Barber's Vintage Racing 2010 - long story

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" overall more "best" than "worst".

I hurt my back a week before the scheduled take-off date (trying to kickstart a very tight high compression '67 Norton 750 N15), so by the time I started packing for the trip, I was still moving a litle slowly. Somehow managed to cram a typical 4-day prep & load into 2 days without re-injuring myself.

'69 Triumph Bonneville race bike, 2000 Triumph Legend street bike, '53 Triumph T-Bird chopper (for auction) & '74 Norton 850 Commando monoshock custom (also for auction) all loaded in the box trailer and carefully tied down; also loaded a scruffy Honda CB750 with a spare engine on the back of the truck, for sale to a friend. E-Z up, pit gear, leathers, camping gear, coffee gear, tools, tables & chairs all loaded up. New tires on the truck, new chain on streetbike, new registration stickers on truck, street bike & trailer, race bike tuned up and punchlist punched, all in 2 days. "Godspeed" as they say...

1100 miles in 2 days without a hitch (wyfe & daughter along), we arrived in Birmingham on Thursday afternoon, in plenty of time (so we thought) to set up the pit before dark. No sooner did we get on the crosstown interstate than there was a huge pile-up involving an 18-wheeler and several cars all straddled across 4 lanes in both directions, one vehicle upside-down and the others with thier doors and windows obviously severely impacted and thrashed. That slowed us WAY down and we arrived in the pits AFTER dark; no big deal, our desired spot was saved by a friend with a couple of traffic cones and we were in business. I could not believe how full the pits were on THURSDAY evening (more on this later).

I did a very minimal un-pack of the trailer, unloaded my street bike, and unloaded the Honda 750 in "Big Bob's" pit, then it was off to our event HQ at a new friend's home in south Birmingham (me on the Legend, Sally following in the truck). My friend, Joe, is a member of the Kawasaki ZRX Owner's Association who invited us to be his house guest after hearing that we were headed his way. He basically gave us the run of the place and we were free to come and go as if we were at home; I can't thank him enough for the true Southern hospitality! We got up to speed on making each other's acquaintance, then chatted bikes (mostly his very nice collection) till the wee hours and went to bed.

I somehow managed to wake up without an alarm clock just in time to get on the Legend and get across town right as the gates opened at the track. First order of business was to get a couple of pots of coffee going, then leisurely set up the EZ-up and pit. I didn't book the Friday practice session because my priority on this trip was to get the two bikes in the auction. About the time the second batch of coffee was on the boil, I was done in the pits and hopped on the Norton to ride it over to the auction barn.

The Bator auction was filling up fast as I arrived, the Norton was tagged lot #49; by the time I took the tram back to the pit and rode the Triumph over, it was number 88! The place was fairly busy with a couple hundred folks looking over the bikes as they were being wheeled in. I spotted a very nice '72 Norton Commando cafe racer that was purported to be one of the late Art Xander's former bikes. Also spotted a couple of unrestored Vincents, a nice Dunstall Norton, and several very nice Triumphs in various states of originality and restoration.

Back to the pits, I checked my bike over, set up the starter rollers, and it was off to Registration and Tech. Paperwork in order, it took less time for registration than it did to hand them $60 and collect a rental transponder! Tech took less than 5 minutes and as quick as a wink I was back in the pit with the transponder mounted and nothing to do but enjoy the afternoon visiting friends and watching practice.

more...

I made the rounds of the pits and caught up to a few friends who made the event, including several fellow Brit Iron Rebels members, a few fellow Production Heavyweight class riders, and several other acquaintances from racing and online forums. A totally unexpected suprise was running into Jeff Moyer who loaned me his Formula 500 Kawasaki triple to race in 2008; he had his bike at the event, but seemed to be having ignition troubles; we chatted for a while over hamburgers & fries (the concessions were all out of pulled pork sandwiches & sweet potato fries).

The afternoon shadows had started to lengthen by the time my phone rang, it wa my younger son Kevin who had driven down from his temporary Army duty station in Ft. Benning, GA. I tried to give him directions on which tram stop to disembark on, but it took another full circuit of the park before he made it off the tram and into the paddock. We enjoyed the evening together then jumped aboard the truck when Sally arrived to drive us to dinner at a nearby restaurant. Joe had already prepared one of the other bedrooms for Kevin, so after dinner we chatted about bikes for a while and caught some shut-eye.

