Thantos you ready to race Marine?

[4thIDvet]

Lets rumble I got my mean lean Harley waitin for yah Marine. 110 m.p.h. of mean machine ready to show yah how to do it kid.

[Rick-a-Roo]

Oh, geeze, 4th...I thought you were saving your pennies for one of those choice Rock
Island Auction muskets.

[JD Miller]

Oh My !..... look at that "bike" ..... 4th, you need a pimp hat with a big feather to ride that thing

You'd look good leading a ghetto tour bus riding that thing with your evil black gun

[Thanatos]

Originally Posted by 4thIDvet

110 m.p.h. of mean machine ready to show yah how to do it kid.

110 mph, eh? That is getting close to the top of 2nd gear... and there are 4 more to go. You are about 70 mph shy of having a chance...

If what you are telling me is that you don't want to hear anything more about racing from my corner? I'll simply recuse myself from further discussions. It was never intended as "boasting" - I got humbled on a frequent basis by guys better than myself.

[4thIDvet]

Noooooooooo I am teasing yah Marine.
Keep them stories coming I am fascinated by them.
What would the world be like without our Marine Brothers to pick on?

[Thanatos]

You know... there was that time... back about 1986-87...

I was just out of racing... loosely involved with some of the outlaw bikers... was doing some bounty hunting with one of them...

We were all leaving my running partner's property out near Estacada, all of the bikers on their big, black, go-faster Harley's... none of them "pretty things" like you are sitting on, but radical, big inch hot rod Harleys...

the road had a series of sweeping turns generally marked 45-55 mph...

the group steamed into one at about 70-80 mph, feeling all froggy and racerish, gonna show up my effete self on the Jap trash I was riding (a Suzuki GSX-R, full Yoshimura)...

and I kinda, sorta blew past them on the outside, stuck out a knee, bent the thing over until the crankcases were skimming the pavement, and took the turn at about 140 mph (I knew the road, very, VERY well)...
While they were on the brakes, I still had the throttle pinned wide open, and accelerating...

I never heard another trash talking word from the big, bad, Harley riding gang.

I was never one of those special guys that become legends, but... I traded paint with those legends, every fucking weekend. The fastest of the street squids on their crotch rockets, are maybe comparable to the mobile chicanes (slowest guys, getting lapped) on the race track. And that is the 100% truth.

{btw... when you talk about "110 mph"... in the image above, the bike is around 120-130 mph, the rear tire is spinning slightly under full throttle acceleration, and drifting... bike is slightly crossed up... and about to pull the front wheel into the air coming onto the straight... you can see the scuff on my knee from where it had been dragging on the pavement... You just have to have the bike upright and pointed in the right direction when that rear tire stops spinning and grabs enough traction to loft the front end, or you are going to be on the receiving end of such a violent high side that you might not wake up for a week}

[Crusader30-06M1]

I dont always comment, but your stories never get old. Have just begun to get comfortable with my used up CR250 going straight. Haha.

[Thanatos]

Originally Posted by Crusader30-06M1

I dont always comment, but your stories never get old...

If you have Amazon Prime... watch The Unrideables
https://www.amazon.com/Unrideables-R...o%2C200&sr=1-1

and The Unrideables 2
https://www.amazon.com/Unrideables-2...o%2C200&sr=1-2

Not only are these the guys that I raced against - Lawson, Mamola, Spenser, Schwantz, Rainey, et al - but the 350 I raced hit just as hard and violently when it cleared and "came on the pipe"... I was helped greatly by Bob Work:
https://canadianmotorcyclehalloffame.../2014/bob-work

It would be a decade before the 2-stroke 500cc 4 cylinder GP bikes would become as fine edged as my 350... and as difficult to race.

Compared to your CR250... my DKG weighed less... and the engine put out more than twice that CR250, when that CR250 was at its very best... and if it is on the clapped out side of the bell curve, perhaps 3x the power.

You know? My physical therapist rode motorcycles... she had a 750 Norton Commando, and a 750 Ducati. I let her lap P.I.R. on "track days", first on one of my 250s, then the next year on the TZ250J that I used to chase down Eddie Lawson (it might have been the quickest 250 in the country, at that time). It was radar trapped @ 157 mph, carrying my 170 pounds. Julie weighed all of 115 pounds.

Here I am "shepherding" her around the track, she on my Yamaha TZ250J, me on the Kawasaki GPz1100 that was sponsored by Kawasaki USA.

Then I let her take out my 350, which was clocked at 180 mph, with me. I was SOOOOOOO jealous of her... dropping 55 pounds, it must have been...

She sat on the bike for about 5 minutes after she came in, just... trembling. Quivering. Glazed eyes. She said that it was surreal, like in the Star Wars scenes where they go hyper light speed... everything is out there in the distance, and then... it is far behind you. It was gearing limited to just over 180 mph, but... it must have gotten there so damned quickly...

[Thanatos]

For what it's worth...

At another track day, later that summer, Julie crashed one of her own street bikes... I think that she had grown comfortable on the racing slicks, and was subconsciously expecting the same traction from her street tires... Or the handling of the bikes in the corners... Or the combination of the two.

If I remember correctly, she fractured her shoulder.

Like the majority of the women who venture out onto the race track, her first injury was her last. No more track days for Julie.

There was a female racer at Laguna Seca who was lapping very quickly back at that AMA national in 1982. Until she crashed and broke an arm. She never raced again... although I saw her name in movie credits as a "stunt person".

For some reason, the reality of the injuries just seem to attenuate the fantasies of the many...