Going Racing

A good class for Norton twins would a BOTT with an upper capacity of 1000cc for air-cooled motors only. There are plenty of old bikes and modern which would fit very well into such a race class. People could play with those V-twin Hondas, Yamahas and Suzukis, and do some decent development. I'd like to race my Seeley 850 against 1000cc Harley Sportsters. Air-cooled Ducatis might be a problem, but none are four-valve.

About 750cc Triumphs. My friend has a 650cc Triton which I raced my 500cc short stroke Triton against for may years. I could never convincingly beat him. Then one day I rode his bike at Calder Raceway and blew a very good H2 Kawasaki two-stroke to the weeds. His bike has a five speed Triumph gearbox with standard internal ratios. If the top four ratios were closer, his bike would be even faster. He has built a 750cc motor for his bike, but has returned to using the 650cc motor. With bikes, as you go smaller in motor size, the bike usually becomes lighter. As long as the race class capacity limit is 1000cc, the playing field is fairly level - providing the motor types are similar.
Racing an air-cooled four-stroke twin against two-strokes and four-cylinder bikes, is not smart stuff. It proves nothing and achieves nothing.

a good air cooled ducati will make 100 HP as will an XR based HD good luck getting near that with a norton.

acotrel said:

A good class for Norton twins would a BOTT with an upper capacity of 1000cc for air-cooled motors only. There are plenty of old bikes and modern which would fit very well into such a race class. People could play with those V-twin Hondas, Yamahas and Suzukis, and do some decent development. I'd like to race my Seeley 850 against 1000cc Harley Sportsters. Air-cooled Ducatis might be a problem, but none are four-valve.

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Kawasaki Z900 and Suzuki Katanas also turn out that sort of horsepower. How good they are depends on the circuit.

I have mentioned a few times that I tend to stay away from 'historic racing'. I'd really like your opinion of this video :

If you have the situation where four-cylinder bikes get in your way in corners, and then blast away from you down the straights - you need to set your steering geometry up so you can turn under them and get on the gas earlier than them.

bill said:

a good air cooled ducati will make 100 HP as will an XR based HD good luck getting near that with a norton.

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Here in France the Classic class has been opened up to more of those air cooled Ducatis up to '83.

Race wins?....Steve Perlinski on a Seeley Norton 750 with around 60rwhp, built by his dad Bruno, who said when I complained about the class change....'yes, but it depends on the pilot!'

On the tighter tracks in France it also depends on how that horsepower is delivered and mid corner speed. In testing, whilst Steve/Bruno were just doing enough to check out bikes, I kept up with some of those Ducatis on my 500 single Yamaha and passed another 750 Norton at the end of the straight because I didn't need to brake for another 100m!

acotrel said:

If you have the situation where four-cylinder bikes get in your way in corners, and then blast away from you down the straights - you need to set your steering geometry up so you can turn under them and get on the gas earlier than them.

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I don't think that will work at Brands Hatch when there is 10 of them and 1 of you!

Not sure I am keen on steering geometry advice from the one person I have ever heard say a Seeley was dangerous!

You are not wrong there Steve, you just have to obtain the most sticky tyres you can get your hands on go for a mid-week practice session and learn to brake as late as you can to a corner and go as fast as you can into a corner, and as you are not racing it will not matter if you overcook it into the bend and go off circuit into the run off area. This is what I did to get into the weekend racing grove. A lot of riders cannot ride on the limit around places like Brands Hatch because it’s a rider’s circuit, Paddock Bend is a fine example- I only ever once rode around there hard, in a mid-week practice session and another rider who was following me , whilst trying to learn the circuit, overshot ( or lost his bottle) onto the run off area, when I turned my head round at the bottom of the hill to look and see how he was getting on.

Bernhard said:

You are not wrong there Steve, you just have to obtain the most sticky tyres you can get your hands on go for a mid-week practice session and learn to brake as late as you can to a corner and go as fast as you can into a corner, and as you are not racing it will not matter if you overcook it into the bend and go off circuit into the run off area. This is what I did to get into the weekend racing grove. A lot of riders cannot ride on the limit around places like Brands Hatch because it’s a rider’s circuit, Paddock Bend is a fine example- I only ever once rode around there hard, in a mid-week practice session and another rider who was following me , whilst trying to learn the circuit, overshot ( or lost his bottle) onto the run off area, when I turned my head round at the bottom of the hill to look and see how he was getting on.

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I had a weekend of chasing 1300cc multis at Brands CRMC.....then it rained...mainly stopped and left it all greasy...left the grid in 12th, rider of big multi in 4th fell at Graham Hill bend, first 3 riders got away, couple of others passed me under yellow! All but the 3 escapees got in my way at some point whilst they were sliding around....finished 4th and in sight of 3rd! You have to be smooth with a good tyre choice, whatever the geometry!

Well I am coming racing with 2 Nortons (eventually). On one of them this year for sure, just got to get a holiday and job change out of the way (life getting in the way!). See you guys on the track hopefully, both series UK. Maybe there's a revival coming

SteveA said:

I don't think that will work at Brands Hatch when there is 10 of them and 1 of you!

Not sure I am keen on steering geometry advice from the one person I have ever heard say a Seeley was dangerous!