Before sunrise, Kevin had a full-blown omellette factory in full production. We had a quick breakfast then ripped across town to get in on the morning practice session. For some reason the Bonnie seemed to be down on power; before loading, I had done a full service on the bike then swapped out the electronic ignition stator and coils "just in case" (I had grounded the coil input wire at Willow Springs and the bike was a just a bit off-song ever since). What the heck, I re-installed the original stator, re-timed it, popped in a fresh set of plugs and dumped in 2 gallons of 115 race fuel. "It is what it is" says I. All the while, Kevin is giving me advice about my riding posture, braking points, shock adjustments and what-not; "Mr. Know-it-All".

Somewhere in the flurry of activity, I got a most pleasant suprise; who else but Malcolm "BritBodger" Dixon came riding up to the BIR/TonUp pit area on his Trident street tracker! He's been having a bit of a tough 'go', but thanx to fellow BMOA member Paul Kopyar, they made it out to the event (though without his race bike & leathers). We had a bit of a chat and I offered the use of my starter rollers to see him off with a smile to visit other pits & friends.

Unlike previous years, the track had all thier promotional activity stretching out over the entire morning session, and didn't actually start racing till after noon. Even though there seemed to be fewer red flags and delays, they still ran out of time and had to postpone the last race for Sunday. We sorted out the on-board camera mounting with velcro strips and set up the alignment, all ready for racing.

My race was race #9, gridded in 2 waves with "Transatlantic Challenge" (Thruxton Cup) and B.E.A.R.S., both somewhat faster bikes than our humble Production Heavyweights. There were FOURTY bikes gridded on the track for our race, an all-time high! We had 13 bikes in our class, up a few from the previous high of about 10. Third call to grid came over the PA system, and I headed down to the hot pit lane. Cameras on (so I thought), the rollers fired the Bonie off the instant I dropped the clutch.

The bike was running just fine, I took a left on the last pit row and scooted over to a large clearing on the east side of the tower and "hammered it" to get a feel for the launch; the Bonnie responded with it's typical front wheel in the air, total clutch and tire grip. I made my way back around and onto pit out, taking my place behind a bunch of Thruxtons and two or three Proddies & BEARS. It seemed to take longer than usual for them to give us the wave out onto the track and off we went, the Bonnie seeming to stumble as I rolled away.

I had just made it onto the track and dropped into turn 2, as I accellerated and adjusted to lean into the right-hand sweeper, the engine totally quit. The entry into the turn and through the apex is all downhill, so I stuck my left hand in the air, swept to the outside edge, kept it rolling and modulated the throttle (nothing), checked the petcocks (both open), jiggled the tank with my knees, thinking maybe one of the coil connections had grounded on the gas tank (nope), then just had one last look behind (clear), puklled in the clutch and swept over to the inside guard rail. I popped off the gas cap (full, of course, just how I left it), and checked the fuse (not blown); no clue what could have killed the engine.

I pulled the fuse, turned off the fuel taps and hopped over the fence to scope out a nice shady spot to watch the race from. Pretty bummed out. Within seconds, I could hear the Thruxtons revving up and leaving the line; they came into view right at the apex of turn 2 and shot up the hill over the blind cresting turn 3, great spot to watch some dicing as it would turn out. I would have much rather watched that race from the track. The ride back on the crash truck was humiliating. My first "DNS" (Did Not Start)

Back in the pits, Kevin called on the phone, relieved that I hadn't crashed, but wondered what happened to the bike. No time to chat about it, the Norton was heading up the auction ramp onto the stage! I told him what my reserve was, but gave him some latitude to bargain if the situation called for it. Well, it turned out the situation called for bargaining; bidding only got to $6,500.00, significantly below my cost. Still barely peeling out of my leathers, my phone rang again; it was an excited lady asking about the Norton, and would I take a cash offer? I jumped on the Legend still in my leathers and headed down to the auction barn.

cont'd...

About the time I got to the auction barn, Kevin was heading out; he needed to get back to Ft. Benning for his Ranger test the next morning, so our good-byes were brief and somewhat bummed over the whole scene. He really wanted to see me race, didn't get to see the museum, and thought the Norton should easily have sold for more than the Xanders '71 Commando cafe racer that fetched $8,750.

