Race Builders trying their bikes out?

V

Vince

Hero member
After seeing the Snow Boarders collection, if that was me, I would be absolutely trying each one out just to see how they go. I couldnt help myself. Obviously, there would be no lap records broken and hopefully no damage done to me and the bikes. But I always wondered if those here who spent all that time and money building a competitive race bike and put a competitive racer on it at some point through a leg over to see themselves how the bike went. I have driven other peoples high end cars and bikes, and I get that you cannot push them hard enough in 5 minutes to learn much, but your own hard work on your own bike,
 
Hi Vince,

I can answer that from my own view point.
Many years ago I was lucky enough to race some of the race cars I prepared, I can drive ok and was quick, I did ok, but was never going to be the next Aerton Senna. And I didn't like it if I had someone close to me and was under pressure. The other way was good but not with someone behind me. I also used to get a little "Red Misty" meaning taking my line and blanking out what others may or may not do. With pre-war cars and no safety margin and open wheels this is not a good thing so decided to only do the odd track day and nothing competitive.

Race Bikes.
I am simply not good enough and have far too much imagination to be a good race rider. Nor the experience.
I also ask the question, What good is it that I ride a bike capable of doing 20+ seconds a lap faster than I can ride?
I would much rather see my work being used to it's full potential than see a fool out on it (me) and not testing my skills as an engine builder in any way at all. Therefore when my Project is finished I would like to see a really good rider on it who can wring it's neck and tell me / show me how good or bad it really is. Same goes for the race car engines I build now.

Collection bikes,
I like to keep all my bikes in tip top working condition but unfortunately get little time to use them, but do so when I can, even just to run round the block or home and back (6 kilometers) I enjoy riding them all but have no intention to "test" them hard. That is for someone else to do.

Think of it like owning a model collection.
Do you drive the models round the carpet making broom broom noises? Not many of us do that, Anything in any collection from Stamps to F1 cars or broken plastic dolls (I once knew someone who collected those) is only a means of personal pleasure and enjoyment to cherish and love, whatever it is and whatever size it is, it is simply there for our own pleasure to do with as we please, and equally as justified as each other.

My opinion.
Julian
 
Agree with Julian. I remember a journo got to do some laps on Wayne Gardner's Suzuka winning bike, criticizing the flat spot at 5000, Wayne shook his head saying it was never so low in revs. The Oz journo A grade racer bought previous years champion supersport 600 and couldn't get anywhere on it with the last few percent setup needed for the previous guy to win on it. All any normal rider could do on most of those bikes is shit themselves from the straight line acceleration.
 
julian said:
I also ask the question, What good is it that I ride a bike capable of doing 20+ seconds a lap faster than I can ride?
I would much rather see my work being used to it's full potential than see a fool out on it (me) and not testing my skills as an engine builder in any way at all.
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could not agree more, I have never ridden my race bikes, my aim is to keep modifying the fuck out of them as much as my imagination can take them to see how much further Matt can lower all of our track lap records

when I decide to stop racing I will do track days on them, until then, bikes are Matt's to race
 
I've only ever had the desire to test out my own bike, walk away knowing what needs to change to make it faster for next season.

It's pretty low level stuff but it's what I understand. I wouldn't want to ride a 200hp bike as it might skew my direction and realise how lame my efforts are but it's Important to me that I build ( with some input from Others) and ride. I'd be gutted watching someone else win on my bike.

I want to take to the circuit, also get under 11.0 sec qtr and reach 160mph recorded. All separate entities requiring different setups. I might not achieve them all.

I've always thought that commenters who quip (just buy a gixxer, hyabusa, S1000rr) have no understanding or interest in doing something the hard way, usually because they don't know how. That's cool, just not me.
 
