Drag Racing Drag Racing - Gunnedah NSW

Mate, I heard it was 42 in Tamworth yesterday. I raced in that last year and it was painful. Hopefully, weather is better for the first meet of 2019.

 

Same weekend as the F1 in Melbourne. Can one of you local guys order a few cool days please? That 40+ stuff last year was just too much for an old whinger like me.

 

Man, I'm glad I bailed on coming up.

 

Great. Murdo said it was a cooler day up there too. Go rain!

Are you ready for Casino? I will go/come if Murdo's cold passes and he's up for it.

 

Rain stopped after lunch but drags wouldn't have been on.

 

Great weekend with only four bikes turning up meant plenty of runs. Great to have Greyimport and Grasshopper there for moral support. Surprised myself by running good numbers straight off but fell back a bit as the day got warmer and found a few red lights trying to get the perfect start. We retired early for drinks and made a fire for the evening.
Sunday was clear and cool again. Similar numbers for the times to Saturday with my best at 9.344 @ 118.14Km/h with a 2.136 60ft. Frankster did a bit better running a low 9 sec pass. I broke out in the semi final by .005 sec and Frankster was runner up in final.

 

Well, as Murdo and The Chief have already posted some information about the recent Gunnedah Drags, I thought I’d do one of my little stories, so be warned.

I’ve been all over the place (physically) in the last month and my wife was none too pleased when I announced that the weather forecast for Gunnedah on the 18th/19th of May was good and that I’d be heading up to do a spot of racing with the Team 2fiftycc lads. A last minute medical emergency in my wife’s family nearly stopped me, but the racing Gods were on my side and off I went (after being home for 3 days).

A bit of a rush to get everything sorted. I wanted to run my Salt Bike engine in the Lucky Strike bike that was left in Tamworth last year, so I threw the engine crate in the car (I had cleaned the engine after stripping the Salt Bike down), but when I looked at the carbs that had come off the engine, I was a little annoyed. I had cleaned these, but that bloody salt just seems to grow from nowhere.



I only had a few hours to get my stuff together, so rather than attempt a full strip down and clean, I chose to steal a set of carbs off a ZXR250C engine (another project) and take them with me. I also had another set of ZXR250C carbs that I was taking to Tamworth, but they belong to The Chief, so I wasn’t sure he’d be too keen to let me use them on the drag bike.

So, I leave Melbourne early in the morning (after midnight is morning right?) and head off with my trailer, 2 engines, 2 sets of carbs and a bunch of other bits and pieces. I get about 2 hours out of Melbourne and I’m getting sleepy. Being responsible (ish) I pull over in a truck stop for a power nap. 4 hours later, I awake from a deep sleep to the sound of my phone ringing. The good wife had woken up and wanted to know how I was holding up? Well rested, but poorly from a "making good time" point of view. I get going and about 20 minutes into my trip (take 2) I get a text from Murdo asking how I was going?

Anyhoot, I get to Tamworth about 10:30 that night and fall in a heap. I know ShaneP and others do long trips, but I really am getting too old (and cranky) for long hauls. Murdo had some family matters to attend to the next day, so he had kindly put the Drag Bike frame on the work platform for me to do my thing with. I get up relatively early to start my work. Murdo has already left the building, so I get the engine out of its crate and then I have a minor heart flutter…it’s covered in salt just like the carbs! WTF? I cleaned this thing thoroughly and then sprayed ALL of it in INOX. I start cleaning it again, but notice a few bolts and the carb boot clamps are very rusty. Oddly, I had brought a spare set of boots and clamps with me, so I was lucky.

Fast Forward…Engine in, now for carbs. The Chief did say I was welcome to use his carbs, but I chose to go with mine. My only concern was the main jet setup of my carbs (120;122;122;120). I had deliberately gone smaller to try and see what affect this has on A and C engines with different TCI units. The Chief’s carbs were setup as normal for a C engine (122;125;125;122), but I might as well experiment while I have a chance. What’s the worst that can happen right?

Fast forward again… Carbs on, Battery in, Electrics hooked up, exhaust…where’s the effing exhaust? Like me, Murdo had been rushed to do things and had left the exhaust in storage. Murdo rang to say he’d be home about 4ish, so we’d go get them then.

More fast forwarding…bike is back together and running, so throw her on the trailer and lets go racing.

Saturday: Woke up ready for the day ahead. We’d had a good time on Friday night catching up with The Chief and watching the MotoGP FP1 session before heading out for a nice meal and a few drinks at a local establishment.

We get to Gunnedah, sign in, get our bikes scrutineered and pay our entrance fee.

