June 7th I set off for back to back race meetings at Road America, in Elkhart Lake, Wi. and Grattan, Mi. the next weekend.  I drove by way of Waterdown, Ont., Canada and spent the night with my friend and great vintage racer Dean de St. Croix.  The next morning, Ken Rosevear drove down from Utopia and delivered my Dondolino motor, which he had just finished rebuilding.  For those of you who weren't paying attention, a year ago I had 'magneto failure' on this bike at Grattan when the broken connecting rod knocked the magneto off the crankcase.  After much welding and machining, a new repro crankshaft assy, a new flywheel, a new cyl. liner, and new piston a new magneto, and many new bearings, Ken got the motor squared up.
Shortly before I arrived at Dean's, my van's anti-sway bar broke and the van was all over the place.  It scared me enough that I decided I had to fix it, which is against my nature.  Dean got on the internet in the morning and located one and we drove there and picked it up.  Ken had arrived by the time we got back and, after some breakfast, the three of us installed it in the van.  This set my schedule back some and I didn't get on the road until almost noon but, without Dean and Ken, it would have been much later.  I had no trouble at either border crossing and, after the usual slog through Chicago, got to Road America about 10:30p CDT.

My pit at Road America.  Photo by Terry McGuire
Sat. practice went well and I lined up on the pole for the 350gp on my H-D Sprint ERTT, but gridded behind the F-750 and 750 Sportsman classes.  My arch nemesis and good friend Bruce Yoximer was on his Seeley AJS 7R but hadn't completed a lap on the bike as the primary belt had broken first thing Fri. and he didn't have a spare.  He had some Fedexed in, but they didn't arrive until after practice had finished Sat.  Bruce got the holeshot follow by Paul Germain on the Yamaha DT-1 he had previously won the 250gp race on.  But, Bruce missed the 2nd to 3rd shift and I went by both of them into turn #1 and led for probably 3 laps.  By then, Bruce had got his break markers and apexes figured out and he came by me (after he went by Germain pulling off with a flat rear tire.)  He had motor on me, but I was able to out brake him and we swapped back and forth several times.  Somehow, I managed to drop over a sec. on the last lap and Bruce tried a little too hard in the last corner and ran wide loosing his drive on the rumble strip and I beat him by 0.259 secs.

Craig Breckon prepares to push me off.  Photo by Terry McGuire

I immediately went back out on the same bike for the 'bump up' race: 500 Premiere.  When the #1 board went sideways and I put it in gear, the bike jumped and stalled as the rest of the grid launched.  My clutch wouldn't disengage and I had to find neutral to push it off the grid.  I thought maybe a clutch plate had broken and jammed but, when I took it apart, the plates were all intact.  I took the inner hub off and fount the nut retaining the outer shell had backed off and was hard against the inner hub preventing one from turning in relation to the other.  That clearly was the problem.  But, when I tightened the nut up, the inner still wouldn't turn in relation to the outer.  I ended up taking the whole primary/timing case off and then found the primary gear didn't want to slide off the mainshaft.  Finally, with some prybars and brute force, I was able to pop the gear off.  Evidently, when the nut backed off, it forced the outer shell inboard and the needle bearing cage had welded itself to the thrust washer.  I dressed everything up as best I could and reassembled, hoping for the best.  With the nut tightened up, there's a little clearance in there and the clutch seemed to work fine in practice Sun. morn.

My friends Terry and Sharon brought their 11year old neighbor to the track Sun.  Here I am introducing her to Leah Orloff after she finished 3rd in the CB160 race.  Photo by Terry McGuire

In Sunday's 350gp, I managed to get by Bruce in turn #2 on the first lap, but he was up to speed sooner and back by me before the lap was over.  He would pretty consistently pass me on the front and back straights and I would pretty consistently pass him on the brakes into turn #5.  I began to think he was content to let me lead and he would just out drag me from the last corner to the finish line.  And that's almost what happened, but he passed me a couple of feet after the finish line.  I won by 0.067 secs.

