CBX Racing

[Warwick Biggs]

Putting together a track day for a small group, all of whom are age pensioners is easy because we can run it while the youngsters are at work on week days. We also have the luxury of moving at short notice to take advantage of the odd nice spring day (between the not so nice spring gales).

All my fellow geriatric bikies have been busy in their workshops during those not so nice days and they all have a desire to test their efforts b4 the race season takes over (don't you know that we have a number of members still racing in their 60's and 70's?). In preparation for the race season we also have some track re-sealing and upgrades that will cut into our regular ride days making getting in early all the more pressing. The actual running of our not for profit club involves a lot of volunteer hours but it is a shared pleasure with a dedicated bunch of enthusiasts. That is not to say there aren't disagreements at times but having the same ultimate goal, good dispute resolution mechanisms and mutual respect generally means smooth running.

I have just finished reading "Phillip Island" by John Smailes (published by Allen & Unwin 2024). It is of course a famous track that has had a cat's life of many deaths and resurrections. A common story with race tracks, often without such a happy ending. Mac Park's future is more secure, however and the club is in a happy place where necessary or desirable track work (and of course, expense) is covered well into the foreseeable future and the club itself is well structured, having benefited from experience gained over the many years of it's existence. And that is all quite apart from supporting our members racing in ASBK or overseas and organising and running successful national and State race meetings.

Most motor racing businesses like the various outfits that have run Phillip Island or even our sport like DORNA can only envy us that. Who would have thunk that a bunch of neer' do well bikies could run such a successful not so small business over such a long period of time?

[Jeff Bennetts]

Here’s another book you may be interested in, our own Ian Foster’s book about the NW200.

https://sidecarland.co.uk/nw200-by-ian-foster/

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[Warwick Biggs]

Author of 'The CBX'? Believe it or not, I still haven't read THAT!

Jeff, the sad truth is that I'm a lazy opportunistic book buyer and altho' I have accumulated a half decent library of fortunate finds, regularly culled, I rarely actually go looking for books and tend to avoid coffee table books in particular, mainly because of their expense. I rely on the public library system or accidental finds in bookshops, library clear outs or flea markets. In any event you haven't ventured an opinion, altho' I assume from the context that it deals at least in part with the ins and outs of track management which is what I was on about. Most publications in this genre focus on the races, the characters and the dramas and rarely deal with the nitty gritty of behind-the-scenes racetrack management.

Of course, the Irish public road race circuits are something of an anachronism in today's risk averse world. No doubt you have fondly remembered, sepia tinted memories of such tracks in your neck of the woods, as we do here. I started racing on public roads and really don't know how I survived. All ancient history now. All gone. They are an endangered species even in Ireland and on the IOM. It is only relatively recently that any forms of motor racing have gained even a modicum of respectability on purpose built circuits, many of which lack the character to risk your life on imo.

Thanks for the tip. I always have my eye out for a good read.

[Syscrush]

Have you seen China’s answer to the Goldwing? US price is supposed to be $48,000 and they’ve added a couple cylinders.

The handlebar placement in that photo had me convinced that it must be some shitty AI render, but it would appear that someone is actually intending to build this thing. It'll be interesting to see if it ever hits the road, and what it's like if it does.

[Warwick Biggs]

Phil you are presumably referring to the Chinese Goldwing inspired pic. Apparently real but really ???!!!

Here is a pic of one of our young club racers demonstrating why we older riders should get off the track and out of the way. Declan Carberry who has featured in this blog when he was starting to show form is now racing in ASBK and if he is very lucky could have a future in racing overseas. But this is just a segue to say the spring weather is improving and we are penciling in dates in late October to do some filming of the Lump at the track. We might even have some CBX road bikes and other passing exotica. Stay tuned folks.

[Warwick Biggs]

Declan's immaculate 600 in the pic above is no more after he totaled it at the end of the straight last w/e. Despite incurring a swollen hand looking very much like mine after my recent crash he then hopped on his BMW Superbike and blitzed the field in the feature Master of Mac Park race. Nevertheless, an expensive w/e for the youngster. A $2.00 trophy in exchange for a $30K race bike. Luckily his dad owns a bike shop.

Meanwhile off track we survived a surprise confrontation with a 2m tiger snake that found itself on the wrong side of my recently installed anti-rabbit boundary netting. Everything is beginning to get active with the warmer spring weather and I have nightmares about finding a snake in my workshop. Here we commonly have red bellied blacks, browns, death adders, copperheads and a myriad of less dangerous terrestrial snakes. All of the aforementioned quite deadly and the tigers also very aggressive. I've previously commented on our rodent's enthusiasm for motorcycle electrical wiring and frequently following them are hungry snakes after a long winter fast. And you thought bike racing was dangerous?

A small callout for the 2024 Oz Superbike champ Troy Herfoss who has swapped his Fireblade & V4R Duc for a Bagger in the US and is obliterating the regulars in the rich (but really silly imo) race series. As an aside, why are so many successful Oz bike racers called Troy I wonder? Troy Herfoss, Troy Corser and Troy Bayliss, with world titles to their names.

[Syscrush]

A $2.00 trophy in exchange for a $30K race bike. Luckily his dad owns a bike shop.

You can come out of racing with a small fortune, as long as you go in with a big fortune.

[Warwick Biggs]

Yep.

Now if the powers that be do not do something to control all this formula1 inspired aero after Bezzechi was sucked into Vinales slipstream at T1 at Phillip Island yesterday, they should be sued for negligence b4 someone is killed. Neither rider had control of that situation as it was taken out of their control by the tech. A 150 mph violent rear end shunt was clearly caused by the Ducati aero. As if they did not know!