After some chit-chat with the potential buyers, and a mis-cue in the pits (had to go all the way back for my auction registration receipt), I took my paperwork to the office and had the Norton released. We came to terms in the parking lot and I went to fetch the bike from the auction barn. It fired on the first kick with just a tickle of the carbs, and I floated the front wheel half the length of the auction barn and came to a smart stop right in front of the lady buyer, her eyes as big as saucers. She was dripping all over the bike, and her husband started counting out neat stacks of 100s. Sally took a few photos of our daughter on the bike, her husband took some pix of me on the bike, and then the wife tried to start it. She must've weighed all of 130 pounds and was wearing boots with some heels; although she managed a few decent kicks, she was obviously excited and was going to need some practice. Her husband jumped on the bike, kicked it once and big smiles ripped across thier faces as it roared to life. He whipped out his pocket knife and tweaked the idle screws down a half-notch, then puttered off.

We didn't have much time to do anything but tuck away the cash and head back to the auction tent, as the chopper was third in line to head for the stage. I made a last-minute change to the "poop sheet" to include mention of the original Triumph sprung rear hub, a relatively rare feature on the bike. The auction assistants asked me a few questions, then motioned me to stand at the seller's table as the bike went up on stage. The auctioneer started off several thousand above my reserve, then quickly dropped a thousand at a time till the price got ridiculously low; all of a sudden 2 or 3 bidders beat the price back up a few thousand, then it tapered off and stopped at $5,500.00. They asked if I was willing to negotiate at that price and I flatly declined.

As I re-oriented myself to get the chopper released from the auction as a no-sale, I realized that I couldn't find the key to my Legend! That started a chain of negative events including TWO fruitless round-trips all the way back to the pits across the park, left a phone message for the buyers of the Norton hoping they might have accidentally picked up the key at the table where we had chatted, and asking everyone at the auction site if they had a key turn up. The LAST STOP was the registration desk, where the folks there replied they had indeed had a bike key turned in; my description matched and didaster was averted.

Still not done with the back-and-forth to and from the pits, the chopper failed to start (plenty of gas), so I had to fetch a can of starting ether. With my head still spinning from the day's activity, I forgot my helmet in the pits and had ONE MORE trip back and forth! To top it off, once the chopper fired up, the lights wouldn't turn on. I had every event staffer try to shut me down as I made my way back around the park with Sally following in the truck, right on my tail, headlights on high beam all the way. We parked the bikes under the EZ-up, dropped it down and tied it to the bikes to keep it from blowing away in the event of a sudden wind gust (happens every time, you know). We had a leisurely dinner at IHOP and headed back to Joe's for a well-earned shower and good night's sleep.

Backing up a couple of steps, I forgot to mention that Saturday's festivities included an excellent airshow by several WWII aircraft and some parachutists, parade laps for the publick and several on-track exhibitions including pre-war motorcycles, vintage fire trucks, and laps of honor by Sir John Surtees, former F1 and GP champion. We also all took in the "Wall of Death" exhibit which our daughter insisted on seeing twice. They had several bikes and go-carts whiriling madly around a 30-foot-tall wooden drum, snatching bills from spectator's hands at the top of the rim, and doing several laps hands-free! Kevin made it over to the swap meet and Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Club bike show, Sally & I missed all that stuff. We also made an effort to tour the museum, but arrived one hour before closeing, so we passed for this trip (I've been over a dozen times, Sally had been at least a half-dozen times).

cont'd...

Not knowing whether to feel good about at least getting to spend the day with Kevin, and having sold one of the bikes, or feeling bad about not seeing the museum, not starting race 1, and not selling the other bike, I had a pensive, chilly ride to the track Sunday morning. I made sure to stop and pick up some "real" coffee, Kevin had bought INSTANT!!!! (after we ran out on Saturday).

