AHRMA Carolina Motorsports Park 2021

In preperation for my second race of the 2021 season, I put my CRTT H-D Sprint on the dyno to understand why it didn't seem to want to rev at Roebling Road four weeks before. After several runs, the motor went BANG and lost power. I found that the exhaust valve wasn't opening and suspected that a tappet had broken. This happened to this motor last July at Blackhawk Farms and was no big deal as I just took the broken pieces out and put a used tappet in that I had with me. But when I investigated this time, I found it wasn't so simple.

It looked like the broken off head of the tappet had been jammed into the tappet bush and pushed it up towards the head and galled the bush so the broken off stem of the tappet was jammed in the bush.

I decided that this was more than I could deal with in the time I had left and Rob Iannucci offered me a Team Obsolete AJS 7R which I accepted. The bike had last been run in 2015 when I raced it at a USCRA event at NJMP Lightning circuit. We just put oil in it, changed the number plates and did some safety wiring and it seemed ready. I had a miseralble Friday night at CMP as it got really cold and I had to make three dashes to the men's room in the middle of the night with gastro-intestinal distress. Sat., was cold, cloudy and very windy. I took it very easy in the first practice, but had a lot of problems shifting the gearbox, especially downshifting (i.e.lifting the lever up). I got an old broken aluminum footrest from Stu Carter and slid it over the toe piece of the shift lever, lengthening it and making it bigger in diameter.

This helped enormously in the 2nd practice, though I still occasionally had problems downshifting.

Testing the shift lever on the bench. Amy Roper photo. My first race was race #7 with Sound of Singles 2 in the first wave and 500 Premiere (Vintage Cup) in the second wave and Formula 500 gridded behind. At the start, Helmi Neiderer crashed going into turn #1 and his bike knocked down Tony Read, the winner of the two 500 Premiere races at Roebling Road. This brought out the red flag, one of an incredible number of red flags over the weekend. Neither Tony or Helmi made the restart, so I was able to finish a distant 2nd to Wes Orloff, on Dale Coffman's 450 Honda, in class, but 17th overall behind a bunch of SOS2 bikes (and lapped by the leader, Ralph Staropoli) and three F500 bikes. There were more crashes and red flags before my second race, #13 the Vintage Superbike Lightweight, 350GP and 350 Sportsman and and Formula 125. I was running a distant 2nd to Alex McLean on his Drixton Aermacchi in class. I still occasionally had problems downshifting in the 'fog of war'and failed to get it right entering one of the corners and came out two gears too tall. Jonathan Hollingsworth on a Rickman Aermacchi and Jerry Duke on a 350 Ducati came by me. I initially thought--no problem; I can get them back--but then the red flag came out and the race was called final, so I was 4th in class and 10th overall. I decided that I was geared a little tall and added one tooth to the rear sprocket. I also went to one step colder sparkplug as I had a little concern about the center electrode on the one I had run with. Saturday night was much better than Friday and, while Sunday was somewhat warmer than Sat., it was perhaps more windy and even drizzled a bit in the morning. I trimed the footrest that I had slipped over the shift lever in a effort to further improve my downshifting.

My sister-in-law Amy Roper and her fiance Dave Nichols came to the event and were a trememdous help. Amy Roper photo.

Amy Roper Photo. After the one practice round, I went up one jet size in the carb.

Trying to find neutral after starting the bike on the roller starter. Amy Roper photo. In Sunday's 500 Premiere race, Tony Read stalled on the grid and wasn't able to start the race. I again ran a distant second to Wes Orloff and was able to hold off Helmi, who was somewhat detuned by his crash on Sat. This race too was red flagged for a crash and I ended up 2nd in class and 13th overall behind 8 SOS2 bikes, Wes and 3 F500 bikes. By the time the 350GP race came up, the sun had come out and it was considerable warmer, but still very windy. And, people were still crashing. I think it was on the second restart that someone crashed in front of Alex McLean and he had no where to go, went down and didn't make the restart as he hurt his foot. So, I took the lead in the class on the third restart.

Exiting turn #1. Amy Roper photo. I thought the race might be re flagged again as someone fell in the last corner and the bike ended just off the track in the impact zone, but for once they didn't throw the red flag. I had passed Jerry Duke early on but must have been goofing off or again wasn't able to make the downshift as my fastest lap was nearly three seconds slower than in the 500 Premiere race. In the last corner of the race, Jerry stuffed me hard up the the inside. I thought that he wasn't going to make the corner and I ran off the track. Jerry ran over the rumble strips but stayed on the tarmac and beat me to the finish line by 2.5 sec.as I recovered, so again I was 2nd in class, this time 4th overall with two VSL bikes in front of us. So, all four of the races that I was in were red flagged, the last one three times. And these were far from the only races red flagged. There had to be a record number of crashes. Part of this was undoubtedly the weather and maybe March isn't the best time to race at CMP. Part of the problem was just a big turn out--more entries mean more crashes, perhaps especially when it's the first race of the year for many of the racers. And, part of it is the nature of the CMP track. Turn #1 is very tight and not that far from the start line, so it's not uncommon for there to be a gaggle of riders there at the start trying to occupy the same spot. I felt lucky to survive unscathed.