And just in case you are having a problem seeing the "Lee's Speed Shop" on the side of the tank, below is a larger version of the bottom half of the poster:
If you are in the area, you won't regret taking time to attend!
Showing posts with label Race Results. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Race Results. Show all posts
Tonight (Friday Sept 9th) vintage flat track bikes will take to the Knoxville half-mile for some exciting dirt track action bringing back memories of past glory. Josh Koch's win there last year resulted in this year's poster featuring him along with the Bill Hofmeister owned Iron XL which he rode to victory (with porting work by yours truly). On Saturday the AMA Pro Flat Trackers will follow suit and battle it out for current bragging rights.
If you are in the area, you won't regret taking time to attend!
If you are in the area, you won't regret taking time to attend!
I didn't want to let this slide until it was old news, so I don't have a lot of details yet, but.... The Pro Gas winner at the AMRA season opener in Bowling Green Kentucky last weekend was my friend Joe Lieske on his big inch V-Rod nick named "The Disruptor."
Joe and "The Disruptor" in fine form - two years ago!
Despite rain on Friday and unseasonably cold the remainder of the weekend, Joe managed to qualify in the #3 position. Not too shabby since Joe spent the entire last season chasing gremlins and didn't have a single opportunity to take the bike down the track with the big motor in it (though he did make a few passes with a stock Destroyer engine installed just to see if he could stand to go that slow).
Of course after qualifying was over, Joe remembered something he had noticed two years ago, switched his gearing , and ran quicker in eliminations than the #1 qualifying time. From there it was smooth sailing to the win in the finals. Cool.
Congratulations Joe, and here's wishing you a successful 2011 season!
I got a call from Bill Hofmeister yesterday to report on Friday night's Knoxville Vintage National Flat Track race. If you follow my blog, you know that I am really a drag racer, not a flat tracker, so some of the details may be a little muddled, but the main points should be correct.
As I have mentioned before, I did a little top end work on Billy's old iron head Sportster engined XR. Porting, some pistons, and some modern coatings in the combustion chambers. Nothing super trick, but the things I did turned out pretty well. Bill raced the bike a time or two last summer with good results, but this spring we put a modern wet clutch in the bike, and that seems to have been a game changer. It always helps if the power from the engine gets all the way to the rear wheel!
So it was off to the vintage flat track races at Davenport, Iowa as part of the AMCA national meet. After sorting out some issues with the rear chain, Bill took his XL engined XR to the "Dash for Cash," which he reportedly was leading by half the length of a straightaway when he ran out of gas. He got beat by a wheel length, dropping from the first place $750 prize money to the second place $0. No, that's not a typo. Second paid zero/ zip/ nada.
But all that is just lead in for the real story. Billy brought the XR back to me last Monday morning so that I could work out a few bugs (such as aligning the rear wheel to prevent further chain problems). Since the bike showed such promise in Davenport, Billy decided to put a young gun on it for Knoxville. Since he also uses the old iron head to help promote his venture in producing street going XR replicas, he wanted all the press he could get.
The young man Billy decided to put on the bike for Knoxville is National #68 Josh Koch from Cedar Minnesota. If you are not familiar with flat track racing, earning a National number plate is a really big deal. In fact, I believe there have only been about a dozen Minnesotans to win the right to a National number in the history of Grand National racing. Now, Billy is one of those riders, having held several National numbers, as well as a Canadian National Championship, however Josh not only has earned a National number; he has another advantage. He is nearly 40 years younger than Billy!
It seems that Josh is presently looking for a team with an XR750 that is in need of a rider. It sounds as though Billy didn't have too much trouble talking Josh into riding for him with the lure that if he were to beat bunch of vintage XR750s while mounted on an old iron head, it should really get some attention. And that is just what he did!
I took a long time to get to the punchline, but here it is. Josh Koch won the main event in the Open Class at the Knoxville Vintage Nationals on the Grand National Replica/Lee's Speed Shop sponsored lowly old iron head XR by about the length of the straightaway. How 'bout that!
As I have mentioned before, I did a little top end work on Billy's old iron head Sportster engined XR. Porting, some pistons, and some modern coatings in the combustion chambers. Nothing super trick, but the things I did turned out pretty well. Bill raced the bike a time or two last summer with good results, but this spring we put a modern wet clutch in the bike, and that seems to have been a game changer. It always helps if the power from the engine gets all the way to the rear wheel!
