You're welcome Buddy!
It's about cost savings, convenience and enjoyment for me.
Cost: I can get tires cheaper from our trackside vendor, or from mail order than I can from a dealer.
Convenience: When I'm at the track, I don't want to have to take the wheels off my bike, take them to the tire trailer and have to wait. My bike is unloaded and ready to go, and I get to then kick back in my chair with an A&W and listen to the amusing stuff that my son comes up with because he's so excited to be at the track. I'm also a bit afraid that when I'm at the track and rushing to get my bike back together to ride, I'm going to make a mistake...forget to safety wire something back together, etc....I take my time at home in my garage so I can enjoy Alex and my A&W.
Enjoyment: I enjoy being in my garage with my bikes, I enjoy playing with my tire machine. Motorcycle stuff is just fun. It's become something my son and I can do together, then enjoy an A&W when we're done working.
Yes....we drink a LOT or root beer. ;-)
Actually his drink of choice is Caffeine Free Coke...aka "Gold Coke".
My philosphy and how I learned to balance tires is to look for the light spot. Micah looks for the heavy spot on the bottom, I look for the light spot on top. (An EXTREMELY minor
difference, mind you..it's just perspective, nothing more). Then, I mark that high spot with chalk and move it to the 9 o'clock position. If it returns to the same spot, then I do it again
to notice how fast the wheel returns the light spot to 12 o'clock. That tells me how many wheel weights I need to affix to the tire at that light spot...You learn to judge based on experience...and it's just a freakin' guess. Initially I hold the weights on with Gorilla tape as I make adjustments.
When I feel the wheel is balanced, then I'll turn the marked spot to 9, 12, 3, and 6 o'clock positions and look for movement. A balanced wheel/tire should not move in all 4 positions (a bit of movement is not cause to start over, it all depends on how anal-retentive you are). If it passes this test, you have it balanced.
Before I take the tire/wheel off the balancer, I'll spin it on the balancer and eye ball the sides for trueness/roundness. Any wobble/bulge would indicate probably a defective tire. I haven't seen it happen in over 15 years, but it's happened.
I do tires for myself and my friends. I'm not going to send them out with half-assed balanced tires.
I've also had an off-balance front at VIR back in August 2005 (don't ask me why I remember dates like that). On the front straight my front end would feel not quite like a jack hammer, but a pogo effect between like 90-110 mph indicated. Then it would smooth out again at 120. I took the wheel off and took it to the tire trailer and Chris Moon put it on his balancer. It was 3/4 ounce off. Yet another reason I decided to start doing my own tires.