Out braking Bruce Yoximer into turn #5.  Photo by Terry McGuire

Again, I immediately went back out on the same bike for the 500 Premiere race.  I had just about no hope against Wes Orloff on a 500 Honda twin and the plan was to just cruise around smoothly.  Going through the carrousel I thought to myself "the rear end is moving around a bit; this tire has a lot of miles on it."  Two turns later, accelerating out of the chicane, I spun it out and backed it into the dirt.  For the second day in a row, I went from hero to zero in a flash.  I just banged my foot a bit, and the bike wasn't too bad, but I just created a lot of work for myself in the week between Rd. Am. and Grattan.  The right clip-on was bent and torn, the shift lever was broken off, the megaphone was torn open at the rear mount, the windscreen was broken and fairing torn up, and there was dirt everywhere.

The ERTT after Sunday's crash in the 500 premiere race.  Photo by Terry McGuire

Dumping the dirt out of the ERTT after crashing it Sun.  Photo by Kenny Cummings.

I moved to the Irving Park neighborhood of Chicago with old dear friends Terry and Sharon from college days and got to work on the bikes.  I needed welding and a call to Big Bob Burns got me set up with Fred Cousins, at 'the Bunker' that evening.  In the mean time, I pulled the cyl. head and cleaned the dirt out of the combustion chamber and lapped the valves.  Fred's day job is working at a vintage car restoration shop, Cooper Technica (Preserving the Art of Fine Mechanisms), but does bike work on the side at his Triple O Service.  We heated up and straightened the clip-on and megaphone, then he MIG welded them and the shift lever while I cleaned the carb in his solvent tank and, after much fiddling, finally got the slide to close all the way.  Fred did a great job and really saved the day.  The next day, I finished up the H-D and started to install the newly rebuilt Dondolino motor in it's chassis.  This involved pivoting the front end of the chassis up so we could slip the motor into it's cradle.  Many thanks to Terry for pulling away from tending their beloved garden to help hump the motor in.

