Rewind a few years back and having moved to the Midwest from sunny Southern California, Spring time here has taken on a new meaning in regards to being able to enjoy riding. So the first AHRMA event of the year, that's close enough for me to attend, is something that I look forward to with great anticipation.
Obviously the races are the main attraction, but the swap meet is a big part of it for me. Being in the midst of scouring the globe for the remaining parts I need to finish my Norton Dominator, I welcome every opportunity to scrounge around on tarps full of greasy and discarded parts. I should mention that Road America has miserable swap meet in my opinion. The number of swap meet "booths", generally hovers between 15-30. This year being on the low end, and the quality of parts up for grabs is quite dismal. I will say that I was able to pick up 2 bits that I'll be able to use as spares once they've been cleaned and rebuilt, but that's another story altogether.
The races on the other hand are quite good, and I've seen the attendance in the paddock climb in numbers each year. This is mostly due to the CB160 class and the affordability to build and race such a machine. Most the rest of the field is filled with fairly high dollar original machines, or even higher dollar replica machines. AHRMA rules seem to be a bit lax, and while that tends to spit in the face of preserving the historical experience, I'll admit that it seems to bring out more and more people. So, is this a good thing? I don't know. In my mind, I'd much rather see a smaller field of racers and motorcycles that are original machines rather than replica bikes and modern bikes that are now allowed. I suppose that this is all a matter of opinion. But to me, if it's not original and it's not old, then I have little to no interest.
In order to cut my ranting short, I'll get into the photos from Saturday. I'll preface this by saying that I'm a Norton guy, so most of what I shoot is what's interesting to me. The rest is a smattering of other activities around the paddock...
Manx Norton
The Manx Norton pictured above belongs to Bob McKeever Sr., and his son Bob Jr. And is one of 3 Manx Nortons that they race each season. All of which are ridden by Alex McClean.
Bob Sr. raced an original Gardengate Manx on the beach at Daytona back in the late 1940's, and has been active in racing since. A full write up can be found in Mick Walker's book "The Manx Norton".
Father and son own and maintain an original Featherbed Manx, a 1962 spec replica Manx and a much older ES2 rigid framed Manx. All campaigned under Bob Sr's original race number - 122.
Each year, their tent is my very first paddock stop, and I'll spend a lot of time milling around and admiring the bikes. When the time is appropriate, and the 3 of them aren't busy tending to the machines, I try and sneak in a hello, or some general conversation. They've always been extremely nice to me and always happy to share information. This year, I made a point to bring my copy of The Manx Norton, and was lucky enough to sit and chat with Bob Sr. for about 10 minutes. He shared some great stories about his racing back then, and we talked about Manx crank cases and Amal floats. Perhaps that would sound boring to some, but it's the kind of thing that I live for. Before I let them get back to it, Bob was happy to sign his page in the book, and finished it with his racing number.
This year, there seemed to be a couple more Aermacchi's in the paddock, and although I don't know much about them, I certainly find them to be very interesting and extremely purposeful looking.
Lots of American Iron to be found, and although I didn't see any of them on the track, there's at least a few of these old machines that are campaigned on a regular basis. And surely some that are brought out for the rest of us to admire.
Restored single cylinder Moto Guzzi that I see in the paddock each year. This particular machine isn't raced, but gauging from the dirt and oil that can be found on it, it looks to be ridden and enjoyed.
Tim Joyce's Manx Norton. I can't say for sure, because unfortunately, I've never had the chance to speak with him, but I believe this to be a Summerfield Manx. Generally speaking, the bare steel frame with brazed welding is the sign of a replica machine. This one looks to be well set up and thoroughly fettled. I didn't see him have to lay a single spanner on the machine the entire day.
High level exhaust, very expensive magnesium gearbox, 250mm Fontana front hub and neat Magura twin pull brake lever...
Jon Thorndike's Norton Atlas.
