December 4, 2007

Welcome from Bryan Fil

Hi, I’m Bryan Fil – “Woodzee” to my friends. (I was actually born as Woods, and the nickname stuck after I crashed into the woods in a downhill ski race and dislocated my hip.)

I’ve worked at Yamaha Canada since December 1999, currently as the General Services Coordinator in charge of fleet and property management. That basically means I maintain and supervise all our company vehicles and events trailers, and I’m responsible for anything that goes wrong in our building (except computers).

I like working at Yamaha because of the passionate people. Also, if I’m ever frustrated about something in my life, there’s always a new “toy” to check out. This always takes my mind off of the problem and all I think about is just riding. Sort of a reminder of why you’re working hard….so you can play later!

I currently own and ride a full race-ready 2006 YZF-R6, a 2002 YZFR6, and a 2003 YZF600.

My first bike ever was a 1989 RZ350, and I’ve owned a full race-ready 2000 YZF-R6, and a 2001 YZF-R6 (both I sold).

My hobbies include amateur road racing, watching road racing, wrenching on motorcycles, soccer, and spending time with my friends and family.

As a blogger, I think I can offer a good perspective as an active participant of track/lapping days and a licensed road racer – showing the highs and lows of this environment, from personal successes to hard failures.

I also ride as much as possible away from the track when family time permits, so maybe I can shed some light on that side of sport riding as well when I blog.

I expect there will be some crossover into the sport bike category, because of my street bikes, when I’m blogging.

And there might be the occasional post about other stuff – such as the ice racing I’m hoping to get into this winter, and the fact that my oldest son is getting to the age where he may be getting into dirt bikes (which means I need to get there, too!)

Bryan

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2 Responses to “Welcome from Bryan Fil”

1. Bob Hogg says:
   

   Interesting – today…. – what are the levels of amateur road races including cc’s etc. I do like watching RRacing but I’m afraid I’m a snob and only follow the world tour. Maybe it’s because your sport is really not marketed in Ontario?

   Is the YZF – R6 a street bike factory prepped to race in a specific class and be ridden on the street as well?

   Having your son race…..I made a tough decision with my son at a young age and opened all team sports doors for him instead of racing. Team leader and team play was the quest. Sometimes I regret that – hope you have good time with your son racing.

   Ice racing – where is that done?

   We played (not raced) on ice ovals a lot with bikes back in the day – it’s a blast. You can ride all day hard, its so much fun. We ran our home made flat track bike on the ice (that was before people just bought stuff) Kawasaki rotary valve engine – but we welded a 6 petal reed block to the cylinder so two 34 mm carbs – one on the rotary valve one on the reed. We also built a parallelogram rear suspension. It just planted the back wheel and the front would never lift more the 6 inches off the ground.

   We will follow you progress – have fun.

   Hello Bob,

   Thanks for your comments! To answer your questions, I run in the R.A.C.E. series (Ontario Regional) which is based out of Shannonville Motorsport Park(www.shannonville.com) There are many classes depending on your bike, 125’s, 250’s, 600’s, 1000’s, Side Cars, Lightweight Twins, Heavyweight Twins, Vintage, etc. As with any race club we all want more exposure but this costs money and many of these small clubs can’t afford high profile marketing. Stop by your local dealer and inquire about local racing (road, dirt, etc.) or visit the next Motorcycle show in your area as many offer free floor space to M/C clubs, etc. which a lot of the local clubs optimize.

   The YZF-R6 is a race inspired street bike which falls in the sport category. With some minor modifications it is easily ready to race in the 600 production class. I’ve taken too many weight saving unused parts off my race bike to make this transition back and forth a nightmare. Don’t get me wrong it could be done.

   For years there has been 1-way or Oval racing on Lake Scugog, Ont. with various classes including kids. I’ve been to watch but never raced there. I have done a 3-hour endurance 2-way race on Balsam Lake, Ont. a couple of years ago. Lots of fun!! So far it sounds like racing this year is a bust but a couple of guys are going to have a fun day on Balsam sort of like what you were doing with your old “project”

   Thanks for your interest!!

   Bryan…..
   

   December 6th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
2. William Balfour says:
   

   The General Motors Centre in Oshawa is actually having Xtreme International Ice Racing on January 30th, 2010 which will have modified speedway bikes and quads racing on the same ice that our Oshawa Generals play on.
   Contact me if you’re looking for more information or if you’d like to possibly race in it as well.

   Sorry for the late response, William! I’d love to do some ice racing (it’s been a few years!) but unfortunately, I’ve organized a hockey tournament near Peterborough this weekend. Damn it. Definitely keep me posted of future events like this. Thanks for reading! DB

   January 22nd, 2010 at 3:44 pm

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