This year, there was a Japanese team at the WHPSC for the first time. They were accompanied by a camera crew as this whole project was sponsored in part to produce a couple of segments for an NHK show called “Sugowaza” which roughly translates to “extreme engineering”. This past March, the first segment was broadcast, where Team Super Ketta (Ketta is slang for bike in the Nagoya dialect) put together a bike and competed against Team Cygnus. Since the time of that broadcast, the team got busy building a second generation bike, which they brought to Battle Mountain.
The first part of a two segment show was broadcast today.What follows is a series of screen caps from a very poor video stream of the show. [editorial comments in brackets]
Note also that any mis translations are solely my responsibility, due to my Japanese being at about a 3rd grade level.
The lead in starts with a review of the 2015 world record of just under 140 kph.
Text says: World Human Powered Speed Challenge (spelled out phonetically in Japanese)
The two characters on the left say “Human Power”
A brief review of the three principle members of the team: the rider, the team leader (Ikegami, who also designed the internals of the bike) and the fairing designer from Toray.
The length of the entire project was 10 months, starting in December of last year. There objective was to go 140 kph to set a new record.
Some footage of the earlier race in March on a test track in Japan, with the Mark 1 bike vs. Jan Marcel in Cygnus Chronos.
Now the credits to the program.
Text says: Battle Mountain Route 305, America, state of Nevada.
A diagram showing the course, with the timing section at the end.
Now a discussion of how the new bike is different than the first one. Super Ketta 162; the number means the 2nd bike built in 2016.
The new bike is smaller and the clearances are at a minimum. Toe clearance is 1 mm. .
They are relieved that the toe clearance is OK.
They estimate with the new shape that the aerodynamic drag should be decreased by 30%.
Also a switch from windshield to camera.
Front and rear suspension (the speciality of Ikegami, who works for Yamaha motorcycles).
Now some footage of Monday morning qualifying.72.42 kph = 45 mph is the minimum qualifying speed to run the 5 mile course. Calvin has a cameo.
Team Japan goes 88.25 kph and they are happy.
After qualifying, they rank 7th.
The teams are listed in the following order:
- Holland A (Jan Marcel)
- Canada A (Todd)
- Italy (Andrea)
- Holland B (Jan)
- Australia (Gareth)
- Canada B (Calvin)
- Japan (Ryohei)
During the rider debrief, Ryohei talked about noise in the drivetrain. There is a bigger issue. Here, Ikegami is being told that the handling feels very floaty as if the rider can’t feel any solid contact with the ground. He would prefer that the suspension be removed. This is bad news.
Now a long montage of the team frantically working on the bike. At the time of the debrief, there was only four hours before the racers had to go out for the evening session. The drivetrain noise is traced to wheel imbalance, and the fact that the wheel fairings are not stiff enough.
The suspension is more problematic. One issue: the front mount for the drivetrain subframe will not bolt on correctly since the replacement aluminum mount doesn’t have the correct holes.
In the meantime, riders are setting up for Monday evening, and there is no sign of Team Japan. A good number of bikes are going above 120 kph now, and this changes the seeding.
Working late into the night.
All Tuesday runs were cancelled, and it was decided to use the seeding for Tues AM for Wednesday AM. Note that Team Japan is not scheduled to run.
Wednesday midday: at the seeding meeting, Team Japan gets a rude shock. Since they were not able to run on Monday evening, their seeding position has now dropped to 13th, and only 12 bikes can run in the evening. Their only choice is to sign up for Thursday morning.
Ikegami being told they can’t run Wednesday evening. Do not play poker with this man.
That evening, Todd Reichert resets the record to 142.04 mph = 88 mph.
Team Japan is in the stands. Ikegami says that Todd’s run was unbelievable.
The hosts of the show, Junior Chihara and female sidekick, meet up with the team and the new bike. He comments that the new bike is totally different and much smaller than the one they saw in March.
In response to a question, Ryohei says that the bike is ridiculously difficult to ride since there is only 2.5° of steering available in either direction. [at this point, my wife comments that I shouldn’t be allowed to ride any two wheeled streamliners anymore]
Thursday morning: team Japan has four unsuccessful launches and are told that they can’t run. Apparently the removal of the suspension has changed the handling of the bike at low speeds. [There is a two minute launch window for each bike since we try to run four or five bikes down the course during a heat. The faster bikes take about 6 minutes to get down the course, and we are only allowed to close route 305 for twenty minutes at a time]
However, there were some other cancellations, so we squeezed in an extra heat, and this time Super Ketta 162 made it down the course, albeit with some new scratches on the shell.
The team is happy that they went 30 kph faster than qualifying.
However they were a little disappointed to learn that the winds were above the legal limit of 1.67 m/s
Also, Ryohei says he ran out of gears. More mechanical work for the team…Now lots of dramatic music: what is going to happen next? They have only two more chances to run!
[the NHK people wanted Ryohei to run again in the evening, and ideally both morning and evening for the rest of the week, but he put his foot down and said only once a day. He was now seeded fast enough to run Friday and Saturday evening]
Tune in next week: same Bat time, same Bat channel!
Update: the show is available online here:
http://www.miomio.tv/watch/cc295095/
(required flash)
Thanks, Jun!
Geez, reading this after watching the show….Now things make more sense.