Scooter drag racing

About a week and a half ago, I drove out to Brown County Dragway in Indiana, to check out some racing. Its an 1/8 mile outlaw (not affiliated with NHRA) track, that is supposed to be one of the oldest running facilities in the midwest. Having only drag raced at Gainseville, I'll say it was a very different experience. Spectator and competition vehicles all parked pretty much wherever, two port-o-lets, a couple of rickety sets of stands, and a "tower" that was a small building on stilts over the right lane right before the burnout box. In short, it was awesome

Every second Sunday of the month, in addition to their regular classes, they run bracket and "king of the hill" races for motor scooters. Being a scooter geek, I was interested. The scooter people were very friendly and invited me to hang out with them in the area they'd pitted, and they turned out to be a very great group of fun oddballs. Most of the scooters at the event were newer ones with CVTs, but there were a couple of vintage Vespas, including one with a sidecar:

Even though there's no corners involved, I'm planning on riding out to the next event and competing. It'll probably be a 3.5 hour ride through a lot of rural Indiana, so a lot of the fun will be getting there on my little 125cc scoot. Looks like a cheap way to race without as much of the frustration I've been experiencing in my rallycross build over the last several months.

A few more pics:

Couple of Hayabusas that showed up. The only two actual motorcyles at the race that day:

And the best burnout I was able to capture:

Wow that's a TINY looking track! I like it!

Very cool looking track! Its nice to see tracks like this still exist. Less official, more fun!

It was fun little place. Easy to get up close to everything.

Here's the tower:

And looking down the track:

Weather permitting, any OH/IN/KY/IL members want to meet up there on July 14th to see the beginning of my illustrious career as a bracket racer?

Looks like the perfect track for scooter drags! I wish it was closer, it be fun to build a hot scoot.

I'm heading out there this Sunday on the Buddy 125 to give it a shot. Not expecting to do well my first time out, but it should be a fun ride out and back.

Okay, that was a long day. 308 miles on a 125cc scooter that can barely top 55 MPH. The ride was fun, but definitely a bit of an adventure, and I'm still pretty sore.

Today, two racers came from Michigan with some dedicated race scoots. One used to be a Honda Elite 50 (I think) with the engine punched out to 90ccs's, and the other used the front fork/nose piece from another Elite, but was otherwise custom, with another 50 cc engine that had been opened up for a stroker crank, and displaced 130cc. Talking with the owner, it idles around 3000 RPM, and the clutch doesn't catch until 6000+ RPM. He pulled a wheelie coming off the line.

As for me, my best practice run was a 14.245, with all the others in the 14.3s, so I ran a dial-in of 14.2. Won my first round race by only .011 seconds. Lined up for the second round, and I redlighted. I backed off when I saw the light, but then got back on it, in case the other guy messed up too, but he didn't. When I got my timeslip, it hurt even worse. We were running a .500 tree, and my R/T was .499 seconds. So close to perfect...

Still, had a bunch of fun, and plan to go out there again. Over the winter, I'm planning on building up the Ruckus as a fun "street rod" scooter, but will keep drag racing in mind with it

...time to go back to prepping the rallycross car...

Forgot to post a few pics from the last event. I skipped riding there, as I was not up to it after a rough rallycross the day before.

Several dedicated drag scoots were there:

Scooter burnout:

Last points event of the season is coming up Sept 8. I have a rallycross on the 7th, so I need to find a way not to wear myself out at the rallyx.

eastsidemav wrote: Last points event of the season is coming up Sept 8. I have a rallycross on the 7th, so I need to find a way not to wear myself out at the rallyx.

I recommend just taking it super easy at the rallycross so you don't burn yourself out for Sunday. You know, just relax, take a nice leisurely drive through the course. Make sure you don't go so crazy fast that you're kicking dust up all over the place.

In reply to wae:

Not gonna happen. You may get first place, but you're going to have to work for it

that strip is awesome, reminds me of Mooresville's (NC) 1/8 strip alot. Also a really fun spot.
Must get them to start doing awesome stuff like this!

Sweet

The City Museum is a hangout for some scooter guys. Pretty powerful machines down there. I was impressed. They'll be impressed when I finish my chain saw powered tricycle.

I'll get some (non-scooter) pictures posted up later, Wheels777 will like them. There was a hotrod group running flag drags this weekend, and they had a flathead-powered front engine dragster. There was also a Henry J gasser.

