Blast from the past

[speedpro]

Sorting out the crap in the garage and found a box of photo albums. I have a scanner now so here's a sample. All taken at the Wiri container terminal probably in about 1983. My watercooled AC50 is being ridden by someone else. Chris Costello, current AMCC president is on the MB50. #48 I can't recall his name but he was fast, maybe Tonto.

Note the huge expanse of asphalt. I don't know how many acres but it was huge with just a gentle slope. Couple of cones and away we went.

[speedpro]

last one for the moment. Note the knee sliders, they weren't common then

[rainman]

That takes me back. My first bike ever was an MB50....

[Buckets4Me]

wonder if my pics are going to look old to the next generation lol


some of thoes bikes look trick as well
fancy pipes clipons bigger tires etc

[speedpro]

Some would still be competitive today. With the faster tracks a lot of development went into making them run hard. A lot of us ran good tyres as well, like French Dunlop tt100GP2s. Running every fortnight it was possible to wear a pair out in a year. Same as now there was a hard core that put a lot of effort into it. My AC50 was watercooled with a homemade CDI, titanium muffler, and Suzuki A100 factory race kit wheels. A group of us spent every friday night at Norris Farrow motorcycles at Kumeu doing bucket development. It wasn't unusual to have 6 or so buckets getting modded with porting, pipes, tyres & wheels each friday with Jason shouting "Chinese" for everybody who turned up. Couple of times guys coming back from a night in town would drop in to get the cables or oil for their motocross bikes. We had the cops ask us to bring the shop bikes in from out front a couple of times, at 2am ish, and also could we at least turn the shop lights off.

[Buckets4Me]

sounds like a lot of effort went into makeing bikes back then
a lot of time and money would have gone into them (Time more than money)

well I know of people that where racing then but not buckets putting
hours and hours week after week into there buckets now

some are chasing 30+ hp but we will see if they ever get there

[speedpro]

30+hp. I've seriously looked into that with probably the only person in NZ that is capable of designing a bucket engine to do it. It might be possible but it is really pushing limits with what can be done without cheating. Custom bits will need to be made. Whoever does it will need the right software, good fabrication skills and a bunch of equipment like welder and lathe and maybe mill. It is unlikely to be possible for a bunch of guys in a shed.

[Buckets4Me]

how much different is it at the crank than the rear wheel

[gav]

Do you recognise this guy? Think his name was Tonto, Wanganui street races

[speedpro]

Found Tonto at wiri, note the hang-it-all-off style. The other photo has Chris Costello(MB50) and Ian McAdam on what ended up being a reasonably fast Kawasaki 100

[speedpro]

Couple of our sidecar we bought off Chris Costello. Pretty cool little thing with rear engine, hub-centre steering, full floating discs with internal calipers and not much higher than your knees. It had a watercooled barrel when we got it and I did the head as well. 19.9hp at the rear wheel meant it went pretty good. The bikes are as they were built and rolled out of the garage. RG50 with TS125/100 and RG50 with full reed conversion

[speedpro]

And a few from Wanganui, 3 different years but similar lines on one corner. Either I had it sussed or I'm a slow learner.

[speedpro]

First one is Wanganui as well but I can't pick the corner. The others are at Manfeild. The 3rd photo shows Chris Smith ex NZ 125GP champ on #16 and Murray Cross on #3. Sorry not sure of the others. The 4th one shows Morley Shirriff, Chris and Craig's Dad, in front. Chris and Craig weren't far away either making for one hell of a race. The 5th one has Jason Ulyatt I think. He's now in the USA and the 6th I ran out of time to photoshop anyone in behind me.

[speedpro]

Both these are from a trip to the south Island in Oct '92. The guy in the red leathers is a South Islander so obviously I have just passed him and am pulling away. That was Saturday and the other one is from Sunday port races at Nelson. Wasn't a bad day apart from crashing on the cooldown lap and smacking my ankle good. I just had to get past this Harley that had been blocking me the whole race but didn't quite make it. What a tosser.

[diesel pig]

Love the progressive linkage on the TF100. Did you nut it out on paper and make little models or did you're grab some box section and start cutting'n'welding until it worked?