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My Seeley was only dangerous when it had too much yoke offset. After I radically reduced the offset, it became excellent. I was not the only person to be caught by it. My mate was extremely experienced, he found the problem first and warned me. I did not believe him, so I also got caught. I only got out of it by trying to drive the bike to a place where I could crash it safely. When I turned it on again, it came back under control. If you don't believe me, I will send you the old fork yokes and you can try it for yourself. When it happened, I was gone - got out of it by sheer arse.

Sticky tyres are only important if you are very tyre-dependent. If your steering geometry is right, the bike has less lean in corners. I am always happier riding in the rain. It puts me at an advantage. I learned to race when we did not have decent tyres. My Battlaxe tyres are better than any race tyre which was about in the 1960s.
If your bike tends to run wide in corners, you need sticky tyres to keep it from running off the outside of corners. With a Commando-based bike, that is somewhere you should never be. The bike should turn tight in corners, so you can go under. Going over is impossible. That is where Ducatis are at their best. I have rarely been in in a race where there was not room on the inside of the corners. If you bike stays more vertical and turns tight, that is where you can go. I have ridden a very original 500cc Manx Norton - My Seeley 850 turns tighter.

We were at Darley moor this last weekend, and day one went a lot better than the last visit here for the Thunderfest.

I wasn't looking forwards to this one as I had been watching the weather all week and rain was forecast for the whole weekend. How wrong can the weather man be! we had a very slight rain for one race but it was only a few drops and wasn't a problem at all.

I have re-fitted the proper 2000 series 36mm Mklls and have used all the new bits out of the old carbs to get them up to spec, this has worked very well and the carb problems seem to be in the bin now.

So, race 1, contacts in and 22nd on the grid, it all seemed to go ok and apart from not being happy with the quick change in direction chicanes, I felt the bike was taking to much effort to change direction, I am going to go down to a 100/90 front from the 110/80 that is on there and see if that makes a difference. Crossed the line in 10th.

Race two, again no real drama apart from the contacts needing a good couples of blinks to keep them in the right place and crossed the line in 11th.

Race 3, the novice race and the contacts went in the bin and I left my glasses in the caravan, the dark visor was fitted because the sun had made an appearance and grid position 2, a bit strange being on the front row and I confess to being a bit worried about what was going to happen in the first corner, so a big handfull of throttle off the line and I was first into the corner and was never passed. crossed the line in first place the best part of 14 seconds in front of second place, and fastest lap, my first win. To be honest, it was a bit boring as all I had was an empty track with nobody to learn from, it wasn't until I started lapping people that it got interesting and I lapped 8 bikes in the end.

Off out to walk the dog just now so day two in a bit.

Sounds awesome!

Day 2. Again no glasses or contacts and I feel this is the way to go. first race was red flagged on the first lap due to someone not making the hairpin and so two starts from 12th on the grid, therefor mid pack, makes the first corner interesting.

11th place and fairly uneventful, that is until I got back to the pits. I noticed rather a lot of oil on the rear tire and on closer inspection there was so much back there it was dripping off the rear calliper. This must have happened whilst coming back to the paddock as there is no way I would have stayed on round the hairpin if it was there on the last lap.

Now I am not a big fan of rules and being told what to do but I feel I owe a big thanks to whoever came up with the fairly recent rule that states all 4 strokes must have an oil catch tray and an absorbent mat in the bottom of it.

There was enough oil in the tray to fill a bean can and a half with oil (about 600 gms) and some had escaped onto the back of the bike, if the tray hadn't been there then all that oil would have been on the track and I guess I wouldn't have been the only one inconvenienced by that.

It took a while to find where the oil was coming from but it turned out the lower rear engine breather had come loose, I am struggling to understand how this has happened because there was no oil in the tray before the race as I had checked the bike over before the new days racing and not found any. It is similar to CNW's one way breather (although not as nice looking) in so much as there is a block bolted to the engine and then another block bolted to that, the two bolts holding the block to the engine had come loose and I can only imagine that the gasket cement had held it in place until, it didn't. There was no weeping of oil before this happened and the two bolt were probably undone a full turn which I cannot see happening in one race, anyway that was the end of racing for the weekend as it is an engine out job to refit it.



I now have the engine out and there is no damage to anything. But there isn't much evidence of any Lock-tight on the bolts either, I remember being very careful when fitting the breather because I knew I couldn't get to it without removing the engine and I definitely used Lock-tight. I am now coming to the conclusion that because we have been repeatedly held for extended periods of time in the holding bay due to track clean up problems, that the engine had got hot enough to denature the Lock-tight. Only a guess but I will be looking at the different types of Lock-tight and I am going to drill the bolts and work out a way of lock wiring them as well. And I think it will be wise to start taking the starter and stand to the holding area.

I have pulled the head and barrels whilst the engine is out and despite having done about 500 racing miles, everything is OK. I built the engine with Driven assembly paste, did about 60 miles with Driven break in oil and then used Amsoil Dominator oil until Jim Comstock's excellent oil test convinced me to use Royal Purple HPS 20w50. Thanks Jim.

Its all ups and downs this racing lark.

I dunno if there’s space inside your breather Ralph, but can’t you lock wire those bolts?

That was my thought as well, safety wire/ lock wire.

I do not believe that part of the engine gets hot enough to melt thread lock. Exhaust port thread yes, but not down there in the crank cases surely?

Safety wire the inner and outer fasteners. Find a way.

Great race reporting and kudos on your successes!

Never could race effectively with contacts.