So it was off to the vintage flat track races at Davenport, Iowa as part of the AMCA national meet. After sorting out some issues with the rear chain, Bill took his XL engined XR to the "Dash for Cash," which he reportedly was leading by half the length of a straightaway when he ran out of gas. He got beat by a wheel length, dropping from the first place $750 prize money to the second place $0. No, that's not a typo. Second paid zero/ zip/ nada.
But all that is just lead in for the real story. Billy brought the XR back to me last Monday morning so that I could work out a few bugs (such as aligning the rear wheel to prevent further chain problems). Since the bike showed such promise in Davenport, Billy decided to put a young gun on it for Knoxville. Since he also uses the old iron head to help promote his venture in producing street going XR replicas, he wanted all the press he could get.
The young man Billy decided to put on the bike for Knoxville is National #68 Josh Koch from Cedar Minnesota. If you are not familiar with flat track racing, earning a National number plate is a really big deal. In fact, I believe there have only been about a dozen Minnesotans to win the right to a National number in the history of Grand National racing. Now, Billy is one of those riders, having held several National numbers, as well as a Canadian National Championship, however Josh not only has earned a National number; he has another advantage. He is nearly 40 years younger than Billy!
It seems that Josh is presently looking for a team with an XR750 that is in need of a rider. It sounds as though Billy didn't have too much trouble talking Josh into riding for him with the lure that if he were to beat bunch of vintage XR750s while mounted on an old iron head, it should really get some attention. And that is just what he did!
I took a long time to get to the punchline, but here it is. Josh Koch won the main event in the Open Class at the Knoxville Vintage Nationals on the Grand National Replica/Lee's Speed Shop sponsored lowly old iron head XR by about the length of the straightaway. How 'bout that!
Here is a link that I have been meaning to put up here for some time now. A while back I had a conversation with Dave Iverson of Iverson Originals about his LSR (Land Speed Racing) Knucklehead. Of course I took so long to get to it, that I have already forgotten some of the details, so best to let Dave's web site speak for itself.
I borrowed this pic from Dave's site just to whet your appetite!
I think you will agree that Dave and his crew have done the Knucklehead world proud with their outstanding accomplishments using a small displacement single carb motor.
There must be something in the water in Sweden, and whatever it is, it is pretty potent. And not only that, but it evidently has been in the water for a long, long time. My grandfather on my Dad's side came here from Sweden in the very first years of the 20th century; my grandmother's parents a generation earlier. Apparently they passed the disease on to me. Whatever the cause of this "bug" it manifests itself by causing the infected person to undertake totally illogical projects such as drag racing with decades old technology. 
The 120 cubic inch Knuckle weighs in at 432 pounds, and as can be seen here, the 6 inch M&H slick with no wheelie bars makes for some great photos! What a great looking bike!
When I began drag racing back in the mid 1980's, the Knucklehead engine design was over 50 years old, and the last one had left the factory 40 years earlier. It looks as though my Swedish friend may have contracted an even more severe case than what I suffered through, since he is currently racing with the same engine design, which now is approaching its 80th birthday.
The 120 cubic inch Knuckle weighs in at 432 pounds, and as can be seen here, the 6 inch M&H slick with no wheelie bars makes for some great photos! What a great looking bike!
There has been some speculation recently as to whether Joe Lieske's drag bike, nicknamed "The Disruptor," might now be the world's fastest Harley V-Rod drag bike. To date his best pass has been an 8.684 et and 150.21 mph in the quarter mile. Some of the guys I know who are deeply involved with the sport say they have not heard of anyone going faster or quicker on a V-Rod. A superficial check of the Internet by yours truly failed to turn up anything. The way I figure it, the quickest way to find out if anyone else can lay claim to the title is to just put it out there. I have little doubt that someone will speak up if they have gone faster.
By the way, if you have one faster, you might want to speak up pretty soon. Joe is shopping for a nitrous oxide kit for The Disruptor and those times will likely change.