Last year, Jon was a newcomer to the paddock and a man after my own heart. I was nicely surprised to see a younger guy racing something besides the CB160 class, or Novice Production Class. Jon chose to jump straight in to the 750 class with his highly modified and well set up Norton Atlas. This machine has some nice features, and it's great to see an original Norton motor in an original Norton frame.
I recall last year asking Jon about the BTH magneto on his Norton. Originally the Atlas would have been fitted with a Lucas K2F unit. He told me that he had tried a Lucas K2FC, but had trouble. So a modern BTH magneto was ordered up, and with it's electronic advance, all issues were cured.
When I walked up, Jon was hard at work with the timing chest open and ear plugs in. I could tell he was in the thick of it, so I opted just to shoot a couple of photos rather than disturb his progress.
Replica machines...
A point of debate and contention amongst purists and those interested in vintage motorcycling.
First, let me say that I'm not a fan of replica machines in most cases. I think that my only exception to this would be a replica machine that was done as exact as possible to a genuine original. And even in this case, I think that all replica machines should be raced in their own class.
I can tell you that there's no secret here, and owners / riders of these replica machines will openly admit to what they have. "To each it's own" as they say. I'm sure that these machines are amazing to ride, but they just don't always seem to properly represent the era. You'll see a lot of them with configurations that never existed together. Twin disc brakes, electronic ignitions, Japanese Mikuni carburetors etc etc. So the question is; what is the machine replicating? But the rules allow it. I'm not here on some crusade against AHRMA, and I'm sure that the rules are "modernized" in order to bring out racers and keep the attendance growing.
Let's face it, to race an original Manx or Matchless G50 would be quite expensive, and therefore accessible to very few of us. And the act of preserving these original machines makes it so that you certainly don't want to be out there throwing it down the track. Who could afford that?
Knowing all of this, it makes the original machines that much more desirable in my opinion.
One of the newer replica machines you'll see is the Minnovation G50. A high end and very expensive GP class racing machine.
Cool details on a BSA racer. Vented front hub and interesting paint choice. The Smiths tachometer looked very cool in this color:
Interesting BSA Goldstar that was tucked deep into the tent. Unfortunately, this is as close as I could get.
Big D Cycle from Dallas Texas is always present, and they run a well set up pre unit Triumph.
I spent most of my race watching time on the hill that looks down at the "Hurry Downs" section of the track. It's a comfortable place to sit with a nice view of 3 separate corners. You can hear them coming up the hill after turn 5, and then appearing at the left hander in turn 6. It's difficult to get any decent racing photos with the mediocre camera that I have, so this is just a nice shot of the track and Wisconsin's scenic back drop.
Saturday racing is always a bit more mellow than the action you'll see on Sunday. Riders getting in scrub laps, picking lines through the track and working out any mechanical gremlins that might keep them from racing success. The rider on this Triumph had some sort of mechanical failure coming down the hill and was forced to simply pull over, spectate the rest of that race and wait for the crash truck to cart him back to the paddock. Hopefully whatever the issue was, ended up getting sorted so he could be back in the action for Sunday.
Most of the swap meet area looked more like motorcycle debris rather than actual usable parts, so I chose to shoot a few photos of things for sale that were at least together enough to look at.
The last stop of the day was a visit to Dave Roper's tent. Dave is the first American to ever win the Isle of Man TT race, aboard a Matchless G50 back in 1984. He's been actively racing for more years than I know of, and he's a very talented racer that's doing it right in my opinion. He rides and maintains original machines and I've seen him win many races, as well as pass riders on much "faster" machines.
Throughout the day, I walked past his tent several times and could see that he was quite busy tending to the Aermacchi on the stand. I didn't want to interrupt, but I was lucky enough to find an opportune moment late in the day to ask for his autograph. We talked for just a minute and he told me there was a crash early that morning, and he was just about finished repairing the bike. Definitely easier to repair a broken machine than a broken rider, so I was glad to see that he was ok and would soon be back on track.
Dave Roper's Moto Guzzi, the main himself and his signature. Thanks Dave, you made my day...
No comments:
Post a Comment