updates

Not a whole lot to report.  Mid America is coming up on June 18-22 -- a real "mancation" planned with Wilson and Doug, who have both been there before.  I can't wait -- only 2 weeks away.  In the interim is the next MRA race.  Will bring the mono in the hopes of doing a bit more testing and tuning.  I did raise the forks up in the triple by 10mm to try to get some more weight over the front.  Might have been a bit of overkill, but I can always halve that length if it is too skittery.  I can also fit the steering dampener, which I will take with me.

I have also started another helmet-painting exercise.  This time, I got a Roof Diversion helmet from the UK.  Not many of these around these parts.  It was in VG condition -- a display model, apparently.  It is very light, and is quite an expensive helmet when bought new.  This had a 2002 build date, so it is not legal for racing, so I was wanting a nice street helmet.  It originally came in red, and looked like this:

What I plan on doing is painting it in Gulf Oil colours, orange stripe, with a dark blue pinstripe, on pale blue.  The striping (I hope) is this pattern:

Here's where I'm at as of today -- tire bead breaker is acting as a helmet stand.  Orange has been painted and masked, and now the blue pinstripe has been taped:

I'm simply using Testors plastic model paint at this point.  Goes on fairly smooth, and the grey primer covered well over top of the stock red.  The helmet itself was scuffed with a plastic scuff pad -- no abrasive sand paper needed!  The last helmet I painted, I used auto-air.  A very coarse paint that required layers and layers of clear, along with wet-sanding in between.  I still plan on applying multiple coats of clear -- here's hoping less sanding is required to get a shiny finish.  I have gulf oil stickers in hand (hopefully they are small enough not to be affected by the helmet's compound curves) as well as replacement "ROOF" decals on the way.  Stay tuned.