XL600 Street tracker

Here's one of my fav's. It's an '86 Honda XL600. When I got it, it was completely stock. I rode it that way for a season, on the road and in the woods a bit, but it always felt a bit tall and heavy in the woods. I finally took a fall on it, broke my clavicle, and decided it needed a new life as a 'tracker.
I had a friend, Rich Beauregard, do the work. Omar's tank, custom seat, exhaust, suspension and controls, and a great paint job, all by Rich.
My son and I have raced this on several half miles as well as some shorttracks. I've also done a season of Supermotard with it. Fun.
In this pic it has ice tires on it. We were just having fun hacking around, no fenders or tether kill switch...

Ice chipper...

The business end of an outlaw Canadian ice tire. Best advice, treat with respect...that dog will bite.

Bill's Trackmaster

'80s Trackmaster frame with a late '80s KX125, DG pipe, Flanders bars, Grimeca brake, quick change rear wheel, WP shocks. Custom Pinstripe.
A gem.

More of the same

Here's some vid from the same day at Arrowhead. Me on my 300, Matt on his 450, Mike on his CR250 and Seamus on the XR500. You'll see Matt take an ice sample just when things are getting interesting. You'll also see Matt's son bombing around the road course on his annoyingly loud KTM 65. "Annoyingly loud" isn't really fair when you consider what we're riding, but when you're standing around, trying to catch your breathe after a bunch of laps, helmet off, and the boy is still out there doing lap after lap...well you may get annoyed with something..

Brain Freeze

Well, the flattrack season ended quietly. I haven't raced since the Jolly Roger event.
Instead, I've been getting as much seat time as possible on my KTM in the woods. Mainly local rides at Matt's in Milton or Fred's in Westford. It's been great, but now I need to perform some maintenance on the bike in preparation for the upcoming Ice season.
Here are some images from earlier this year, for inspiration. Top is Matt on his 450, middle is Seamus on his '82 XR500, and bottom is Mike on his '82 CR250. All at Lake Arrowhead in Milton, Feb 26.

Results and info...

Don't know why the links didn't work, so here they are again;

http://www.amaflattrack.com


http://www.motogp.com


Check out some of the photo's on the AMA Flattrack site, there are some shots from the Springfield Mile and Shorttrack that are just incredible.

Indy!

Bill and I made our way to Indianapolis for the inaugural MotoGP and the Indy Mile. We caught some great racing at both venues.

The MotoGP racing had it's ups and downs, the bikes/riders/sounds were great, the track was OK as half-tracks go, probably better than most but I still prefer a complete road course. Here's a clip of the front straight, we just sat down in front of the paddock when the first bikes came down the straight. You'll hear the riders down-shifting to set up for turn one, and as you'll see, we were enjoying the reverb in the covered grandstand...


The Indy Mile was what made the weekend for us. The weather turned out great for the evening, the racing was epic, we saw some great interviews with "King" Kenny Roberts, Jay "The Gunslinger" Springsteen and other legends. The race announcer did some of the interviews, he had a great voice, Bill and I were imitating him the rest of the weekend till our throats were sore. We checked out the track and pits after the show. Here's a shot of the groove heading into turn one...


Since the weather forecast for the Mile was sketchy, they dropped the Semi's from the program and just had 4 heats with the top 5 transferring to the Main. That did help move the program along. They also ran the Expert Twins Class and that turned out to be a great battle at the front with James Rispoli on a Lloyd Brothers RXV550 Aprilia sandwiched between a pair of Kawasaki 650's tuned by Bill Werner and ridden by Brock Schwarzenbacher and Chase Sconyers. These bikes and riders are the future of the sport and they are fast!

While we were in the Mile pits we caught up with some friends from Caferacer.net and some of the racers. It's always friendly in the Flattrack pits!

For Flattrack results and photo's go to;


For MotoGP results go to;


Enjoy!