As for me, I decided on a new strategy, and ran a a fairly tight dial in. Best time I had in practice was a 14.42, and I ran a dial in of 14.4. Its important to note this track seems to get faster as the day goes on. My trap speeds were in the range on 41-43 MPH.

We had 11 competitors, and I was not the lucky guy to get a first round bye. In the first round, I ran against a bike with a 13.1 dial in, so he got to chase me down. Near the end, I glanced over, and he was way behind me, so I backed it down to avoid breaking out.

2nd round, I get paired against one of the race scoots. He's coming up fast at the end, so I can't really back out, but fortunately, I beat him to the line. He had been in the running for a podium finish for the year, but this knocked him out.

3rd round, there are three scooters left, including the other (much faster) race scooter, who had the first round bye. I lucked into geting the bye run, which allowed me to mosey down the track, and meant the worst I'd get is 2nd for the day

Final round, I'm still running a dial in of 14.4, while the other guy has a dial in of 8.95. I got going with my best reaction time of the day at .530, and the bike just felt faster than before. Most of the way down the track I look back and he's flying, not surprising since he traps about 30 MPH faster than me. At this point, I was scared I was going to break out, and backed off the throttle with maybe 10 feet left to the finish line. I think I got to the line first (and I saw my win light light up), but so did my competitor. We stopped at the photographer posted on the return road and found we both broke out, but I had won. Once we got our timeslips, I found out how close it was. Beat him by .074 seconds. However, my breakout was only by .02 seconds, so even if I had slowed a bit more, I'dve won.

That may have been a bit boring to read, but it was a lot of fun to be there experiencing it. Its amazing how much fun it can be to race such a slow scooter, but next year I'm planning on coming back with something faster.

And pictures:

Front engine dragster:

With its push car:

Henry J gasser:

And the rest of the album is at:

Brown County Dragway, Sept 8

Hauling the Honda Elite 250 to Twist and Gone tomorrow. Big end of season bash. This time, its class-based heads up racing. I'll be in the 250-300cc stock class, and will probably get eliminated by a Vespa GTS in the first round. I mainly want to get a baseline number on the bike, since either the engine is going in the Ruckus, or I'm going to start stripping the big honda down and turn it into a dedicated drag scooter...

Wowzer. That FED is the E36 M3.

Twist and Gone was last weekend! Towing a scooter out and back was a little rough, but the event sure was fun. Got to see more drag scoots than ever before, and they also had a class for Cushmans, and one for Honda Groms. All together, there were 44 competitors. I made it to the second round of my class race, but in King of the Hill, I got knocked out in the first round by a 9-second Cushman.

The Elite 250's best time was 11.975, still slow, but a lot faster than the Buddy. This event sealed it for me, I'm building a drag scooter over the winter.

Three Lambrettas:

The custom show:

John Eads, 90 years old, on a Cushman he took to a 14.46 quarter mile all the way back in 1958:

eastsidemav wrote: John Eads, 90 years old, on a Cushman he took to a 14.46 quarter mile all the way back in 1958:

that's so awesome

eastsidemav wrote: The custom show:

Is that a Honda Metropolitan? I can't figure out why I like that so much...

eastsidemav wrote: John Eads, 90 years old, on a Cushman he took to a 14.46 quarter mile all the way back in 1958:

Story on this guy, now.

I can just hear his 60's drag nickname, John "Big Nads" Eads. Ruler for sure.

In reply to pinchvalve:

At the time, and for an extremely long time afterwards, it was officially the fastest 1/4 mile anyone had run on a scooter, and may still be a record on a Cushman scooter. He and his wife live in Kokomo, IN, and one of the sponsors for the event brought them and his scooter down for the event. He apparently rides it at least once a year for another event, and for this one, he was the first to go down the track, officially kicking off the races. I got to talk to him for a few minutes, really sharp, and a nice guy. Someone got a picture of him on one of the customized Ruckuses. He seemed to like them a lot.

I want to say the scooter was named "Blackjack", but I can't remember for sure.

In reply to Mr_Estrotica:

Yup, its a Met. Real nice two tone paint job on it, it almos t looks like the dark green could have been plastidip, but I didn't get a chance to ask the owner.

Edit: found another picture of it. Looks like this one was lowered, stretched, and may have a stereo.