No problem, nothing like thread hijacking to make the whole thing more fun.
Back to racing. well day 2. Bike ready and running, goes out for the practice. Rear tire goes down. Guys at the tire shop had yammed the valve into far. Pete walks back to the pits with bike. Its only 32C. Nice.
Fix tire. Race 1. 2 laps in and the bike shuts down. Pete walks in again. Shit from the brand new Indian Ally tank blocked the idle jet. Clean and get ready to go again. Trevs barrel base gasket is creeping out. Stuff it, lets go
Race 2. Success. 7 laps of the 3km circuit. Yea, we're a team, we completed a session. Much joy. Open the packet of cashews to celebrate. Back in the pits all the team chat etc about what the bike is doing blah blah.
Race 3. Another success. Pete makes it round all laps again and pasted a guy on a cbrr 250. Much joy in the grandstand. All the other sad Jap owners fans and other riders just looking at us as if we were from Mars or something.
Back in the pits, its not good. Barrel base gaskets had blown out the rear. Bike is hot. Now at this point as it was a slap together job, Trev had a barrel base gasket, then a 2 piece ally spacer, then another gasket, then another single ally spacer, then another gasket. Total 12mm as he'd put in a longer rod than a standard 350. This is a 1962 machine by the way. So we pull it apart again more filing of piston skirt and sanding out ring lands and the second hone for the weekend. This time i made the gaskets and we JB welded the rest head bolts in place. 32mm Dellortto replace with the 36mm dellortto. We're serious now. Got dark so we went home.
Last day.
Race 4. 2 warm ups and 6 laps. More success. Back in the pits an issue with gear selection, was played with but without much success. Team confidence is high, barrel base gaskets holding, lap times are falling.
Race 5 The big 10 lap race. Instructions. Ride it like you stole it. Go hard. Be blowed if it did go and hold together and he held second last place all race. The three of in the grandstand go wild. The rest of the crowd looked like they'd just stood in cow crap. 😄
Back in the pits, not good. Bike came in really hot. We decided to call it quits. The Pantah had blown a jackshaft seal, fork leg seal and the front brake pistons were sticking even after we'd cleaned them previously, not a bad effort considering it was just brought and had crap removed and an oil change. Its all over. The good news. Pete's friday time was 1:54, his best lap on the last 1:47 (late model Jap 400's do 1:34-40's. Which is what we were aiming for. Pete's dream of 30 years had finally been fulfilled. Racing, and he even got to do a pit lane start. Next year we'll give him some suspension. The rear shocks were AG4's not service or touched since 82, with stuff all dampening. We tried putting air in them but it just blew out what little oil was left, front forks may have oil in them, but i doubt that would over come the fork flex walking Pete had to deal with.
I have to say it was just 3 days of bloody good fun, much joking and slandering and general cavorting. Cashews were eaten, other pit inhabitants were upset about the noise (hysterical gets dispensations, because of the sad bastards that are in hysterical racing), we were hated, then loved and started drawing crowds as we toiled. We were the only ducati team (there were some other guys on 916's but they weren't a team), and we stood proud like old farts should. In fact we were almost the only historic racing component of the whole weekend, except for a guy on a little honda. We'll be back next year, next time with TT2 (maybe 2 later on), 450 desmo race converted with A grade rider, 350 62, and 250 67. All incredible bloody noisy with reverse cone mufflers, because we can. (well see how long we can get away with it anyway.😁 )
Buying an Omega piston and getting a new sleeve this week.
And yes of coarse we're all off to the Manx GP (Soon as we win the lottery) 😁
PS. I'm the guy in red in the last pic, should you be hiring a hit man. The guy in black is the Italian rider of the team. Maltese bloke by the name of Dave.
On last thing, I mentioned a while ago about a rider that got creamed at the GP, and it was pointed out to be a bit bad taste. My TT mate was there on Sunday. As we walked past the ambulance that contained some guy that had had a spill, with arm bandages, death white look of shock etc. My mate says, get up you lazy bastard there's another 3 races to go. The bloke smiled.