This Monday morning when I got into the shop, there was an message on my answering machine from Bill Hofmeister thanking me for the work I had done on his iron head XR. It seems that Saturday night he ran the Vintage Twin Class at the flat track races in Cambridge. Bill managed to lap all but two of his competitor's bikes TWICE! Bill is an absolutely great rider, and I chalk up most of that success to his ability, but I would still like to think that without my porting he would have only lapped them once.
As I mentioned in my last post, Joe Lieske took his big V-Rod to B.I.R. this past weekend for some 1/4 mile action. His best times for the weekend included an 8.68 second E.T., a 150 M.P.H. top speed, and a 1.175 second 60 foot time. That coupled with a semi final appearance was not too shabby ....not too shabby at all!
This past weekend Joe Lieske had his Pro V-Rod out for some test passes at Grove Creek ,the local eighth mile strip. Very promising to say the least. 5.55s at 130MPH. And the kicker is that he had the rev limiter set 1000 RPM low. Joe will be at BIR this weekend running the quarter mile, so expectations are pretty high.
Heating the rear tire.
Congratulations to Joe Lieske, who had a pretty good outing last week at the 2008 AHDRA Sturgis Nationals. Riding his back up bike, a V-Rod Destroyer, he was the number one qualifier in the SuperGas class. SuperGas is a class with a 6.40 index for 1/8 mile tracks. Joe qualified right on the money, running a 6.40. It doesn't get any closer than that.
Joe made it to the semi-finals where he was defeated by only .002 of a second. Pretty close!
Here is Joe during opening ceremonies being introduced with the #1 qualifiers in the other classes. Joe is the one in the orange leathers.
Besides Lee's Speed Shop(that's me), Joe is sponsered by PMFR, Faribault Harley Davidson, and American Thunder.
Reports have come flooding in over the last few days from the various local racers that carry the "Lee's Speed Shop" name on their bikes. All Good news, too!
Local flat track legend Billy Hofmeister called me Saturday to let me know that he had cruised to an easy victory at the most recent Raceway Park event on his Rotax. Billy also reported that the rider he put on his iron head XLR found out that the bike will now run way more rpm than ever before. Apparently the bike would not go into 3rd gear, but they found that it was still pulling in 2nd at the end of the straightaways. It's a good thing I put heavier valve springs on it to go along with the porting work!
This morning Joe Lieske stopped in with a great big drag racing grin on his face. He had been at Brainerd International Raceway this past weekend with his "practice bike", a V-Rod Destroyer. After getting his competition license (to run under 10 seconds) last time out, this was his first outing in real competition. He had a good weekend, making it all the way to the semifinals. Looking over his time slips this morning, I saw that he cut a .005 as well as a .007 light. Running low 9.90's at 127 mph despite being on the rev limiter 150 feet before the finish line, not too shabby. He left here to continue his quest to locate the software to enable him to change the rev limiter (back ordered from Harley - go figure).
Last but not least, Jason Clampitt called me shortly after Joe left, to give me his good news. He and his Sportster dragbike made it to the finals at the Divisional race that he attended recently. And if that is not enough, he turned in one of his best weekends ever at Brainerd this last weekend. It was a "double header" so he actually entered his bike in "Bike 1" and "Bike 2" for each race. That's a total of 4 races. Not only was his little Sportster running good, with a best of 9.91 and 132 mph, but he won a total of 16 rounds over the weekend! The results come down like this; one quarter final appearance, one semi final appearance, one runner up, and one first place finish!
So, a big congratulations to all three of you, and a big thanks for keeping my shop's name out there!
Local flat track legend Billy Hofmeister called me Saturday to let me know that he had cruised to an easy victory at the most recent Raceway Park event on his Rotax. Billy also reported that the rider he put on his iron head XLR found out that the bike will now run way more rpm than ever before. Apparently the bike would not go into 3rd gear, but they found that it was still pulling in 2nd at the end of the straightaways. It's a good thing I put heavier valve springs on it to go along with the porting work!
This morning Joe Lieske stopped in with a great big drag racing grin on his face. He had been at Brainerd International Raceway this past weekend with his "practice bike", a V-Rod Destroyer. After getting his competition license (to run under 10 seconds) last time out, this was his first outing in real competition. He had a good weekend, making it all the way to the semifinals. Looking over his time slips this morning, I saw that he cut a .005 as well as a .007 light. Running low 9.90's at 127 mph despite being on the rev limiter 150 feet before the finish line, not too shabby. He left here to continue his quest to locate the software to enable him to change the rev limiter (back ordered from Harley - go figure).
