Mid-Ohio vintage motorcycle days

[craig641]

If anybody is going to the vintage motorcycle days at Mid-Ohio this weekend I'll be racing my 200cc Bridgestone in the 70sGP 125 class on Saturday and Sunday.  I'll be in garage 5 if anyone wants to stop by and say hello. 

With some great parts help from Richard and Paul (bsracer) providing the solution for my slipping clutch I should be able to show that the mighty Bridgestone should have been the bike to beat back in the day.  I'll be out in race 4 if you happen to be near the track during the day.

Craig

[Toystoretom]

I wish I could be there to meet you and watch but work calls. I hope you get some videos!

Good luck! We are all pulling for you!

Tomo

[old smokey]

Good luck, I won't be there but hope you have cool winds and cloudy skies. I can't imagine being in riding leathers with this heat and humidity.

[OldSwartout]

I'll be there if I don't turn to toast on the ride over. 

[Jimmy]

Keeep hydrated and have fun . good luck   Jimmy,90k

[bsracer]

Good luck Craig, looking forward to hearing about the win!

paul

[craig641]

Well I didn't get the win...

The bike ran great all weekend.  Got a chance to talk to a few from this forum.  And I apologize to others I didn't get a chance to talk to while I was working on one of my two bikes. 

My clutch issues have seemed to be fixed with the new clutch springs.  Paul has got the hot set-up for this figured out.  Additional springs and the ATF type F fluid and I had no problems with this all weekend.  I have now moved on to the next issue.  The transmission keeps jumping out of fourth gear.  I haven't pulled the bottom end apart yet so it might be something as simple as worn dogs on the gears, or bent shift forks, or who knows. 

On Saturday's race I got a second place when the guy leading on his Can-Am blew up.  On Sunday I took a third when the Can-Am guy brought out his back up bike.  There was another guy on a fast Yamaha CT-175 that won on Saturday and took the second place trophy on Sunday which was good enough for the National title and put me in second overall.  The guy with the Can-Am was nice enough to show me his cylinder porting from his blown up bike.  There wasn't a lot of cylinder wall that wasn't ported on that thing.  And he also showed me his dyno sheet from that bike.  Making over 43hp.  It's going to be tough, and expensive,  to get close to those numbers on a Bridgestone 200cc bike.  I could keep up with the Yamaha and Can-Am in the corners but I definitely lose ground on the straights.  I did finish ahead of my buddy on his Bultaco, the same guy I lost to twice in the previous race event at Loudon, NH.

The next event is going to be at the legendary Mosport track in Canada with the VRRA on Aug 12th and 13th.  And my buddy and his Bultaco have the track record for our class.  I'm looking forward to that now that I'm learning how to ride this thing.

Craig

[Jimmy]

You did good....you finished! On the tranny the gear cogs get rounded off when the shift fork gets bent.I have replaced gears and not the forks and ended up replaceing everything all over again.The shift fork should have even wear, not on the bottom of one side and the top of the other. Or just replace the fork if its available and be done with it.I have bent shift forks by crashing and catching the shifter or linkage on the track. What I did was drill the shift lever so it would break rather than tear up my tranny.Have a spare shifter ready to go for the next race.Good luck   Jimmy 90k

[bsracer]

Hey Craig,

great job by the way. That guy Lanny on the CT1 is fast, but I think beatable. You need to get the gears undercut. Like clockwork my bike would jump out of 4th gear at exactly the same spots at whatever tracks. This led to the shift forks getting galled (burnt). I have a box of junk ones. I had the gears hand undercut. I tried to cut a set myself but they didn't work. There is a place in Florida R&D and APE in CA that do undercutting.

paul

p.s. Glad the clutch springs worked

[craig641]

I used R&D in Florida for my Honda race bike and they did a great job.  I was holding off doing something like that until I finally decide what to do with this transmission.  There's got to be something better than this fifth gear that's an overdrive.  Going from fourth to fifth is a huge jump at this point.  But other than a full Nova transmission I'm not sure what other options are available.

Craig

[bsracer]

Hey Craig,

last time I talked to Nova they wanted 2000 pounds (i think this was a couple years ago) each and I had to commit to 10 close ratio 6 speed gear sets since they don't make the 5 speed anymore.  I did speak with a guy in the Uk about just a new 5th gear and it was pretty reasonable, less than $200. I'll look in my emails and see who it was, I think he advertises in Classic Racer.

paul