Installing the motor in the Dondolino

Wed. Terry and Sharon were off for three weeks in Spain and France, so I moved to some other friends in Chicago, Tigerlady and Dick Watts.  Dick rearranged things in his wood shop where he makes custom guitars, so I could continue on the Dondolino.  That evening we went to Cooper Technica and Fred gave us the tour.  He was working on the most modern car there, a '62 Ferrari 250GT.  There were two '42 Alfas and a Mercedes from the twenties with English body work.  But, the car that impressed me the most was a '34 Tatra T77, a streamlined Czech car with an aircooled flat eight in the rear.  From Cooper Technica, we went to the ChiVinMoto 'garage crawl' which, that week, was at Burt  Richmond's townhouse.  Burt runs Lotus Tours with his wife Dianne, and has a big collection of little scooters, motorcycles, and cars.  Burt had several new additions since I was last there in 2008 including a Dunkley, a 61cc four stroke British scooter and a Polish scooter I had never heard off.  A bunch of the people I had seen at Rd. Am. and would see at Grattan were there including Big Bob Burns, Rebecca Berneck, Pat Fitzgerald, and Dan Waite.
Thurs. I finished up the Dondolino and Fri. morning headed to Grattan via Richland, Mi., where Buck and Constance Boudeman live.  Buck is the owner of the 1894 Slyvester Roper steam cycle.  Slyvester is my 2nd Cousin, 4 times removed, and he invented the motorcycle in 1869, a 'boneshaker' now in the Smithsonian Institute (http://americanhistory.si.edu/onthemove/themes/story_54_1.html).  Sylvester made many steam vehicles during his life, the last being a Columbia 'modern safety bicycle' into which he put and boiler and steam engine.  According to the Boston Globe, he went 40 MPH on this on Dorchester Ave. in 1896.  Later he challenge a bicycle racer to a race on a cycle track in Cambridge and, after blowing off the 'push bike', opened it up on the back straight, went into a wobble, and died of a heart attack at the age of 72.  When Buck got the Roper steam cycle, he powered it up with compressed air and everything worked.  But, he hasn't fired the boiler, knowing that Sylvester was very weight conscious and made it very light weight.  Now Buck has decided to get it running and has asked me to ride it 'at Goodwood or somewhere'.  Buck has been to Goodwood five times with his Stanley Steamers and Miller cars.  This probably won't happen for a year or two as he wants to finish his current massive project of restoring/reproducing a Miller V-16 four wheel drive car from 1933.  He has a few of the original parts and has acquired the original drawings and most of the original patterns.  From this, he has cast up the crankcase and other motor castings and is building a motor around an original crankshaft.  This man is not afraid of a project.  BTW, Buck's wife Constance is the granddaughter of F.E.Stanley, one of the two Stanley brothers of Stanley Steamer fame.  Buck and Constance met through steam.
At Grattan, I fired up the Dondolino for the first time in a year and it seemed good; smooth and no smoke.  In the race, I was running a distant 3rd behind Alex Mclean of Bob McKeever's rigid cammy Norton and Ryan Ambrose on Big D's rigid, pre-unit Triumph twin, when the Dondo lost power on the third lap and I shut it down.  Alex went on to win when Ryan dropped the Tri. in Turn #3 on the last lap.  I didn't find anything obviously wrong with the Dondo and fired it up again, so I decided to try it in Sun. morning practice and decide if I was going to race it.
In the 350gp, once again Bruce Yoximer got the holeshot, but I soon outbraked him and led overall after we had gotten by some Vintage Superbike Lightweights.  Starting the last lap Bruce came by me on the straight and I followed him until the turn #10 hairpin when I did a somewhat rude stuff pass.  We crossed the finish line side by side not knowing who won.  The transponders said I won, by 0.001 of a second.  In three races, I had beat Bruce three time by a total of less than 1/3rd of a second.  While I knew that last pass was a hard one, I didn't think there was any contact.  Bruce however wasn't happy and apparently my bike had hit his elbow and knocked his hand off the handlebar.  I apologized and resolved to do better.  I love these close races but don't want to win by bashing into people.  BTW, Bruce had the fastest lap in the race.
It rained hard Sat. night and was still drizzling for Sun. practice.  I went out on the Dondo and it was slow and wouldn't rev.  It felt like retarded timing.  Paul Germain, Francis Ganance, and Jon White helped me analyze the situation.  Using the outside flywheel as at timing disc, we roughly calculated that the points were opening at around 5 deg.s btc, not the 40 they should have been.  Apparently the mag gear had slipped on the armature.  Paul packed up and went home to Winnepeg, Manitoba, scared of a little rain.  Francis, Jon and I pulled the timing cover and move the magneto gear two teeth (40 deg.s).  In the class C race, I blew the start when I thought I was in gear but wasn't and got off last.  The track was wet, but drying and I was pretty tentative initially, but the bike ran great.  Again, I finished a distant 3rd and again Alex McLean held off Ryan Ambrose for the win.
For Sunday's 350gp race, they gridded the Vintage Superbike Lightweights ahead of us.  Again, Yox got the holeshot in the 350gp and again, I out braked him going into turn #1.  It took me a couple of laps to get by Craig Breckon on his FT 500 Honda and his cousin(?, nephew?) Chad Wiers on a GS400 Suzuki.  A couple of laps later, I got balked by a back marker and the two of them came back by me.  I was able to get them back and win overall, all the time expecting Yoximer to come by.  But, turns out he had retired with a sticking throttle.  Then, in the post race 'hot tech', I saw I had failed to switch my transponder from the Guzzi to the H-D.  This left me the option of paying $50 be manually scored or being disqualified.  I opted for the DQ, in part as a gesture to Yoximer for my rude pass of the previous day and in part because I'm a cheap SOB.  And, I still have a decent lead in the 350gp championship, if that means anything.

All in all, a great trip with close racing, a largely successful relaunch of the Moto Guzzi Dondolino and quality time spent with good friends.  

Seal Cove Auto Museum I drove up to Bar Harbor, Me. to visit a dear old friend and one of the things we did over the long weekend was go to the Seal Cove Auto Museum.  In addition to having many fine brass era car, it has a reasonable collection of early motorcycles and bicycles.  There were at least four Indians including a 1903 Camelback. There were two Pierces, a four and a single, from 1911 & '12.




They also had an FN four, always an interesting comparison to the Pierce.  One I had never heard of was a Thomas, built in Buffalo, N.Y., in 1901. 
 
There was a very interesting 1913 Thor, that has a rotary intake valve, something I hadn't realized engineers had played with until much later. 
The 1911 Flying Merkel V-twin had a very impressive brass fuel tank.
There was also a 1911 Pope, built in Hartford, Ct.
 