I popped up the EZ-Up and made a couple of pots of coffee, then got settled in to sorting out the race bike. The plugs came out clean, all electrical connections came up clean, and fuel in the carb bowls was crystal clear. Wierd. I fired the bike up and noticed the Left side was intermittent, so I pulled the Left carb; there, in the low speed air bypass drilling, was the tiniest of grains of grit clogging the bypass. I poked it through with a bit of thin safety wire (thanx again, PatMan) and re-installed the carb. The bike fired up instantly, and I immediately rode it down to tech where it passed with no issues. Patman had also loaned me a clutch lever & perch to replace the one that had gotten trashed by my incorrect tie-down pulling too hard on the bars and causing it to bind up against the inside of the trailer (I need to send that one back!). So, it was all good, and then came the LONG wait until race 9 in the middle of the afternoon. There was still half a Subway foot-long club sandwich in the ice chest, and it went down good with sweet tea.

I had many visitors stop by the pits on Saturday and Sunday, among those who signed in were (in no particular order): Greg "GACracker" and Mike "MBLAB", from BritBike.Com, Tim "BritBike220", Ron "Droopy", Steve "Hobot", and Jim Holder from AccessNorton.Com, Bob "Wozerd" and Ken "KMillion" from VintageBikeRacing.Com, Jay "FoxyMD", Pete "Sightglass", and John "xtremeTR6R" from the BritIron Rebels, and a bunch of other folks who either didn't sign the visitor log or who aren't associated with any of the online groups.

After a few Red flag stoppages, the calls for race 9 finally came over the announce system. I leisurely checked over the bike and got into my leathers, the sun already beating the shade across the tarmac at a rapidly increasing pace. I had a few minutes to spare, so I visited the restroom for some free fractional horsepower (via net weight loss, if you know what I mean). I know it's counter-intuitive, but I tanked up on a glass of iced sweet tea. Fuse - check, gas - check, leathers, helmet & gloves - check.

The rollers fired up the Bonnie in a heartbeat and it was off to the pits with the bike running as crisply as ever. I took the long way around and made a few blasts in the open are east of the tower; perfect response and zero complaints. We were waved out onto hot pit road and I took my place in line, anxiously awaiting the motion to start the sighting lap. I held my breath as I wound the revs up and dropped it into turn two - it stayed lit. I kept it pinned and upshifted to third as I crested the hill, front tire just feeling a bit light as I hunched as far forward as possible. Back down to second through the hairpin, up to third out onto the middle straight and just up to fourth then back down to third for the chicane and dropped into 2nd fort the museum "Alabama coaster" turn. As I would it up through 3rd and fourth out the back complex, a few of the late Thruxtons & BEARS bikes zipped by to join thier starting wave ahead of me.

We all eased up through the last few turns onto the front straight then threaded our way into our slots, dropping to neutral and keeping an eye on the tower. My glasses kept slipping down the bridge of my sweaty nose and the last few riders sloted in. The grid marshalls held up thier boards, the 2nd wave board stayed up and the countown proceeded with the Thruxtons finally launching in a raucus chaos that settled in to an orderly drop into turn one, out of sight.

The "1" board quickly popped up, I dropped my visor and blipped the throttle; As the board went sideways, I dropped it into 1st and brought the revs up. In an instant, the Green flag waved and I was a split second late with my launch, missing my usual holeshot and getting passed by a Trident from behind. The Bonnie didn't hesitate at all once I popped the clutch, and we were off with a scream, right in the middle of a pack of bikes all jostling for a good line through turn 1. I stayed right with them into 2 then slottin in mid-pack over the hill and out toward the hairpin. One or two faster bikes nipped me in the hairpin, and we settled in to a few good laps before the fastest Thruxtons started to lap past. It took a few laps for another Proddie rider to get past, then I had a chance to peek back on the front straight and saw Ken in his rookie T-shirt looking to stick his nose in. This was my last chance to keep from geting past by all the other bikes in the class, so I did my best to keep it revved and mind my line.

Out on the back section, I was coming up on the middle right-hander and I was only inches from the curbing when I got zinged by a Thruxon rider on the INSIDE at easily 20 MPH faster than me! Suprisingly, I wasn't the least bit shaken by the proximity, but I did try to sneak a peek a couple of times a lap after that, just to make sure to give the fast guys plenty of room as they approached. Every time I looked back, Ken got smaller and smaller; he definitely had issues, because I'm sure his bike is faster.

Coming up on the White flag, I rounded the final turn past an upside-down BMW with it's rider slumped against the inside Armco; not good. It was a local Yellow only, so I stayed on it and zipped under the White flag. Back around for the last time, I had one more peek back and couldn't spot Ken any more, so I was thinking I had finally managed to beat somebody that didn't crash or break. The checkers waved and I did my cool down lap happier than I had been all weekend.