Last but not least, Jason Clampitt called me shortly after Joe left, to give me his good news. He and his Sportster dragbike made it to the finals at the Divisional race that he attended recently. And if that is not enough, he turned in one of his best weekends ever at Brainerd this last weekend. It was a "double header" so he actually entered his bike in "Bike 1" and "Bike 2" for each race. That's a total of 4 races. Not only was his little Sportster running good, with a best of 9.91 and 132 mph, but he won a total of 16 rounds over the weekend! The results come down like this; one quarter final appearance, one semi final appearance, one runner up, and one first place finish!
So, a big congratulations to all three of you, and a big thanks for keeping my shop's name out there!
Recently I wrote about Flow Area and Cam Selection In that post I mentioned Jason's dragbike heads as an example. Well, last week I finished up his heads. I was quite happy with the results, since I picked up 10 cfm from .200" lift and above on the intakes, and 20cfm on the exhausts. I was also able to get the valve to valve clearance so he could leave the 1.7:1 rockers in the engine. One drawback was that we lost a little compression ratio due to sinking the valves. Jason somehow managed to get the bike together for the weekend, and called me Monday with the results.
The bike had been running 10.13's consistantly, but even with a gear change that Jason thinks (and I aggree) hurt him, the bike is now running 9.96's. Congratulations Jason!
Of course we all know that you never want to make more than one change at a time, but in this case Jason didn't have much of a choice. He had found that the bike had been built with a misalignment between the transmission and wheel sprockets. The only sprocket that he could get on short notice to align things lowered his gear ratio. His 60 foot time increased (got slower) and the bike was practically nosing over before the finish line, yet he still lowered his e.t.'s by nearly two tenths. That's kind of exciting!
Now before you "turn up your nose" at e.t.'s in the 9.90's, keep in mind that this is only a 98" engine and Jason is a big guy (over 300 suited up to race).
Jason's dragbike last fall at the Kokesh Drags
We are all looking forward to what a gear change and a little more tuning might reveal!
It took all of the willpower that I posses. I really had to reach down deep inside to make myself NOT do something stupid. Though I have never had a drug habit, I am quite sure that the temptation is of the same magnitude.
It started when Jason Clampitt called me a about a week ago to remind me that the Kokesh All Harley Drags which he sponsors (and bears the Kokesh name) were coming up this weekend. I had, of course, seen the race on the Grove Creek Dragway schedule, but to be honest I hadn't given it a lot of thought. Since officially retiring from drag racing, I have been on a strip only about a half dozen times, and about half of those times was in my '58 Studebaker Hawk. The newest bike in our household is my wife's '47 Knucklehead. A stock 61 cubic inch with handshift, it's not what many would consider drag bike material. Besides, most every one I know with any sort of antique bike that I might have been able to coerce into racing would be at the antique motorcycle meet in Davenport Iowa for the weekend.
Left: Jason during test and tune
But, it would be nice to help support the yearly race. In fact, events like this tend to just disappear if they don't get enough participation. And participation doesn't require being highly competitive. The clincher was probably the fact that it was to be an evening event with the gates opening at 4:00 pm. This would enable me to keep my shop open normal hours Saturday morning.
So the 61" Knuckle it would be! This bike has always run very strong for what it is. The motor, which I completely rebuilt back in about 1989, is completely stock right down to the cam,with the exception of the most mild of porting work and a stock later model carb. When I say it runs strong I mainly base that on the fact that it will chirp the rear tire and pop the front wheel about an inch off the pavement when hitting second gear hard (yes, it does have a ratchet lid on the trans).
Well, you can't go drag racing with a muffler, so the first order of business was to find a piece of straight pipe to install in place of the muffler that normally resides on the end of the stock reproduction 2 into 1 pipe. I couldn't believe I didn't have a chunk of pipe long enough in my stash of junk parts. I did have an old slash cut 2" diameter muffler that had been gutted though. By welding a short section of straight pipe onto the front of it I had a rather painless "racing" exhaust system.
Let's see, a drag bike really needs a velocity stack. That was easy, since I sell them in my eBay store The late Shovelhead Kehein carb that I have on the Knuck has the same bolt pattern as an S&S "B" carb. A little rejetting, and I would be all set!
