1987 Honda XR250R

I picked up a project this winter. Seamus "rescued" an '87 Honda XR250R from someone's garage. It had been abused and neglected. Seamus got it home, did a compression check and determined that it had none, then he took the top end off to inspect the cylinder and piston/rings. There was a significant ring gap, and he decided it just needed freshening up. That was two years ago, and with a new domestic situation developing, he sold the project on to me.

I did some preliminary work on the chassis, replacing the rear shock and tire with good used stuff. Now I'm getting into the engine. I ordered up a new 77mm oversize piston (stock is 73 mm) and top end gasket set from Wiseco, took the cylinder to my friends at The Crank Shop and had them bore it to the new piston size. The top end kit came with new valve seals, so I took the head over to Fred's place and he patiently showed me how to replace those. It's been awhile since I've had a cylinder head apart. One of the exhaust valves needed to be lapped, and Fred had the lapping compound and a drill to speed up the process a little, so I think we may have solved some of the lack of compression issues.

Now it's time to start putting things back together.

This is the cylinder after the bore job from The Crank Shop.

Seamus had included a good used clutch cover, the one on the bike was cracked at an oil line boss. I swapped them over and replaced the clutch springs while I had the cover off.

Scott Armstrong of Moto Connection loaned me the factory service manual, which will come in very handy as I try to put this RFVC engine back together.

More photos and progress soon.

While roaming the Spanish countryside...

Here are some photos from a recent trip to Spain via Sweden (to sign for some inventory for work). My family was able to travel with me, and we met up with more family in Spain and had a wonderful time on the Mediterranean coast around Alicante. We drove north for a day trip and happened upon this museum which was perfectly situated on a winding mountain road. The bikes are a family collection and appear to be in running condition.

Here's their website; http://www.museovehiculosguadalest.com/index.html

Bump Steer

As you know, I rarely post stuff from other blogs, but I stumbled onto this guy's site and it's worth sharing.

Ronnie Peterson in the German GP.

Go to this site, sorry I can't make it "hyper".

http://bumpsteer.blogspot.com/

XL600 Streettracker

Here are a couple more photos I dug up of my '86 Honda XL600 streettracker.

This is me racing it at the Bangor 1/2 mile, I think in August of 2000, against #76 Bruce Lyskawa. He was part owner of Erion Racing for awhile. I enjoyed being in front of him.

This is at the Sandbar in Milton, getting ready to go out on the ice with Rees and his buddy. I had replaced the stock steel tank with a fiberglass tank from Omar's.

Arrowhead Lake Ice

We've been going out to Arrowhead Lake in Milton for the past three Sundays, to ride on the ice. I meant to post some video from that on here, but it seems it's no longer a blogger option to post video here. Sucks.

Anyway, the ice was really good yesterday, no plowing required. We set up an oval first, and rode the hell out of it all day. I brought some cones out to mark the insides of the turns so that we weren't just riding in a big circle. The bikes with Canadian screws tend to chew up the ice, and my AMA screws don't grip in the loose chips they create, so we just moved the cones on both ends to find fresh ice.

Then Rees and I took some of the cones and set up a road course further out on more more fresh ice. It's always a little tough getting a road course right, but after a couple adjustments we had a nice flowing course with some good high speed turns and a tight hairpin. Matt and Rees and I rode it counter-clockwise for awhile, then we reversed direction and rode it clockwise, which was actually more fun. I regret I didn't have my helmet cam for that 'cause we were having a ball, and it would have been good video fodder.

There were also a couple local guys on quads riding the oval, it was a little unnerving to be out with them, but they stayed in control and I actually had a good session with one of 'em when I was riding Matt's YZ250F.

Rees built his own tires, using a Pirelli MT44 Lagunacross that he shaved, with stainless Canadian screws. He had the most grip out there, and he was ripping.

This is Jeremy Armell, son of one of our techs at work.

Scott Armstrong was ready to offer his firstborn for a ride on someone's bike. We would've let him ride for free.

Jolly Roger Motorsports Park

Here's a photo from JRM, taken around '02 or '03 by Scott Rounds. This is probably an Open Expert heat race with #22u Mike Beland, #1 Roger Durkee, #26b Lowell Carson, and #9u David Bettencourt.

This kind of marks an end of an era when the open classes were dominated by Rotax engined "framers", with a few guys racing big air-cooled Hondas or Yamahas, and a few guys racing the brand new CRF450R's. In a relatively short period, maybe 3-5 years, the dominant bike on the front row became the CRF450R.

Mike had his own powersports shop in Mass before he moved to Florida, called A-1. He'd shown up on the flattrack scene coming from a background of drag racing motorcycles. He's tough to beat off the line, despite this photo showing otherwise.

Roger was the local expert to beat. A former National number holder, he showed a lot of younger riders the fast way around any short track, and didn't lose too often.

Lowell is an expert that raced more in NY Dictrict 3, but would still show up at NEDTS events occasionally.

Dave was another of the local experts to beat, and I believe he was also a former National number holder. He held a few NEDTS titles. Sadly, he was taken by Leukemia a few years ago.

Speaking of National numbers, the way you earn one is to qualify for an AMA National feature race. To do that you must first accumulate enough points racing as a Pro-Sport rider to be eligible to enter a National event. At most of the National shorttrack or 1/2 mile events during the 90's and early 00's a typical entry list would often run 60 to 80 or more competitors, all trying to get into the 18 rider main event, so needless to say the competition in heat races was fierce.

The Pro-Sport plates are white with red numbers. The letter next to the number designates the district that a racer comes from, "u" is the designation for New England, and I'm guessing "b" is the Eastern NY district.

I'll miss the framers, 'cause they look and sound so badass. They're still showing up and occasionally winning races at some of the local tracks, but they're long gone from the National scene.

This is another photo from the same roll (remember film?) later in the program. Dave Bettencourt about to go around the outside of another rider entering turn 1. I can't remember who #31 is, this may have been a night with a lot of New York/New England riders trying for a big purse. Love the roost!

More from the Harrington 1/2 Mile

I recently sent the Harrington slides down to Larry Lawrence for his blog The Rider Files. He's a contributing editor at Cycle World, and has a superb collection of motorcycle racing photos taken during the 80's and up to current times. He also has an encyclopedic knowledge of the racers, down to the names of club level riders all over the country.

He had offered to digitize the slides for me, and if any were worthy he would load some on his site. Well he came through on both promises, as I just got the slides back along with a CD containing the digi's, and he did in fact publish many of the images on The Rider Files, including the identification of riders. I was pretty psyched to find out who I had photos of;

Here's Chris Carr riding a Wood Rotax sporting an amateur plate with Dellorto sponsorship.


Randy Goss, check the helmet sponsor!


Bubba Shobert on the RS750


I'll post more of these as I have time, but you can check 'em out at the rider files...

Big thank you to Larry for his work!