At the same time Miller had one side of his wings obliterated after hitting a rabbit and declared the bike unrideable. MotoGP is definitely going the wrong way and Fred Spencer needs to grow a set and call it out for what it is. Dangerous!

[Warwick Biggs]

I will answer myself b4 somebody else does. Of course, MotoGP is dangerous but I say it does not have to be SO dangerous. If you knowingly promote a dangerous sport without making every attempt to minimise the dangers you could end up facing serious penalties or even criminal charges.

Shortly b4 I took up the sport of road racing (after surviving the highly dangerous street racing scene of the 1960's and early 70's) the powers that be in road racing banned aero after some fatal high speed crashes. That trend was perhaps best epitomised by the 500cc V8 MotoGuzzi with it's massive dustbin fairing. The trouble is, wind does not regularly flow in one direction and relatively lightweight bikes can easily be blown seriously off course. Add very high speed and other factors like turbulence and suction from close racing together with a 3 dimensional plane, high lean angles, ground force, etc and then add complex electronics affecting ride height, aero adjusters, clutch, qs gearchanging and engine maps and you have a very complex and unpredictable mix of forces that cars just do not have to deal with. Already computers are taking over certain functions that were once the preserve of the rider.

Since the original ban lots of people have experimented with various forms of aero but none have really made it onto the grid or into production. Remember the rules?

So, somehow over the last handful of years the champion paddock shapeshifter Ducati followed enthusiastically by Aprilia and KTM and finally Honda and Yamaha (Kawasaki and Suzuki are wisely sitting this dance out) have dived in with the expensive involvement of a bunch of ex F1 engineers. Of course, they know very little about motorcycle dynamics. They are learning fast but still under the perennial engineer's illusion that they can 'fix it'. They can't and they won't.

In the meantime, the riders (looking more and more like younger and younger crash test dummies) are crashing at a phenomenal rate to build up the data for the engineers.

MotoGP is a private business recently taken over by the Liberty group of coys that also now own F1. Funny about that. If I were advising them I would be looking very closely at the rules, their insurance and closely reviewing the rider contracts. Unless there are major changes fairly quickly, I predict it will all end very badly.

[Syscrush]

I'll add that the bikes are ugly AF now.

It's crazy to me that we've somehow ended up in a world where MotoGP bikes look awful and F1 cars sound awful.

[Warwick Biggs]

I agree Phil. The elegant simplicity of form that made for great looking GP bikes of the past has been overtaken by a confusion of planes, angles and odd attachments (not least some of the riders).

Just been over to Portland to pick up some race fuel for the Lump and spoke over the phone to one of our volunteers who is out rolling the track. Word is, it's looking pretty good for our filming in a week or so. I will be the first to use the track after the past months of rolling following re-sealing and re-profiling of some sections. Altho' I won't be riding at race pace I would like to demonstrate to you just what a well set up CBX can do (allowing of course, for it's 72 year old rider's infirmities).

The fact that an exclusively 2 wheel club owns it's own track gives us the great luxury of being able to tailor the track to our unique motorcycle racing needs. Tracks that also have to cater for cars do not have this luxury and this is one reason for the popularity of Mac Park amongst bike racers. We use quarter minus gravel, machine laid in a cold mix that provides high levels of both wet and dry grip as well as excellent drainage. However, it does require lengthy bedding in and a lot of rolling to get right.

Some years ago I was one of half a dozen riders to crash after a resealing because there was inadequate rolling. The paving machine generally has to do 3 runs to cover the width of the track and the edges of each successive run have to be carefully feathered and then rolled in. On that occasion there was not enuf time given to rolling. I was the second to go down and after the 6th the decision was made to close the track and do some more rolling. When I got back into the workshop with my battered NC30 I found handfuls of quarter minus gravel jammed between the front tyre and rim, picked up as I ran over one of those seams that was breaking up and had the front wash out as a result. I hate front end wash outs that have you falling flat on your face. I have a collection of expensive helmets with gravel rash across the visor or the visor completely torn off from washouts. Ugh!

I've been thinking about the film and a workshop intro going over some of the race developments that I have ended up applying to the CBX. Of course, it has endured many different changes over the years and I could not possibly recap what has been fairly lengthily described in this blog so I will just focus on how it is currently configured. These are changes that I have learnt (often painfully) over the years that work and make the CBX into a fairly reliable and relatively cheap to run historic race bike. Unlikely as it may sound or look, the CBX can be sympathetically modified fairly inexpensively to be a competitive racer or even a fairly fast road bike, even by modern standards.

[Warwick Biggs]

Unfortunately, filming on the 23rd of instant has been postponed due to a big weather system moving in from the west. A pity because all was in readiness and the new track surface is great with some bumps removed and degrading seams attended to. Track records will soon be rewritten imo but the weather... aagh! I must have done something terrible in a previous life!

[Warwick Biggs]

However, I am taking the Lump out for a trot next week for a double ride day and am actively looking for a gun rider to contest the national championship. Not sure when I will be able to get Angus down again for the filming but I'm working on it.

[steve murdoch icoa #5322]

Get one of those 130 lb. jockeys to fill the seat.
Think of the power/weight ratio improvemnt.

[SanDogDewey]

Phil you are presumably referring to the Chinese Goldwing inspired pic. Apparently real but really ???!!!

Here is a pic of one of our young club racers demonstrating why we older riders should get off the track and out of the way. Declan Carberry who has featured in this blog when he was starting to show form is now racing in ASBK and if he is very lucky could have a future in racing overseas. But this is just a segue to say the spring weather is improving and we are penciling in dates in late October to do some filming of the Lump at the track. We might even have some CBX road bikes and other passing exotica. Stay tuned folks.

Lol, I’ve never had an elbow or knee that close to the ground while riding a bike…unless it fell over. I certainly have respect and appreciation for those who can!