Mt Wellington May 2013

Mt Wellington May 2013

I forgot to post about the last track day I attended back in May, here it is:

Another great weekend at Mt Wellington, I was really enjoying myself and got some great starts which I was pretty stoked on. In the second points race I was following Henk around as he tried and succeeded to past Dave Diprose in the mid field. Feeling very confident in myself I started to line him up too but I ran out of talent and ate shit into turn one when I grabbed too much brake. Thankfully my dad was shooting on that corner and managed a few frames of me skipping along the concrete. I got away with a solid bit of rash on my hip which swelled up pretty impressively and a sprained thumb but otherwise pretty good… bike still goes.

Time to update the 13 and 7 year old tires, get a smaller rear sprocket and some more practice I think. Never the less I still managed a 31.03s PB lap in that last race which is my best time to date on Mt Wellington. SO close to that 30s bracket!

RSGP125 BUILD3

Suzuki GP125 engine strip down

Here are some more internal photos of the GP engine as I pull it down. I ended up drilling most of the phillips head bolts which hold the casings together as they were corroded down the thread. What a stupid idea it is to use a phillips head, honestly.

This last photo is of the tiny GP gearbox assembly. I wanted to show it to give you an idea on how a motorcycle gearbox works (although similar to a car) in translating the up and down movement of the gear changer to a change in gear. When you push up or down on the changer, a mechanism spins the grooved barrel in the top of the photos. In those grooves are the gear selectors which move left and right depending on the groove. The selectors move the gears on the input and output shafts which engage with each other to drive different combinations of gears and therefore ratios.

RSGP125 BUILD1

I spent some time at Tim’s (a fellow F4 racer) place on Anzac day talking crap about bikes and figuring out how we can get some economies of scale going on with our GP125 builds. Being the good bastard he is, he gave me some… ummmm… used GP125 cases and a test bed GP100 cylinder for some time on the grinder before jumping into mine. THANKS TIM!
I started undressing her the other night and took some photos along the way:

Factory Suzuki GP125 crank case as provided by Tim

Tim’s degree wheel for port timing

Port side

Factory timing marks

Starboard side

TOKORA GP 2013 – Sunday race video

Here’s some footage from the GP race on the Sunday of the race meeting. I ran out of card space about 3/4 through and I was shooting photographs at the same time so enjoy the glimpses! Man that was an awesome race to watch

UPPING THE GAME – ENTER RS125

This happened about two weeks ago and I can’t get it off my mind. I dream of building and racing motorcycles (hopefully for a living one day) and this is just the first step forward in many that are required. It is partly why I’m selling of my Datsun gear. This is a NF4 Honda RS125, a GP bike of the days when 2 stroke 125cc bikes were raced on the world stage. I’m unsure about the exact year of this bike but it’ll be approx the mid 1990’s.

The Honda RS125 was a bike that could be purchased directly from Honda by any club racer or enthusiast, they’re the peoples racer of sorts. The later model variants have a revised rear suspension system and a thicker main frame (basically overall better), but that does not detract from how awesome these little bikes are.

The plan: take the engine from my Suzuki GP125 and with some guidance from Team ESE and Tim modify/tune it to produce a chubby power curve (approx 20hp would be fine) to tackle the F4 kart tracks. Then I will squeeze it into the tiny frame and learn to ride a real race bike. I am not planning to sell my Suzuki FXR150, rather build a new exhaust and keep it serviced as a backup if the unthinkable should happen and the ‘stink wheel’ (as they call them) fails. Last week I bought all new fasteners for the frame as the original ones were looking pretty shot. I also woke up to a fairly new set of Dunlop slicks at my door. There are many things I still need to get for this bike but I’m working through them all slowly. Here’s to the beginning of a life of 2 strokes!

MT WELLINGTON AMCC ROUND 5

Last weekend it was round 5 of the AMCC F4 series at Mt Wellington. I palmed off my camera to my dad like usual but this time with the 300L lens on the end, oh yeah.

It was such an awesome day and improved on my times quite a bit! I felt comfortable on the bike and I ran a new pb of 31.407 seconds anticlockwise. The last meeting my PB was in the mid 32 second block and I’m stoked it only took 4 race weekends to get into the 31 second block. Avalon Biddle was racing on Sunday who races a Suzuki GSR600 professionally and used to race a Honda RS125.

I also tried my best to learn some riding skill from Avalon, Gavin, Nigel and David who lead from the front. Unfortunately the GP125 engined RS125 which Avalon was riding was leaking gearbox oil into the crank case of the 2 stroke and fouling plugs but I’m kind of grateful for it because it let me try and follow when she overtook me haha.

The below photo is a pass around the outside of Warrick in the sweeper just after passing me in the infield, that’s some corner speed right there!

Congrats to Nigel for a new track record of 29.436s anticlockwise, a real sight to see!

I had some good battles with Warrick, Karl and Neil (mini motard)! Great riding guys

Huge respect for Karl (following me in the above photo) who put in a 30.9 second lap on a 13hp FXR with standard wheels and 5 year old worn out skinny slicks. I have some serious learning to do with corner speed clearly! It also goes to show how little you have to put into your bike to be competitive at Mt Wellington if you have the right skill.

Thanks Kamil, Cully, Tim etc who ran the event and to the flag marshals as always. Cheers dad for shooting the photos

RS125 NF4 WHEELS

Swoooooon. Some very clean and very good condition NF4 Honda RS125 wheels turned up at my door today complete with alloy disk. 17×2.15″ front, 17×3″ and made of magnesium, they weigh next to nothing. They are likely to make their way onto the 2 stroke in the future but they were a great deal in my eyes so couldn’t let them go.

And whilst I’m on the subject of wheels, my friend Nick has a pair of Enkei Big End Rodders for sale at the moment. 15×7.5 (or there abouts) and 4×100. One has a dent in the lip but holds air fine. Not many of these around so drop your email if you’re interested and I’ll pass it onto him.

BARRY SHEENE FESTIVAL 2012 #3

NORTON + HONDA RS125 @ Hampton Downs for the Barry Sheene Festival in 2012

BARRY SHEENE TRANS-TANSMAN CHALLENGE

A typical scene at motorcycle events in New Zealand. Race, sleep, eat, race again.

A favourite of mine, the Yamaha 350 twin cylinder two stroke sounded beautiful.

The Honda RS125 is also one of my favourite bikes and one day I hope to own one. This ’89 NF4 was piloted by a young Australian girl who wasn’t messing around! Awesome.

My dad and I headed down to hampton downs today for the first day of the Barry Sheene Trans-tasman Challenge which runs until Monday. What a day! Sun, fuel and the biggest collection of motorcycles I’ve seen all year. Being trans-tasman, there was a large field of Australian riders there who had imported their bikes for the weekend. The event is aimed towards classic motorcycle racing but there were plenty of late 80’s bikes there too which pleased me greatly.

I shot plenty of photos with more to come including some hot side car action. Head down to Hampton over the next two days to catch the action for yourself, it’s highly recommended.