team in Singapore that specialises in the CB400F. In the rush to fit them before the meeting the sags were not checked.
When performing setup at the track, the team realised they could not get any free sag and the rider sag was much less than that suggested by Ohlins. The team could not source softer springs and the standard shock absorbers had be left at the team workshop in Adelaide.
First practice on Friday indicated the stiffer springs were causing an excessive amount of rear wheel chatter under brakes especially when down changing from sixth to second for turn two.
It was decided to increase the idle speed to 3000 revs which would help by reducing rear wheel lockup during down changes (the poor man’s slipper clutch). The team was advised that such a change may affect the throttle position sensors ability to judge the idle position.
It was a gamble that appeared to have paid off in qualifying on a damp track. The team was stunned to see the CB400F qualify 3.2 seconds faster than a Pro-Twins Ducati 1198S.
It all went wrong when the dry bike was left warming up in the pit garage for too long before race 1. The throttle position sensor threw an error and the ECU went into ‘limp home mode’. The bike was switched off and allowed to cool. When it was restarted the error had vanished.
After two warm up laps and sitting on the grid ready for the start, the error appeared again setting the bike in to ‘limp home mode’ on the run to turn one.
Paul switched the engine off, and reset the ECU while coasting from turns one to turn two. While the ECU was being reset, the chase car overtook him and radioed to race control that the already speed challenged CB400F had a problem.
The officials decided that a black flag was in order unaware that the problem had been fixed.
The team decided to withdraw from the meeting until correct springs for the Ohlins can be sourced. Resetting the idle speed would have reintroduced the chatter problem.
New springs have been ordered and will be here in plenty of time for the team to test before round 4 at Wakefield Park.”
“The bitter part was sitting watching my championship aspirations disappear.” Said McMenamin. “ The sweet part was not qualifying last. The result this weekend has not damaged my enthusiasm by I’m thinking it has done irreparable damage to my credibility. Really, how many people are going to believe I qualified 3.2 seconds faster than a Ducati 1198S, at Eastern Creek, on my LAMS approved Honda CB400F”.
 McMenamin’s Championship Aspirations Are Black Flagged () 07/06 12:02 PM 
. . Re: McMenamin’s Championship Aspirations Are B (racefan) 07/06 02:41 PM
. . . . Racefan (Fergus Gibson) 07/06 05:24 PM
. . . . . . Terry Plums (Fergus Gibson) 07/07 08:02 AM
. . . . . . . . This space intentionally left blank (junkmale) 07/08 02:01 PM
. . . . . . Re: P Mc Menamen (Zaja (senior)) 08/14 02:01 AM
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