Racing a Hillbilly Grand Prix Bike.      See Rebuild

Bull Creek

 Weather was cold, but the course was good. It was a mixture of grass track and tight trail. The trail varied between third gear with some rhythm, to first gear with no rhythm. I was never able to keep rhythm more than 1/3 of a lap. I was able to get two hole shots with the kick start bike, something that I had thought impossible prior to today. After approx 1/3 lap, Nick Stine and Malcom Wood came by, then others. We finished 6th overall (I think). It was a good course and John Gott really has a nice place. We should all be appreciative of the fact that he allows us to ride there. I intend to replace the FMF T4 muffler with a stock YZ muffler. The bike is so loud that I cannot hear people behind me.  I bought a used YZ muffler on Ebay for $15 the week after Bull Creek.

 

Richland

 It was a beautiful January day. High temps in the 60’s. Still don’t have the replacement exhaust installed. I did cut the handlebars down an extra 1”. I can see my line through the woods, but keep clipping a tree on one side or the other, which drives the bike across the trail to hit one very square on the other side. This had to be changed, so they were cut down. Loaded the bike onto the trailer and discovered that the subframe was about to fall off. One bolt was missing, the others were loose. A little maintenance would go a long way I expect.

Sunday morning, I left for the race with a poor attitude. Once there, I found the course to require (in my opinion) a lot of physical strength. The laps were short, where we normally run three, we ran four here. That makes the ruts deeper and the braking bumps higher as the race goes on. I incorporated a Camel Back into my gear system and I must say that it seems that this is worth 30 seconds on the first lap, more on later laps, though the course was so challenging for me, that it’s effects were not quit so immediately evident that day.

Approx 15% of the course was creek bed. This consisted of some large rocks, larger whoops with no proper distance between them, and mud in the bottoms of the whoops ranging from 4-12” deep and water up to 3 feet deep. It was a fight to keep the bike tracking straight over the whoops while hitting the rocks, then the front wheel’s natural place was to drop in between the whoops, so physical strength was required to keep the front end up until it could contact the next whoop. Not doing this resulted in my killing the motor and nearly going over the bars once when the front wheel buried in the mud between the whoops. Braking at the end of the creek bed straight seemed to me to be best accomplished by keeping the throttle nailed and downshifting while riding the brakes and shooting around the outside of the “preferred” line. If I let off the throttle, the bike occupied itself by attempting to swap both ends numerous times. You can surmise correctly that I did not enjoy the creek bed section much.

            The woods either required a lot of concentration, or the creek bed took so much out of me that I had to make an above normal effort to ride the woods section. I don’t know for sure. I worked today on running the four stroke deeper into the corners, as I have been trying to ride it like a two stroke and coast into the corners, but with the additional engine braking, I am thinking that throttle is required to get into the corner with proper speed. I finished 5th   in the first heat. I was running second in the second heat when I ran up against the “wall” (fatigue). On a two line uphill I slowed to let the couple of guys who had caught me pass on the left. Near the top the two trails came back together, so I was looking over and down to make sure that everyone had gotten by. Ran slightly off the trail to the right, ran up a sapling, slid the front wheel off the right side of it, fell to the left with the front wheel up, legs too short to reach down and catch it. I hit flat on a rock on my rib cage. Note to myself, don’t race behind you, race in front of you.      The impact broke a buckle on my new MSR chest protector from the impact. I could not breath. Thankfully, a guy that I had spent 1/3 of a lap trying to get by stopped to help (thank you very much, seriously, whoever you are). The bike never died and he picked it up for me. Once I was able to breath, I remounted and rode around slowly to return to the truck. It hurt to hit bumps sitting, and I am sure that I broke a rib, as it is still tender (even still after Highlandville). I completed that lap, loaded and went home. I was thinking that I might not ride any more, as it just hasn’t been as much fun as it was 15 years ago. I gotta tell you, paying dues again is not much fun. I have said it before and will state it again here, if you are going to subject yourself to the abuse of racing motorcycles, do it every week, don’t quit for a year or so, then try it again, then quit, so on and so on. My joints have become so loose, my muscles so week, that EVERYTHING HURTS! Not to mention trying to learn the new 4 strokes after riding two strokes for all my life.         

            Monday morning I woke up feeling like a wuss and wished that I could have Sunday back to do over again. After all, it was the same for everyone. Talking to Malcolm revealed that he wasn’t settled well with the course after the first heat, but impressively enough, he picked himself up to win the second one. Steve Levain wasn’t complaining either. Monday I realized that Richland was the type of course that allowed a physically fit rider to excel. You know, separate the men from the boys. We all know that real racers have great physical conditioning programs, right? So it was my fault, I should have dug deeper and rode harder.