Had I the money, I'd get a good rider to ride my TT2, but that will never be now.
I did have a top level rider, multiple French classic champion ask to borrow it for a season a few years back, but I was really too worried about potential damage.
Paul
 
I built a 916 Ducati with an ex Ian Cobby works engine in for a customer. I took it for a ride and it was uncontrollable- accelerated like a two stroke. I was rolling through some “s” bends and the front was so light it went straight on. I have fitted dozens of Nitrous oxide kits to and we had a Nitrous bottle filling station at work…we only had two customers who ever came back to have the bottles filled!🤔
 
I've ridden two bikes in 4-hour proddy races that were provided to me by owners (1978 1200 Laverda and 1979 Bonneville). They weren't private individuals but dealers wishing to promote their product. It went without saying that they accepted the risk you might chuck it down the road (which I never did). Rare collectibles are unlikely to be ridden in serious anger but there are plently of people - like Red, Julian, Batto, the Horners who build the Irving Vincents etc - who have invested enormous amounts of time and money to enjoy seeing their pride and joy ridden at the pointy end.

Like Rob and others on here, I raced my own bike (which was my daily rider) - same deal, you might chuck it away (which I have done, at Winton). I must say it's not as easy wringing the bike's neck on a track when you've spent thousands of hours building every piece of it yourself (ie the SFQ) - would be easier if I strippoed it and it was a dedicated track bike.
 
Only a personal note, but I recall when we first restored Monty to race condition about 12 years ago, and we had Drmsby Middleton as our pilot.. (soon destined to be Batto's 'Gun Pilot' to their well earned great success).. Early days, and it was exciting to see the bike doing some laps.. but there was one day when I watched him roar away down the lane at Eastern Creek and thought.. "how come he gets to have all the fun..?"
Booked my race rider training the next week and have been enjoying racing Monty ever since.. :)

:cool:
 
I used to race my own bike a long time ago when I was in my 20's. It was a 1976 Kawasaki Z1B that I raced for a couple of years in Production class in Tasmania in the late 70's (around 78 to 80 I guess). I don't think racing of unmodified production bikes straight off the showroom floor is a thing any more. But at the time it was the only class I could afford to get into because I lived in rented accommodation and didn't have the workshop facilities or tools necessary to build or modify a race bike. I bought the bike second hand but it was only a couple of years old so it was still a relatively current model at the time. There were a few other Z1s out there on the track which made it interesting and close racing. As I gained a bit of experience I managed to regularly beat all but one of the other Kawasaki Z1 riders.

The one bloke I couldn't beat had an identical bike to mine - same year, same colour scheme and only a few engine numbers difference. My bike was actually a bit faster than his. I could power past him on the straights, but he'd catch and pass me in the corners, always finishing ahead of me. He once asked me what I'd done to my bike to make it so fast on the straights, and I gave the honest answer that I'd done nothing to it. I reckon it was because it had done about 20,000k on the road before I bought it so was well run in and loosened up. The baffles were pretty much rusted out too so I guess it had a less restrictive exhaust. His bike had never been used on the road. He bought brand new specifically as a Proddy race bike so it had much fewer km on it than mine and intact exhaust baffles (mates watching from trackside told me my bike was obviously louder than his when we both went past on full throttle). Despite my advantage of a bit more straight-line speed, his lap times were significantly quicker than mine. At the time I put that down to the fact that he'd started racing a few years before me so he had a lot more experience. He was also a scrawny little bugger about 20kg lighter than me which would have given him an advantage.

At one stage in a race, my better top speed allowed me to catch up to him on the straight at Baskerville raceway (in Southern Tasmania) and I found myself right on his back wheel going into the fast left hand sweeper at the end of the straight. I figured I might learn something about his cornering technique if I followed his line and tried to keep up. As he carved a smooth line around the corner, I crunched and scraped the bejesus out of the guts of my bike, bucked and wobbled like the bike was trying to throw me off, and ran wide, right off the track and onto the grass. There was plenty of grass area so I didn't crash. I just did a bit of off-road riding and re-entered the track about 10 seconds behind where I'd been. But I learned a valuable lesson. Both of our bikes had the rear springs set on the highest pre-load to maximise cornering clearance, but with me be being heavier than him I was compressing the suspension a bit more. I found that a few mm lower ride height makes a lot of difference at full lean.

That bloke's name was Malcolm (Wally) Campbell, and I could never get anywhere near him on the race track. It was then that I realised I was not, and never would be a competitive motorcycle racer. I gave up racing soon after that and have only ever done non-competitive track days since then, just for a bit of fun. Of course, Wally Campbell went on to become an Australian motorcycle racing legend and also did a bit of racing on the international scene (World SBK and 500cc GP). I think he still does a bit of historic racing.

