07/09/2026
Last weekend we were testing the blower bike at Motopark track.
Friday started by setting up the camp and getting the bike ready. Since the day was very misty until early afternoon there wasn't huge rush. We got to the line-up when a short rain stopped the racing. Fortunately the track crew got the track dried pretty quickly so there was still time for one try before track closing time.
The plan was to do just a short pass to see if everything works as planned, slightly over 60ft or so. Although Marko said that he might run it a bit longer if everything feels fine. The bike started fine as usual, then a healthy sounding burnout and staging the bike. The bike launched hard and kept running strongly although sounding maybe slightly rough. Unfortunately it was heading towards center line right from the start so eventually Marko clicked off the 1/8 mile reflector. The time slip was looking pretty nice too: 1.02s to 60ft, 2.68s to 330ft and 4.03s to 1/8 mile.
When checking the log and bike we found a couple of less pleasant surprises. The front cylinder was dropped off around 3s but that was almost expected since the fueling was intentionally adjusted on the fat side. But a worse thing was that also the oil pressure was dropped about at the same time and due to that the rear cylinder rod bearings were toast. And the rod was damaged too. So some work ahead again.
Unfortunately our spare rods were missing one essential modification so we couldn't use them. But Jaska Salakari promised to bring a modified rod on Saturday morning. So while waiting for that we got everything else ready and also investigated possible reasons for oil pressure loss. Once we got the new rod the bike was assembled again pretty quickly. Unfortunately mysterious oil pressure issues continued during warm-up so we had to continue troubleshooting. After several checks and tests it was finally looking like we got the issue fixed and there was still time to make it to the last round of the day. But then the rain hit again and racing was called off for the day. So no any runs for us on Saturday.
Weather forecast for Sunday was looking pretty bad too. Maybe some rain and in any case it would be very cold. On Sunday morning it was looking that the day was going to be rather dry but it was pretty windy and cold indeed, around 8°C. Any way, we warmed up the bike and headed to the line-up. But while standing there shivering Marko came to conclusion that it isn't worth of the risk to hit the track at those conditions. So we headed back to the pits and started packing up...
So results for the weekend were somewhat mixed. Naturally it would have been good to get more runs and get the oil pressure problem sorted out for sure. But on the other hand the only run was pretty promising after all. Strong performance up to half track especially considering the conservative setup. And besides the bearing failure the engine was looking happy without any signs of detonation or melting. So looking forward for the next season!
Video interview by Salo Livestream (https://www.youtube.com/salolivestream)
