Jak wrote:Sounds like a good day out
Did you see this guy? Mate of mine's bike (well ... it was ... he sold it on Thursday, the new owner took it to the track). Apparently the oil filter came loose and covered the back end in oil, he went flying and then the bike burst into flames
![Confused :?](./images/smilies/icon_confused.gif)
Dunno what part of the day it happened, just know it was Friday. Photo when it was still alive....
![Image](http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c222/blimey01/RYE_1698.jpg)
Er, um, yes. The "blimey" on the tail was pretty distinctive.
I have to say that choice words were spoken in the paddock afterwards by a lot of people in the intermediate group as we watched him do a couple of laps with clouds of smoke coming from the bike. Everyone could smell the stuff, even if they couldn't see it, so frankly I'm not sure why the marshalls didn't bring everyone in immediately. Just after the chicane he crashed on his own oil, dumping most of it onto the apex, and slid off the track. Luckily for us it was nearly the end of the session, so the novice group got to sit in the paddock while the marshalls stared at the oil and performed their mystic rites of exorcism.
I did find a bit of his oil later on, but luckily nobody crashed because of it.
In case he's giving your mate shit, I don't really buy the oil filter explanation. I certainly didn't see any flames (just smoke), and I went past as he was just struggling to his feet. Plus I didn't see any charred wreckage later, just a CBR with its sump off and some slightly dirty bodywork. We could all see the huge clouds of smoke coming off the bike from halfway around the track, plus you could smell it burning. Would the cases be hot enough to do that? I doubt it, but o/c I could be wrong. And I've certainly never seen or heard of that happening to a filter. They're only supposed to be on hand-tight anyway, so it's not like you're supposed to torque them down. Seems more likely something was well and truly fecked in the engine and the filter came off when he crashed it (or he took the filter off later and decided it was too loose). And he should have noticed the smell and the clouds of smoke, frankly, so it sounds to me like an excuse.