 Probably the most impressive car was the 1913 Peugeot which had been restored in the early '60s.
Check out the many trumpeted bulb horn.


 All photos by Phyllis Aschenbrenner.

Last weekend, in preparation for Steve Rossi's  Tiddler Tour, I fired up my Moto Guzzi Airone and noticed sparks coming off the outside flywheel.  It was hitting the footrest, but why?   Turns out, I had a ton of up and down slop in my crankshaft.  It seemed wise not to run it until after I stripped the motor.  Once again, my brother Doug came to the rescue, offering me his '65 175 CZ, which he had recently gone through.  About seven Tiddlers show up and Doug & Amy's house Sun. morning and we rode over the Connecticut River to Steve Rossi's house.  About 32 in total showed up.  Oldest on the tour was a '52 BSA B-40, that reputedly came out of Borneo, ridden by one of the two fellows from New Hampshire.
 
 Newest on the tour was a 2009 Aprilla 125 two stroke the Bud Clauer had somehow managed to register.

 

After the Tour, Bud let me take this little pocket rocket for a quick spin.  It's utterly civilized, but you have to  ring it's scrawny little neck to make it fly, and fly it does.  Killer brakes, too. 

Smallest on the tour was this '81? Kawasaki AR 80

 Before taking off on the route, a tour of Steve's garage is always a must.  New items from last year were a Hercules wankel and a '51 Aermacchi 125 scooter

                                                      Steve's  '56? Moto Guzzi Galetto

Steve's 65cc Moto Guzzi Legarro

Steve's latest acquisition, a rotary engined Hercules

A 175 Benelli next to a V-50 Guzzi

After a good schmooze, I decided it was time to get this show on the road and took off with Mike Peavey in my draft on his newly imported Moto Guzzi Airone.  The seller thought it was a sport, but Mike figured out it was a Turismo that had been 'Sportized'.  The CZ, while not real fast, handled well, had good brakes and was comfortable, and we jammed hard to the lunch spot in Coventry, Ct.

 My brother's '65 175 CZ and Mike Peavey's '56? Moto Guzzi Turismo/Sport

 Just after we pulled up, and elderly gentleman walked up and said when he heard the CZ, he had to come over to check it out.  He was from Czechoslovakia and had owned a 150 Jawa in the old country.  He regaled us with stories of the good ol' days (and not so good ol' days; he had swum across a river to his freedom in 1971).  After chatting a bit, he continued his 7 mile walk from his house to his daughters.  After lunch and a good schmooze, Mike and I left last on the afternoon section and managed to pass everyone on the way back to Steve's house.  After another good schmooze, I headed back to Doug & Amy's house to pull the motor out of my Airone.  I ended up having some of the greatest minds in M/C mechanics helping me yank the motor out.  Food and drink followed.  Memorial day, I stripped the motor and found the drive side main bearing was shot and the timing side was loose.

  But, more troubling was the conrod  and crankshaft was heavily worn on the timing side indicating something was forcing the rod to that side.  This was the same condition I found in my Dondolino after it blew up, and it seems something is out of square.

Last weekend,12-13 May, I took my 250 Aermacchi CRTT to Loudon, N.H. for the USCRA Vintage Celebration, a vintage bike and car event.  I last rode this bike at St.Eustache, near Montreal, and it ran terribly.  A month or so ago, I finally got around to looking at.  I started checking the basics and found the ignition timing at 19 degrees, not the 48 degrees it's supposed to be.  I think 'that must have been the problem, but why was it off.  Did I totally screw up when I set it or did the rotor move on the taper?'  I the first practice Sat., it ran well.  I put a fresh plug in for the 2nd practice and the bike seemed very good.  But, the plug looked lean and somewhat glazed despite the fact that I had the biggest main jet I own in the carb.  I checked the entire fuel system for any blockage and found nothing.

 So, I raise the needle a notch.  Come the race, the bike had no power and wouldn't rev.  It felt like the ignition was retarded and I thought the rotor must have move again.  I pulled off at the end of the first lap but, when I checked the timing, the marks lined right up.  I went over the motor hoping to find some problem, but didn't.  It's started easily, but on the warm-up lap of the 2nd race, again I had no power and it didn't want to rev and I pulled off at the end of the warm-up lap and didn't start the race.  Looking over the motor again I noticed the outside flywheel was cracked--again.