Normally, the fun and games start at 10, but for some reason we’re all sitting around doing zip. Issues with the electronics meant we didn’t really get into it until well after 11 o’clock. Weather was a pleasant 22-23 degrees with no to little wind. Not having run these carbs on this engine before, I was surprised at how easily the bike started. In fact, it didn’t like any choke! I had synced these crabs on the C engine they were stolen from, so I wasn’t too surprised that they settled to idle nicely and returned there quickly after a rev. My first run was against Murdo and I didn’t go too hard to see what (if any) affect the smaller jets had on performance. The first thing I noticed was the launch was sluggish. Checking my time slip confirmed this as I recorded a 2.173 second 60 foot time, which is woeful. The bike ran a 9.579 @ 118kph, so performance wasn’t too bad. The next 4 runs were 9.3, 9.5, 9.5 & 9.5. I missed a gear change (twice) on my third run, so to still run a 9.572 @ 108kph seemed to be pointing in the right direction. The last 2 runs felt odd as the bike seemed to hesitate on the fourth run and miss on the last run.

In my rush to get to Tamworth, I forgot to pack any cameras, so not having any onboard footage to review made issue diagnosis that little bit harder. The Chief took some slow-mo vids, but without having a tacho to refer to, it was just good vision.

As Murdo said, The Chief and Grasshopper joined us on Saturday. In fact, The Chief was in there before any of us. We do appreciate his support and gazebo/tea/coffee/biscuits. Unfortunately, as also mentioned, Team 2fiftycc was only a team of two. Hopefully, more of our crew can get to the drags. The spectators really like those screaming 250’s.


We finished the day with a few reds and a bit of a chat before The Chief (Greyimport) and Grasshopper left. A good fire and some steaks and taters made the day complete.



Sunday: The TDRA and ANDRA decided to give everyone a few more laps to test and tune since Saturday was shortened. I chose to sit these out as I wasn’t too keen on letting my battery run down too much (bike is running on Battery only, no Stator or R/R). So, since I was spectating, here are some videos of Murdo…

Murdo V 900

Murdo V R1

After Qualifying, we were allowed a couple of “test” runs before actual racing. Again, I chose to pass on these. I think Murdo might have made 13 or 14 runs in total? His CBR is a real “turn-key” race bike; just put in fuel and off you go. Not sure what Murdo’s best reaction time was, probably a .002 or something psychic like that. His 9.34 in the semis was his best run of the weekend and, from the startline, I was certain he’d won his race. He had predicted we’d both make the final and I was certainly hoping that this would be the case. Alas, another time.

Running the smaller main-jetted carbs was odd because weird things happened. I ran my fastest ever 1/8 mile speed (75.21mph) 121.04kph. I was consistently slow getting to the 60ft timers with nothing faster than 2.10seconds for the entire weekend except for the last 2 races (2.09 and 1.95). I hadn’t run faster than 9.35sec on any run, again except for the last 2 races (9.32 backing off & 9.07 also backing off). The bike had lost a couple of kilos with Murdo taking weight out of the panels (during the respray) and the subsequent removal of the lights. Still, running those carbs asked more questions than it answered. I have brought the bike back to Melbourne for further testing. Oh, by the way, that 9.07sec (at a slowing 112kph) run was the quickest I’ve ever run on the 1/8 mile! We’re looking for an 8-something now. Cheers.

 

Congrats on the new PB Frankster , any gains to be made playing with gearing ?

 

In my rush to get to Tamworth I left a 13T front sprocket on my work counter. All those Gunnedah runs were with standard 14T/48T gearing and I NEVER got into 4th gear on any run. So, I guess we'll see what the 13T does for times and we now know you can get a ZXR250 to 75mph in 3rd gear!

 

I'm too old and cranky, too. But that is a long haul!

As for the carbies, if you're thinking you're getting good power up high but not so good on take off, then you might need a different needle and/or pilot jet - they might gain from leaning it out. I forgot what needles are available as adjustable type. If it needs richening, then a washer/o-ring under the needle will richening it. Good luck tuning! And well done, all of you

 

Thanks Shane. Keihin carb needles can be shimmed up to allow more fuel at lower revs, so I might try that at some stage. I have shims for the needles, so it's just a matter of getting around to it. I also have #38 pilot jets I can use instead of the #35 in those carbs now. I was convinced there was an issue down low until I ran the 1.95sec 60ft time in the final. I think (hard to say without camera footage) I may have been launching the bike wrong for the smaller main jetted carbs. I know in the semis I changed at 17k instead of revving the bike out and I still ran 9.32 coasting over the line. More testing required me thinks.