Hey Everybody,
I don't have any action photos, but I could not resist getting a shot of my bike and the awesomely large trophy I picked up on Saturday. I know these little bike/goped/gokart races are a bit silly, but I am damn proud of finally being able to win one of these! I have been attending the races since 2012 and have got close, but never was able to snatch the 1st place spot.
I need to give a big thanks to Andy and Brian for not being able to finish, if you two or Chris were at the finish line, I am sure I would have been behind you, you guys are fast and draw some quick lines around those turns.
I also want to thank Neil and whoever donated all those huge trophies, that was a very impressive award table.
I had a few mechanical problems along the way. My rear coaster brake seized in practice, thus twisting and bending my brake arm like a pretzel. I spent the rest of the morning before heat 1 getting the hub apart, hammering the brake arm back to relatively straight and re-packing the bearing. I had to also re-true the back rim. A bunch of spokes were super loose causing it to be way out of true. I made it into heat 1, but halfway through, my pedal chain popped off leaving me with no back brake and a rubbing chain.
In heat two I didn't even get to turn one, the pedal chain popped off again while pedaling at the start. The chain was too loose. I fiddled with my belt and chain tension and got it together during lunch, then took one last test run and after that my spokes were loose again. Reworked all the spokes and crossed my fingers for the final. The old jalopy held up for that final. I managed to get into 2nd place after Andy ran out of gas, then I found myself catching up to Brian (Nashmoto). That seemed odd, I have never been able to do that. On one of the laps I noticed him being noticeably slow on the straight, later I found out his clutch was failing. Suddenly I was in the lead with a few laps to go, I was then passed a couple laps before the end, but it ended up being a bike with an engine belonging to the unlimited class, so I was handed the win.
So it wasn't pretty, but I am claiming that 1st place and am really proud of my briggs powered racer. Flatheads forever!
Thanks again for everyone who participated, it was a really good turn out this time.
Gilbert