"History is a wonderful thing, if only it was true"
-Tolstoy

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Long time ago

Friend sent me link to GoogleVideo of "Nelson's 24" from 1983

Seems like just a few years ago (hah) I was involved in Motorcycle racing.
Ended up running a team at Nelson's Ledges for the "24 hour"
The race would start 4PM on Saturday, and simply run till 4PM Sunday.

Manged to win in '77 against the odds, esp. as we were running a Ducati (not known as an Endurance Racer at the time). But it was fast, and (relatively) fuel efficient. We did a rider change stop every hour, but fuel only every other stop. With lap times around 1:30, saving maybe 30 seconds an hour adds up (we were limited to filling through the stock gas cap). Later I developed a system that dumped about a gallon a second through the same 1-1.5inch opening.

We were also limited to all stock parts on the wheels, so came up with a few trick tools for tire changes. Managed about 90seconds. Today, with special parts, it's about 10 second job.

Trick is planning and organization more than absolute speed. This includes riders that are consistent as well as fast, yet don't crash. Crashing really slows down your overall pace.

Anyway there's a video of one of the '83 race here

I was done entering my own team by then ('83) but was helping others with management and planning.

Looking at the video now... wow, the place was a dump, and we were all pretty scruffy, but winning felt pretty good. We went on to win the "National Championship" that year. Tried again in '78 but crashed out.

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