Oh, that's right: any kind of consistent launch would require a tachometer. Luckily I had saved an old Superglide tach from a crashed bike years ago. It still works despite the glass face having been broken and now removed completely.
You may be thinking "That's not so stupid, taking an old bike out to the dragstrip just for fun." Yeah, but that's not the part that I really struggled with. The stupid urge that I had to fight off so heroically was the urge to strip all of the excess weight off the bike for the weekend. Stock fenders; way bigger and heavier than needed. Besides I have an old flat fender that could have been shortened up to the bare minimum. Crash bars; dead weight! A little bates style solo would look good in place of the big stock solo with pogo stick! No need for a headlight; its DRAG RACING! I even toyed with the idea of changing the big stock 16" front wheel over to a 19" I have laying around. Of course that would have eliminated my front brake, making it harder to do a smokey burnout. And I did intend to do some smokey burnouts!
Well, since I am still alive and able to write, it is obvious that my wife Jane did not kill me, and that means I resisted the temptation to strip her bike down to "racing weight". But let me tell you, it was close at times. Even as late as Saturday morning I was looking at that big old front fender and thinking how much air it would trap!
Other than emptying the saddlebags, adjusting the tire pressures (60 in front, 20 in rear), removing the mirror, and tilting the handlebars down as much as possible, I managed to load the Knuck up in the back of our pickup without further modifications.
I wish I could say that Jane had as much fun at the races as I did, because I simply had a blast! I am sure that her enjoyment was based mostly on watching how much fun I was having. I think those of us who are husbands often take for granted how blessed we are in having wives who are willing to find enjoyment in the companionship of doing things together. Too often the "doing" is of those things we want to do, and not what our wives may have chosen. (As usual, I owe you one Sweety)
Upon arrival at the track and getting ready to tech in, I discovered that I had left my lace up work boots at home. I had moved them from the "to go" pile over next to a chair to change into them. At the last minute I decided to wear my cowboy boots until we got to the track. Hmm....slippery bottomed boots with a narrow heel were not my first choice for doing a burnout with a rocker (heel/toe) clutch pedal. I momentarily considered not doing any water burnouts, but quickly discarded that thought as counterproductive to the whole purpose of having fun!
If you have never done a burnout as part of drag racing, here's the deal. The purpose of the water burnout is to clean and heat up the rear tire for better traction. If you are using a treaded street tire and water stays in the grooves you have probably defeated the purpose. Some guys don't do them for that reason. But when you are running a 61" Knucklehead, the real purpose of the burnout is to have fun and show off!
When you see someone doing a water burnout, and they rev their motor but get very little smoke , it is usually due to using too low a gear. The smoke comes from tire speed, not engine speed. The water may do a little cleaning, but is mostly there to enable you to initially break the tire loose.
I do my water burnouts in 3rd gear. Now it is a piece of cake to break the tire loose in water by putting both feet on the ground, taking all of your weight off the bike, and holding the front brake on. With a foot clutch however, that is not so easy to do. Since I have the front brake lever on the right side like a late model, I have to work that along with the throttle with one hand. Add to this, the fact that a stock springer front brake is about a half step better than totally useless, and you can see that the burnout was the most complicated thing to do. Getting any kind of braking force on the front required squeezing with all four fingers, which left only my thumb and palm to control the throttle. Using the rocker clutch necessitated having the bike leaning slightly to the right when initiating the burnout. The lean meant that the rear of the bike would start to slide out to the left when I dropped the clutch. I also wound up putting much of my weight on the seat. This meant that the extra weight coupled with the limited horsepower of the little 61" Knuck would make the tire try to "hook up" and move the bike forward out of the water.
Left: the Knuck
Right: Denny on left and Ken on right
It started when Jason Clampitt called me a about a week ago to remind me that the Kokesh All Harley Drags which he sponsors (and bears the Kokesh name) were coming up this weekend. I had, of course, seen the race on the Grove Creek Dragway schedule, but to be honest I hadn't given it a lot of thought. Since officially retiring from drag racing, I have been on a strip only about a half dozen times, and about half of those times was in my '58 Studebaker Hawk. The newest bike in our household is my wife's '47 Knucklehead. A stock 61 cubic inch with handshift, it's not what many would consider drag bike material. Besides, most every one I know with any sort of antique bike that I might have been able to coerce into racing would be at the antique motorcycle meet in Davenport Iowa for the weekend.