 Walters Ranch-Cole Camp

            High temps in the low 50’s. Left home in a slightly better mood than I had for Richland , but still not just right. I still had not found time to install the exhaust. The jetting on the bike has been lean from day one. Still haven’t fixed that, or replaced the fuel screw that had fallen out at Seymour when I backed it out too far trying to over compensate for the lean jetting. Life just keeps getting in the way. I had been able to install a new Dunlop front tire, install the new chain and sprockets that the bike so badly needed by now, reverse the rear tire, and crank one more round of rear spring preload. I loaded the bike onto the trailer. Pulled into the pits, drove up the hill, got stuck half way

up. Some people leaving nearly slid into the side of the van. A guy in a Dodge pulled me the rest of the way up. It was a muddy mess in the beginning.

            My daughter intended to compete on her XR80, but she has little more than basic skill and when I saw the mud, I left it on the trailer, despite her pleading to ride it in the pits. I don’t feel that pit riding is safe. Everyone is going a different direction, and there are people walking around. 

            So much mud built up on the tires that I fell once on the parade lap. It didn’t look good. My ribs were hurting so I had Livie tape me up with duct tape after the parade lap and that helped.

            I decided to go for a good start. Hit the first turn third, the leader spun a 180 and passed us going the other way, but the second place guy backed off to miss him, I did the same, and someone on a Honda stuck it in front of me and kept me in third, a missed opportunity. I hit the first nasty hill right up the middle while the leaders went right. Even though I had easily made it up this in practice, I stalled the motor and it seemed that everyone went by. From then to the end I had no fun at all and ground out the laps. I have always ridden as many laps as the leaders, but only got two in when everyone else went three. I was scored for 6th place in the end. Things seemed to be going downhill. After some thought, I realized that I was really OK with the riding part, but was having some issues with the racing part, so I decided to let everyone go the second race, and play catch up.           

            When Spud dropped the board, I was standing off the right of the bike and kicked it with my left foot. I mounted and waited until he raised the board to start the class behind us and then left. The track was drier and I made it up the nasty hill every time this time, and made a point of going  up the middle every time, even though the right was much easier. My line may even have been slower, but at this point, it was really more about me proving that I could do it, as it had demoralized me pretty good that first lap. I rode each lap and had more fun, and finished 5th, so apparently having fun is the key. I was also able to complete three laps, as did the leaders.

 

 Highlandville

             I was able to finally do some of the prep that I have been neglecting. The front brake cable guide has been installed upside down at the lower triple clamp and it gets bent by the fork protector every week when the forks bottom out. The front brake hose had to be removed from the master cylinder to allow this guide to be slid off and turned around. I bled the front brakes and this was solved. I installed a new Dunlop D756 intermediate rear tire. I expected the ground to be frozen, and wanted a good edge. Finally found time to get the carburetor rejetted. Raised the needle one clip, then installed the 42 pilot jet to replace the 40 pilot that was way too lean for the FMF T4 muffler, and installed the new pilot screw. By now, seeing how difficult time was to come by, I am more comfortable adjusting the jetting for the current exhaust, than I am changing the exhaust to the stock YZ muffler and starting all over again. Started the bike and found that it was even leaner than it had been before these changes on the very bottom. Swapped the 42 pilot for a 45 and it was much better, but required the fuel screw to be 3½ turns out for acceptable idle. Put silicone around the head of the pilot screw to keep it from falling out (as it did At Seymour). I will have to order a 48. This proves that the 40 pilot that the bike had in it had been drilled to increase it’s size, since the 42 was actually leaner. Drilling jets is not the preferred method of proper jetting, but if one is to do it, do the next guy a favor and file the numbers off the old jet, so that he knows from the start that he is guessing. Lubed and adjusted the chain, dropped tire pressures a bit more than I normally use, serviced the air filter, checked things over, and loaded it on the trailer. For me, my mind is in a much better frame when I KNOW that the bike is cared for and ready. That way, the rest is up to me and I am responsible.

            I arrived at Highlandville to find the expected frozen conditions. It seemed that all the north facing slopes were frozen, yet there was dust about 4” deep in the cedar trees! What a conundrum! One downhill was extremely slick. I ran off the outside into the brush, and since the ribbon was torn down before I arrived, and three people fell while I was sitting there waiting to pull out, this didn’t start me off well mentally. Shortly after that was a north facing uphill, but wait, that’s not all! There were roots at all possible angles as well. And if you didn’t carry enough speed after the roots, the ground was frozen and you would be stuck there! Near the end of the parade lap, a guy on a Yamaha passed me and fell. I waited for him to get up and he waived me by. I told him to go ahead and said to him that “this is really going to suck!” He responded that it really wouldn’t be all that bad. I thought that if a guy who had just gotten up could say that, that maybe I was out of line. In fact, prior to that, I had all but decided to load the bike and go home without racing at all. Apparently the “racing” problem is me… That gets me to thinking that even if it does suck, it is the very same for everyone. After I completed the parade lap, I continued for another 1/3 lap to get back to the very slick downhill to see what the solution to that would be. When I arrived, Kevin Henslee was cutting brush and moving the trail slightly to the right to fresh surface. I was glad to see that.