 I had cracked a couple before I had discovered my crank was out of true.  Now, the new flywheel I had put on after I had the crank trued was cracked.  More worrying was the 'dead spot' I felt when I turned the flywheel back and forth.  It felt like there was a loose big end or small end of the conrod or that the wrist pin or crankpin were broken or something about to fail catastrophically.  Yesterday, I took the top end down and found the piston had been hitting the head and the looseness was in the lower end with either big end bearing failure or a broken crankpin.  Clearly the cases have to come apart. 
But, that wasn't nearly as bad as my friend and arch nemesis, Phil Turkington crashing in the first practice and breaking his femur and foot.  The corner workers didn't see him and, depending who you listened to, he lay off the track either two or three laps until the practice was over and a couple of racers told race control he was out there.  Phil was remarkably philosophical about it, saying it was 'pilot error' and we must accept the consequences of the risks we take.  I think he has a high tolerance for pain , too.
The entry was pretty meager, but there were a few interesting bikes.

Jim Jower's 250 Ducati

Randy Hoffman's Vincent Comet

Randy Hoffman's KTT Velo in a featherbed chassis

A Laverda SFC

I don't usually pay much attention to cars, but there was a 1927(?) Bugatti there that I thought was fabulous.  It's a supercharged, 2 liter, straight eight.

  The motor looked like it was carved out of a solid block and nothing looked cast. 

The wheels, however, were definitely cast, and huge and cable operated.

 The Jaeger tach makes a Vincent speedo look insignificant. 

There were several interesting road bikes in attendance.  Bill Burke brought his 250 NSU Special Max and his Moto Guzzi 250 Airone Sport.

 Then a 680cc Brough Superior showed up to upstage everyone.

Last weekend was the USCRA's Spring Giro, based at Jiminy Peak in Hancock, Ma.  Event Director, Doug Boughton, had asked a mutual friend of ours, Scott Kolb, to be the keynote speaker at the banquet Sat. night.  Scott has set a number of Bonneville speed records with an RS 125 powered streamliner.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYJDoaGgEdE
Doug also offered Scott his CL77 to compete in the Giro.  As Scott had never done a Giro before, Doug paired him with me.  There was a big turn out with 120 entries.  I was #105 and Scott #106.  Being the grizzled veteran I am, I showed Scott the ropes, beginning with losing track of the time while bullshitting with some one and punching in a couple of minutes late Sat. morning.  Scott and I had a great time playing Redman and Provini at the Isle of Man all weekend.  The CL 77 was a lot faster than my '53 Moto Guzzi Airone Sport, so in the faster bits, Scott would get ahead of me so I could draft him.  We figure it was good for about 4 more MPH.  There was a fair amount of dirt roads, esp. on Sat., though Sun. had a particularly gnarly one.  Good fun.  The weather was superb and the roads were terrific.

A very nice Yetman CB77 above.

Moto Guzzi was represented by last Spring's overall winner, Devon Fraizer on a 110 Zigolo.  Devon finished 2nd in the 125 class this year.

Winner of the 125 Class was this Stornello

Ken Richardson rode his 235 Lodola.  Mike Peavey tried to ride his '54 Airone Sport Sat., but the needle came adrift in the carb.  He fixed this for Sun., but then the clutch failed.  He just acquired this bike and it needs a bit of sorting.  Both times, Mike reverted to his 235 Lodola, which was trouble free.

This is Peter Davidson on his C15 BSA

Mark Young's route sheet dashboard on his Ducati

A very nice 175 Gilera, though it had a Mikuni carb (gasp) and no airfilter which may not have been wise with the amount of dirt roads we had.

This is the overall winners bike, a CA77 Dream, with a very knobby front tire and an Ariel badge on the tank.  Who would have thought?

After we finished Sun. afternoon, I ask Scott if he'd like to take my Airone for a spin.  He was gone awhile and finally came back pushing the bike.  The oil supply pipe had broken covering his right foot and the motor in oil.  Luckily, this happened after the Giro had finished and not far away.