Left: Jason during test and tune
But, it would be nice to help support the yearly race. In fact, events like this tend to just disappear if they don't get enough participation. And participation doesn't require being highly competitive. The clincher was probably the fact that it was to be an evening event with the gates opening at 4:00 pm. This would enable me to keep my shop open normal hours Saturday morning.
So the 61" Knuckle it would be! This bike has always run very strong for what it is. The motor, which I completely rebuilt back in about 1989, is completely stock right down to the cam,with the exception of the most mild of porting work and a stock later model carb. When I say it runs strong I mainly base that on the fact that it will chirp the rear tire and pop the front wheel about an inch off the pavement when hitting second gear hard (yes, it does have a ratchet lid on the trans).
Well, you can't go drag racing with a muffler, so the first order of business was to find a piece of straight pipe to install in place of the muffler that normally resides on the end of the stock reproduction 2 into 1 pipe. I couldn't believe I didn't have a chunk of pipe long enough in my stash of junk parts. I did have an old slash cut 2" diameter muffler that had been gutted though. By welding a short section of straight pipe onto the front of it I had a rather painless "racing" exhaust system.
Let's see, a drag bike really needs a velocity stack. That was easy, since I sell them in my eBay store The late Shovelhead Kehein carb that I have on the Knuck has the same bolt pattern as an S&S "B" carb. A little rejetting, and I would be all set!
Oh, that's right: any kind of consistent launch would require a tachometer. Luckily I had saved an old Superglide tach from a crashed bike years ago. It still works despite the glass face having been broken and now removed completely.
You may be thinking "That's not so stupid, taking an old bike out to the dragstrip just for fun." Yeah, but that's not the part that I really struggled with. The stupid urge that I had to fight off so heroically was the urge to strip all of the excess weight off the bike for the weekend. Stock fenders; way bigger and heavier than needed. Besides I have an old flat fender that could have been shortened up to the bare minimum. Crash bars; dead weight! A little bates style solo would look good in place of the big stock solo with pogo stick! No need for a headlight; its DRAG RACING! I even toyed with the idea of changing the big stock 16" front wheel over to a 19" I have laying around. Of course that would have eliminated my front brake, making it harder to do a smokey burnout. And I did intend to do some smokey burnouts!
Well, since I am still alive and able to write, it is obvious that my wife Jane did not kill me, and that means I resisted the temptation to strip her bike down to "racing weight". But let me tell you, it was close at times. Even as late as Saturday morning I was looking at that big old front fender and thinking how much air it would trap!
Other than emptying the saddlebags, adjusting the tire pressures (60 in front, 20 in rear), removing the mirror, and tilting the handlebars down as much as possible, I managed to load the Knuck up in the back of our pickup without further modifications.
I wish I could say that Jane had as much fun at the races as I did, because I simply had a blast! I am sure that her enjoyment was based mostly on watching how much fun I was having. I think those of us who are husbands often take for granted how blessed we are in having wives who are willing to find enjoyment in the companionship of doing things together. Too often the "doing" is of those things we want to do, and not what our wives may have chosen. (As usual, I owe you one Sweety)
Upon arrival at the track and getting ready to tech in, I discovered that I had left my lace up work boots at home. I had moved them from the "to go" pile over next to a chair to change into them. At the last minute I decided to wear my cowboy boots until we got to the track. Hmm....slippery bottomed boots with a narrow heel were not my first choice for doing a burnout with a rocker (heel/toe) clutch pedal. I momentarily considered not doing any water burnouts, but quickly discarded that thought as counterproductive to the whole purpose of having fun!
If you have never done a burnout as part of drag racing, here's the deal. The purpose of the water burnout is to clean and heat up the rear tire for better traction. If you are using a treaded street tire and water stays in the grooves you have probably defeated the purpose. Some guys don't do them for that reason. But when you are running a 61" Knucklehead, the real purpose of the burnout is to have fun and show off!