Me in my Z1 proddy racing days. Baskerville Raceway in Tasmania. Corner 8 coming onto the straight
Z1B racing.jpg
 
Wally story, the year before Waine Gardiner won his 500cc tital they started an Oz race series with 3 rounds, between November and January. 2 races in Melbourne, 2 in Sydney and 2 in Queesland and if anyone won all 6 races, the prize money was upped to 50k oz. Waine was using his 4-cylinder 500cc works race Honda and was by far the favourite. I went to the Sydney round at Oran Park, and by then Waine had won the first 4 races, so a few of us headed to Surfer Paradise to watch the last 2. The end result was Wally on an underrated 3-cylinder 500cc Honda beat the favourite. It was fantastic bar-to-bar action to watch.
 
I can hear the scraping from here Cam! Must have been a significant power difference. His lighter weight would have helped acceleration and his higher corner speed would have given him a slingshot onto the straight. There were constant protests in lightweight production classes as slower riders who were flat out on the straight were sailed past by others who had simply come out of the corner significantly faster, and assumed it was cheating engine power.
 
piranha-bro2 said:
Great shot, Cam! No shame being rolled by Wally! Interesting speed diff ... I would have thought Wally knew every trick in the book re hiding 'improvements' to his Z.
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You have to remember that this was in the early days of Wally's racing career before he'd made a name for himself. Back then he was just an another unknown young Tasmanian bloke like the rest of us. I think he's a few years younger than me so I guess he would have been in his late teens. I don't think he had any official sponsorship and probably had no more resources to prepare a race bike than I did.

Actually, after fossicking about in the dusty corners of my memory, I recall that the pretty much non-existent baffles in my bike allowed me to go up a size or two in main jets, so I guess if anyone was cheating, it was me by stretching the "production bike" rules. The rules were pretty strict. No modifications from showroom condition were permitted other than those required for safety - stuff like wiring sump plugs, removing mirrors, removing headlight lenses, indicators, etc. Oddly enough, the scrutineers had no objection to my rotted out exhaust because it was considered normal wear and tear for a 2-year old bike with a heap of road miles on it. We also had to disable the brake light for some reason I never understood. The scrutineers at pissy little local bike meetings didn't want to make work for themselves by calling for any internal engine examination. If it looked near enough to showroom standard from the outside and wasn't obviously a screaming hot engine, it was OK. In the unlikely event that an internal examination was called for by a protest from another rider, then Wally's bike would most likely have been the target because he was winning every bloody race he went in.

We were allowed a free choice of tyres as long as they were road tyres of equivalent size specs to OEM. The tyre of choice in the late 1970's was Michelin PZ2. They were ostensibly a tyre for road use, but in reality the rubber was a race compound. Thy were as soft and sticky as warm liquorice and would stick to the road like glue - for a short time until they shredded to bits. A PZ2 rear tyre would last about 120km on my bike, which was about the distance I'd cover in practice and racing in a typical race weekend. The front tyre might last for 2 meetings if you were lucky. That was one of the reasons I quit racing. I couldn't afford to by tyres for every race meeting.

Baskerville Raceway was my local track, only about 15 mins from my place. Wally lived in Launceston, about 2 hrs drive away. Back in those days, a racing weekend would finish at about 4 or 5pm on Sunday afternoon. We'd then light up a big bonfire in the pits, have a barbecue and get on the piss. These sessions would go well into the night, by which time Wally would typically be passed out paralytically drunk. His mates wouldn't let him ride home in the cab of the ute (pickup truck to our foreign friends) because of the likelihood that he'd vomit all over them. So they'd pick him up like a leather-clad sack of potatoes and chuck him in the back with the race bike. I'll never forget watching their ute disappear into the night with the bike in the back and Wally's legs hanging over the tailgate.
 
PZ2 was the compound. I used S41 fronts in PZ2, loved them. There were various tyres available in PZ2 but on the rear as you say they wouldn´t get far.
 
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