It's everything I remembered it being and more.
My phone was nice enough to remind me that I have officially been flat tracking for one year. I don't know that my riding has improved, but the bike sure looks different. 
It's everything I remembered it being and more.
My phone was nice enough to remind me that I have officially been flat tracking for one year. I don't know that my riding has improved, but the bike sure looks different.
Could have sworn there was a post asking how practice went, it appears to have been disappeared, but all I can say is "Strikes and Gutters, man".
I'll post a real update sometime Sunday with a little backstory on how we ended up at this point, but I can assure you that it was nothing good.
Something is missing.....
Damn, hope you can get it back to the track soon.
Are you going to be racing at the One Moto show in a couple weeks? I'm so excited they're holding the races at the venue as the show this year.
Yep, I'll be there. My bike is actually in the show, too. Speaking of which, the bike is different now.
New build is a Ossa Dick Mann Replica frame of unknown provenance. Pretty sure it's not authentic, but I'm no expert. Currently stuck together with a modified Super Pioneer swingarm and a couple of other "wrong" parts.
Kinda abandoned this thread... I found the action cam thing to be stressful and abandoned that, too. Results this year have been a little lacklustre. Mostly 2nd-3rd at most races. Currently 2nd in points for the year with 2 rounds remaining.
A quick web search did not turn up a current schedule? Linky?
In reply to Ethnic Food-Wrap Aficionado :
Double rad. I'll look for your bike in the show and I'll be the stranger cheering for 55 on the sidelines.
Edit: 2nd or 3rd place seems pretty good to me. I was happy to see top ten from last year's autocross season.
Here's the Salem Indoor schedule, if that's what you're looking for. The 1 Pro races should be pretty much all day Saturday. I think amateur main events are going to start around 6pm.
I have totally rode into this show on my buddy Todd's coattails, but I feel like I have kind of made it some small weird way.
Track is looking amazing. Going to be absolutely bonkers to race in a 12,000 seat arena.
Kick some ass!
My buddy that's a old time flat tracker is going to be there. I'll tell him to keep an eye out for you.
I'm so stoked for this!
I'm pretty sure I found where your bike used to be. This was at like 2:50 so I'm guessing you were actually on it for qualifying. If I'm right, that's pretty clever of them to replace it with something so close.
Well, The 1 Pro race didn't turn out how I wanted. Turns out it is incredibly difficult to come across dry clay in the Pacific Northwest in the middle of winter. The track never packed in, never got a groove, and turned into a rutted gnarly mess. It's been just shy of two weeks and my back is just now starting to feel normal.
If they do it at the Coliseum next year I'm going to have either my Stiletto or the Phantom set up ready to go for "E36 M3ty Motocross", which is sadly what the races were this year.
Still, I'm excited for the last Salem race of the season. Sadly, the next race has been cancelled for a horse show. Increasingly sad, with one race left in the season, my buddy Landon will have to earn a DNF in order for me to win the championship. I'm going to push them for a double points round to make up for the cancellation, but I am probably alone in that.
Did the outside lane work for the hole shot??
34 months later and we're back to racing at Salem Indoor Speedway.
For the last six weeks I've been thrashing to get a new bike put together. Same engine as before, but with a new frame, suspension, and wheels. I worked really hard to make the old Dick Mann Replica frame work for me, but at the end of the day I just didn't fit on that tiny chassis. So, now we're on an early Champion frame, originally built for a Yamaha MX250, now converted to accept the Ossa lump (my first motorcycle engine swap!).
The new bike is still very much in a project stage, but is assembled and finished far enough to go ride in circles.
Overall it was a very successful first outing. The bike hadn't moved under its own power until I unloaded it at the track and rode around the pits. After a quick gearing change at the beginning of the night, I didn't have to turn a single wrench all day (except for a couple quick nut and bolt checks for piece of mind).
POV: you've spent the last two months building a motorcycle, you've got ten minutes of seat time on it, and you're about to come up 3' short of winning your first race on real clay in about three years.
I'm really, genuinely happy to be back to racing here. I kinda felt like maybe I was a little over flat tracking, but after just a couple laps in practice I knew I was going to be hooked again.
glad to see the update, keep having fun
So cool... Nicely done!
Flat track looks hectic as always and the bike looks great!
1SlowVW said:Flat track looks hectic as always and the bike looks great!
Oh, man. It's super hectic. I've been racing a fair bit of vintage motocross lately, and while that's a whole bunch of fun, the buzz I get from flat track is on another level. I kinda thought I might be about done with FT, after not really getting to race much during the pandemic, but just a couple laps in at Salem on the new bike and I knew I was hooked again.
The last race of the year was on December 10th, with seven riders showing up for the Vintage 250 class.
The bike has suddenly been very hard to start, after almost always being a one or two kick bike. The float needle in that poor old Bing carburetor is one of the most haggard things I've ever seen, so the assumption is that it's flooding while it sits between races, although it seems to be getting progressively worse.
I won my heat race, lined up second or third from the inside, pulled a decent holeshot and never got a challenge from the other guys. Bike felt super gripped up and I felt like I could roll the turns and get back on the throttle way earlier that usual.
One of the 450s in the pro class shat the bed and oiled the track down, naturally they didn't notice for almost two full laps. It was pretty much all hands on deck, kicking dry dirt around, sweeping, and wheel packing for at least the next hour. We had our heat at 6:30, and didn't start our main until almost 9:45.
The bike absolutely wouldn't start before the main. I was in the pits kicking and kicking until I was red in the face and heaving in my helmet. I rolled up to staging and the rest of the class was just rolling out onto the track. I couldn't have been more than 15 seconds away from missing the main.
I lined up in the same spot as before, just a few notches up from the bottom of the track, ripped another holeshot, and walked away from everyone.
As always, a big thanks to my buddy Rick Barbosa for the excellent pictures.
Excellent !!! is the number 55 special to you?
759NRNG said:Excellent !!! is the number 55 special to you?
My dad always ran 55 when he was a young man racing OSSAs in the early 70s. It only seemed fair to steal his number when I started racing vintage bikes.
The letter Q would have designated a northwest rider around the time this bike would have been raced. White plate, red numbers/letter would have meant a Novice starting in 1971. I'm a bit late to that party, but I'm happy to be a novice in 2022. 
Basically it's just dirt track cosplay, but don't tell anyone that.
I've got to hang up the hot shoe and put the race bikes away for a couple of months. 73q, 18q, and 55q are all heading to Morocco in March to ride across the northern Sahara for a week on rented KTM 450s. So, it's back to tree dodging in the meantime to keep the fitness up and still get the Throttle Therapy I require in a "safer" environment.
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