Saturday December 1, 2012, we competed in the Geelong Revival, Historic Sprints.
I will attach a link to a you tube video of a camera mounted to the front of The Beast. This event is a 2 day affair, with later model vehicles (1960 to 1982) on Saturday and pre 1960 vehicles on Sunday.
About 150 historic racing cars and bikes competed on the day on a closed section of road along the beach front. One vehicle at a time, on a curved 1/4 mile section. A little more difficult than a normal drag strip, but a great event, at a beautiful location with lots of interesting racing machines.
Friday night there was a big storm and I was sort of hoping for a wet track, as I figured that there wouldn't be many competitors bringing wet tyres and we might be in with a chance. Anyway, it fined up and it turned into a day of near perfect weather, so it was great for all competitors and spectators.
Our rider, Trevor Manley, was a top level rider in his day, but like most of us, has become out of condition as we age! Trev, has ridden The Beast, once before on a practice day at the Island, in August, when the engine developed issues and he hadn't done a clutch start on her, so the first run was going to be a little tricky, as he felt his way.
The new clutch was grabbing, but the engine sounded good and the gearing appeared to be about right. Trev then had 3 timed runs. A best time of 12.2 seconds. I was hoping for around a second quicker, but Trev is not the smallest rider and the track is not a straight drag strip. The clutch issues, caused Trev to stall once and then on the other 2 runs, it was still grabbing and causing issues getting off the line. So taking these into account, we did well and in our class, Trev came 2nd, by .1 of a second. This meeting wasn't about who was the fastest, (but we are all competitive, so were trying hard), but more of a working display of historic race vehicles. Maybe a couple of stock clutch springs in with the heavy duty ones will make the clutch behave properly?
Our next job, is to to dyno The Beast (I have a mate with a dyno, so the price is right! ) and get this 1147 engine tuned spot on. Then we'll have a good back up engine, which will eventually go into The Beastess, (My Pro Link racer, when I manage to get her together). Hopefully in the next month, I will commence assembling the 1170 engine. I've spoken to Peter Gray from Pipemasters about the 1170 engine and he agreed that some bigger bore headers will let the engine perform better, so he will be modifying the collectors, to take some big bore headers. The Pipemasters definitely look and sound the part and they work well with the 1147 engine. With , Peter's help, the modified 6 into 6's will perfectly suit the 1170, big valved and big cammed engine. Stay tuned!
This new 1147 engine, I am pretty happy with. With the help of my CBXWorld friends, usedcbxparts.com, cbx motor works and other mates, this engine shows no blow by into the oil catch bottle and runs strong.
Thanks to all that have helped out. This link below, is from Trev's 2nd run. A little too keen at the start as you will tell by the rev limiter kicking in, then a bit of mono wheeling, but a pretty good run otherwise.
I will post more film footage and some photos, as I get time (and when my Son Jake, helps me!). It's been a big weekend and now it's time to hit the hay!
http://youtu.be/tnC5j2eOjVY