9th place wasn't good enough to bump me back into the top 10 in the final championship standings; but 11th out of 20 felt pretty good, considering the fact that my Bonneville pushrod 650 twin held it's head high in the face of Trident 750 triples, BMW & Ducati 750s and Honda OHC Fours.

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The post-race dance to clean up the pit and load the trailer all happened almost subconciously, in slow motion. I got a lot of glad-handing and thumbs-up from friends all along pit row, and several folks stopped in to congratulate me and wish me a safe return trip.

I stopped by Jeff's pit to learn that he never did get the Kawi triple to the grid and it looked like he was going to need a new ignition system. Dave Crussell holed at least one piston and had mechanical issues on 3 of his 5 bikes. Still, he clinched at least three titles and fought some fantastic fights on the track, several of which had the crowd straining to hear and see the handlebar-to-handlebar action as he went after it with several of the fastest folks on the track.

I chatted with Charlie for a few minutes and mentioned how cool it was to watch him sail so smoothly and almost silently by me as he lapped past; Charlie gave me a lift to Albuquerque and showed me the ropes at my first race at Sandia in 2008, that was a road trip I'll never forget. It was great to see him beat a couple of other Thruxtons, he mentioned that his lap times this year would have won some races in 2008. Little by little.

As slow as time seemed to be moving in the pits after the race, I was done packing and had the truck hitched up and ready to roll at least an hour earlier than usual. I said a few more good-byes and we stapped in and headed back across town. We got back to Joe's and I unloaded his scooter fromt he back of his truck (his ankle still severely swollen from a low speed get-off on his ZRX), then I twiddled with the trailer lights to make sure we had funsctionality for the return trip. Since I was still feeling pretty good, we said our last good-byes and hit the road headed North by Northwest. We almost got to Tupelo, Mississippi before I ran out of steam and we pulled into a hotel for the night.

Monday, we cruised acoss the Mississippi TWICE in Memphis (watch out for that construction detour on the big bridge), and just made it to Forrest City, Arkansas in time to visit my older son Jason for about an hour. He really wanted to see me race, but we're making a plan for both of the boys to join me on the track in 2011, even if it's only for a track day.

Making good time, we got to Texarkana for the night, then continued on to Austin on Tuesday and had dinner with my older daughter, her kids, and my older son's finace. I got stuffed on pork ribs and carrots at "Cheddars" Yum. Wednesday was a short 45-hour drive back to Laredo with one stop for gas and one stup for lunch. Still in high gear, I completely unloaded AND STOWED all the pit & camping gear BEFORE DARK (a first).

So, I ran 1 of 2 races, sold 1 of 2 bikes, and visited with both my boys. Less loading for the return trip, and more money when I got home than when I left. A good trip altogether.

Pix coming soon...

Wednesday was a short 45-hour drive back to Laredo with one stop for gas and one stup for lunch.

Click to expand...

Now I know Texas is big... but 45 hours? :mrgreen:

I don't proofread this stuff, it takes too long!

I was going to type "4" (hours), then backspaced and typed "5", without realizing I didn't backspace enough.

I have to apologize, I haven't taken time to cruise the paddock and take pix of the bikes the last few times at the races, just too much going on; also, we didn't make it in to the museum. Worst of all, it seems the only track photographer's photo sets didn't include a few of the later Sunday races, including mine. Still waiting on several forum member's to post thier links and have a look for anything that included me...

Saturday morning colors (my son, Kevin)-



Stu Carter's Benelli; I really hate that he had to tape over the "Team obsolete" logos-



Barber's V-8 Hybausa based road racer almost makes my 4-year-old daughter look "full size"-



This bike in the auction included a "flotation" tire-

About 1/3 of the family-



A cool vintage V-twin-



Cooling off in the pit after practice-

great posts Paul, by the sounds of it, and my limited knowledge of racing, you did great. keep up the good work. Cheers, Don

Thanks Paul for rehashing a great time of hectic heaven. hobot

Ha, what year was that guzzi? Looks like you had a good time

The little goose had to be a late 50s / early 60s model.

It was a GREAT time, just wish I had a finish on Saturday, I would have finished in the top 10 in the 2010 championship, instead of heading up the bottom 10.