            Afterward, I learned that this downhill would be almost immediately after the start. My original plan had been to let everyone go as I had last week. I didn’t care to fight it out with them over the ice covered hills that would surely be bottle necked. I just wanted to have fun. At the riders meeting it was voted to ride one moto for 1 ½ hours, instead of the two 45 minute standards. When I lined up I had the inside line, which is the shortest distance, but not necessarily the best. However, everyone else in the class was far to the outside. This was a repeat of the situation that I experienced at Bull Creek that had produced two holeshots.  Had the first turn been a high speed with a long  straight  afterward, that would be preferred, but in this mess, I didn’t see that being the hot deal.

            When the class in front of us piled up coming out of the first turn, I made my decision, I was going to go for the holeshot, then I would either cause the bottle neck, or get through, instead of being hung up in someone else’s mistake. When Spud dropped the board, things went exactly as planned. Holeshot, then lead down the slick hill on the new route, then made it right up the nasty uphill. Malcolm passed me at one point, but he stalled while trying to pass an over 30 guy. Gotta tell you, those over 30 guys are hard to get around, and they don’t move over well. I passed Malcolm when he stalled and never saw him again. I came to the check with two guys breathing down my back (later the timing proved that it was Nick Stine and Malcolm, but technically, lead the first lap, which was a new achievement for me. After the check, the two guys seemed to not be there anymore and I concentrated on running smooth laps. Eventually, Nick Stine went by, then a guy on a Husky went by, I figured that he was also in my class. Toward the end, a guy went flying by on a yellow bike, had to be a pro. Fast, and I mean FAST.  On the last lap, two guys passed me that were not a lot faster than I was, so I also figured that they were in my class. I was still riding fairly well, but was near my end and figured that the strength that would be required to pass them back would result in a crash and an even worse finish. Besides, I had led a lap AND got the hole shot, all in all, a pretty good day.

            The bikes had really thinned out by now, and other than those guys, I was pretty much riding alone. Cool! The final ¼ lap was spent racing with a guy who was totally worn out riding a Yamaha. He was going quit a bit slower than I was, but he didn’t seem to want to let me pass. He would dart from one side of the trail to the other, sliding sideways, let off to recover, then hit it again and launch off the other side of the trail, yet he never did crash! I was afraid to get too close to him for concern that he would take me out, yet since he wasn’t going to let me pass, I had to keep the heat on him. I finally wedged between him and a tree in the cedars and he had enough sense to slow and let me by.

            When the race had ended, I loaded and went to the snack truck for a candy bar and soda. Steve Elliot (Cycle Broker) asked me where I finished. I told him that I thought that I had finished between 2nd and 5th. That since I had gotten the hole shot and led the first lap, and was still walking, that I could care less. I got into the van and left to go home. Monday morning Steve called me with the news that I had actually won! I think that I should quit now! Nick Stine apparently dropped out somewhere after the end of the second lap while leading. In the end, I think that getting the bike prepped eased my mind a bit and made me more relaxed. The opportunity was presented when preparation met luck and off we went.

             Sold the WR to a good friend two weeks later and did not attend the race at Cassville. In all, I had a lot of fun, and was able to catch a glimpse of what it takes to win in the over 40 class. Maybe next year, I will be better prepared before the series starts. I still am slightly at odds with the four stroke, but will admit that it probably gave me better finishes than I deserved. It seems to me to take more effort to go fast on it, but when I get tired, the lap times do not seem to fall off as much, as it is more forgiving. I thought about riding some of the Missouri State Harescrambles, but know from experience that my body would be so beat up by the Hillbilly start next year that I would not gain from the experience. I will heal over the summer and ride on occasion to keep some form of physical maintenance, in order to improve my entry point next year.

            While I had intended to keep this as a maintenance record for people who don’t know how to maintain a racing motorcycle (and market some of the parts and services that we perform in the shop), since I didn’t get to perform most of the maintenance that I had intended, or on the schedule that I intended, might more reflect most peoples “real life” situations. Oh yeah, anyone need a stock YZF muffler?