When you see someone doing a water burnout, and they rev their motor but get very little smoke , it is usually due to using too low a gear. The smoke comes from tire speed, not engine speed. The water may do a little cleaning, but is mostly there to enable you to initially break the tire loose.
I do my water burnouts in 3rd gear. Now it is a piece of cake to break the tire loose in water by putting both feet on the ground, taking all of your weight off the bike, and holding the front brake on. With a foot clutch however, that is not so easy to do. Since I have the front brake lever on the right side like a late model, I have to work that along with the throttle with one hand. Add to this, the fact that a stock springer front brake is about a half step better than totally useless, and you can see that the burnout was the most complicated thing to do. Getting any kind of braking force on the front required squeezing with all four fingers, which left only my thumb and palm to control the throttle. Using the rocker clutch necessitated having the bike leaning slightly to the right when initiating the burnout. The lean meant that the rear of the bike would start to slide out to the left when I dropped the clutch. I also wound up putting much of my weight on the seat. This meant that the extra weight coupled with the limited horsepower of the little 61" Knuck would make the tire try to "hook up" and move the bike forward out of the water.
I found that if immediately after dropping the clutch, I got both legs in position so that my lower calves were braced into the front curve of the floorboards, then my feet approximately doubled the holding power of the front brake ( more of a commentary on the weakness of the front brake than the strength of my legs). Once my feet were planted I could feel the rear tire stop trying to grab and looking down I could see the smoke start to roll off the tire. When I felt like I had put on enough of a show, I would let go of the front brake as I sat down on the seat and let it walk out of the water box. Then I had to very quickly get the clutch in and the rear brake on (without letting my pant leg get sucked into the velocity stack) before crossing the starting line. I was also using the front brake at this time, but like I said, it was not a lot of help. After that lengthy description, it frankly doesn't sound like something a person should try to do. Guess its lucky I didn't try to describe it before doing it.
Even a normal burn out on a late model street bike is usually enough to get the blood pumping, so as can be imagined, my adrenaline was flowing pretty good by the time I was ready to stage the old Knuckle. Bringing the rpm up to 3500 for the launch proved to be just about ideal giving no engine bog, a little air under the front tire, and just a little tire spin. As usual, banging 2nd gear would momentarily lift the front tire again. With my chin down on the tachometer and my right leg pulled back to clear the velocity stack, each time I hit another gear it would slide me back an inch or two on the big old Harley solo saddle. By the second or third pass I had realized I was better off winding out 3rd gear rather than shifting into 4th just before the finish line. If that description sounds like I was going really fast, well...I wasn't. My best time of the evening was 10.221 seconds and 67.02 mph on the eighth mile track. How could it have been so much fun at such slow speeds?
Even a normal burn out on a late model street bike is usually enough to get the blood pumping, so as can be imagined, my adrenaline was flowing pretty good by the time I was ready to stage the old Knuckle. Bringing the rpm up to 3500 for the launch proved to be just about ideal giving no engine bog, a little air under the front tire, and just a little tire spin. As usual, banging 2nd gear would momentarily lift the front tire again. With my chin down on the tachometer and my right leg pulled back to clear the velocity stack, each time I hit another gear it would slide me back an inch or two on the big old Harley solo saddle. By the second or third pass I had realized I was better off winding out 3rd gear rather than shifting into 4th just before the finish line. If that description sounds like I was going really fast, well...I wasn't. My best time of the evening was 10.221 seconds and 67.02 mph on the eighth mile track. How could it have been so much fun at such slow speeds?
Left: the Knuck
There was not a huge turn out of bikes, so there was little or no waiting to make passes during time trials. I think I made more than 10 passes with plenty of time for the bike to cool down a little after about every third pass. Happily this was an eighth mile track so the little 61" was not humiliated as much as if it had been a full quarter. Surprisingly, many of the other bikes did not pass me until I was already in 2nd gear. Most likely they were spinning their tire off the line much more than I was.
My reaction times on the starting lights were another bright spot of the evening. I never did have great reaction times like a few racers I know. Since retiring from the pro ranks with its accompanying "pro tree" I had blamed it on not being able to adapt to a sportsman tree. Of course that was not really the case since my reaction times on a pro tree had always left something to be desired. This night however my reaction times were better than they ever have been with my best being a .006! Seems unlikely that old age would bring better reaction times, so maybe it was the extra adrenaline from the whole foot clutch scenario.
Right: Crazy John with his traction challanged 145 inch was
runner up in the 7.0 class
Eliminations consisted of index racing with a class every .5 second starting with a 7.0 class, then a 7.50 class and so forth up to a 9.50 and slower class. Jason had hoped for enough bikes to break the classes down to every .25 second rather than .5 but the turnout just did not justify it. Since my bike was the slowest one there (I only beat one bike to the finish line all night, and that was because he bogged his engine at the starting line; I did however win a few by opponents red lighting) the eliminations were a bit anticlimactic for me. However, Ken Mlsna, the service manager from American Thunder (next door to my shop) took second in the 9.0 class with his Shovelhead, and Denny Perrier, one of our customers, won the 8.50 class on his hot Panhead.
Right: Denny on left and Ken on right
All in all, a great time was had by everyone, and for me personally it will be even harder to keep myself from doing something stupid for next year!
Well, despite all of my hype about the hop ups, and trick engine coatings and such on Billy Hofmeister's XLR flat track bike, the initial outing was a bit of a letdown. Last minute assembly often has a way turning around and biting you, and that was the case last weekend. You can veiw my original post on the motor here: Flat Track and Old Iron
The scene was Raceway Park right here in Shakopee. It is a 1/4 mile asphalt oval with not a lot of banking. A little different type of track than what you normally see flat track bikes raced on.
Apparently Billy picked up the tank from the painter Friday morning, and in the last minute flurry, the fuel line was overlooked. When the petcock was opened to start the bike for the first time (which occurred at the track) fuel ran directly onto the ground. Oops. After borrowing a piece of gas line and installing it, the bike started (it is push start only, with no kick starter) and ran pretty good in the pits. But it soon started to puke gas out the overflow hose. My educated guess is that some debris from the inside of the tank caused the float needle to hang up. Its been my experience that any tank that has recently been a body shop probably has unwanted foreign matter in it just dying to cause problems. I like to use a large capacity fuel filter in situations like this, even on race bikes.
The next outing for the bike will be toward the end of next month at the same track. Hopefully by then a few of the bugs will be worked out on the XL and maybe with a little luck it will have been dyno tuned. That's the good thing about racing. Even after a disappointing performance you always have the next race to look forward to.
The scene was Raceway Park right here in Shakopee. It is a 1/4 mile asphalt oval with not a lot of banking. A little different type of track than what you normally see flat track bikes raced on.
Apparently Billy picked up the tank from the painter Friday morning, and in the last minute flurry, the fuel line was overlooked. When the petcock was opened to start the bike for the first time (which occurred at the track) fuel ran directly onto the ground. Oops. After borrowing a piece of gas line and installing it, the bike started (it is push start only, with no kick starter) and ran pretty good in the pits. But it soon started to puke gas out the overflow hose. My educated guess is that some debris from the inside of the tank caused the float needle to hang up. Its been my experience that any tank that has recently been a body shop probably has unwanted foreign matter in it just dying to cause problems. I like to use a large capacity fuel filter in situations like this, even on race bikes.
Billy wisely ended up having someone else run the XL, despite the overflowing carb (wisely in not riding it himself, not in running it with the carb overflowing), just to get a few "break in" laps on it. Of course with it flooding out as it was, the results were less than spectacular. In fact, with my shop's name on the tank, it bordered on the embarrassing. Of course my wife Jane and I, our grandson Max, and our son Joe and his girlfriend Kristen were all sitting in the stands and thus knew nothing of why the bike ran so poorly. All we knew was that there was a problem. About that time I was pretty happy that I had not pulled the magneto when I installed the top end, because I would have been wondering if I had gotten it in a tooth off.
A bright spot was Billy's performance on his other bike, a Rotax powered machine. Billy came out and put on quite a show! In both his heat race, and the feature, Billy was in the lead before the end of the first lap and increased his lead on the nearest competitors with every corner. To say that he dominated would be an understatement. Billy's performance was all the more impressive when you realize that he is in his late 50's.
The next outing for the bike will be toward the end of next month at the same track. Hopefully by then a few of the bugs will be worked out on the XL and maybe with a little luck it will have been dyno tuned. That's the good thing about racing. Even after a disappointing performance you always have the next race to look forward to.
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