Me turning wrenches at the 89USGP-with more photos, and info

[reelrazor]

Hey~! Whilst moving, I finally located my pictures from the second year I turned wrenches for Gerhardt Vogt's (german and once a big man at Isle Of Mann TT) privateer GP1 teams.....1989.....the year Bubba Shobert got creamed after the race.

here's (a very YOUNG) me with Michael Wild. He was the German Natl 500cc champion. The bike is a Spondon framed RGV Gamma (ex-factory race engine-NOT street based). He blew a fork seal in the qualifying practice and didn't make the cut....


another view:


And another view with 'our' other bike....Ridden by Vincenzo Cancini (argentinian). (he placed 13th-first privateer across the line) It is the carbon framed ex-Heron/Suzuki Skoal Bandit-again a factory Suzuki Gamma:


Vincenzo and bike:



The carbon frame exposed: (you can tell we were privateers by the 'stand') ..

[yamaha_george]

Question after all this wrenching do you still have all that hair ?

[_Will_]

That's awesome

[fzrbrandon]

Great stuff Reelrazor! What else ya' got in the vault?

[reelrazor]

Umm, the hair got MUUUUCH longer in the years after that.

When I started at the fab shop, my ponytail was between my shoulder blades.

It is now about 1.5" with #2 clipped sides.

The ozone and dry dry air in a shop full of welding and air-arcing turns hair into straw!!;

Yes, Brandon....I have more....will post up when I can get them scanned in....

[_Will_]

You looked about halfway to a decent mullet there. Used to have mine about mid back, now it's kept short by a lovely brazialian woman at the mall. Miss it sometimes but such a pain to grow back out

[reelrazor]

Here's a couple more....

recognize this guy?


And this is John Kosinski's TZ250 being broken in (new rings) Saturday night.


The guy in the background with the moustache is Michael Wild, our rider of the Yellow bike.


I learned a lot from just watching the break in process. They bumped it running, put it on a stand..applied the rear brake and wedged the pedal down...let it warm up about five minutes with light blipping of the throttle.....then shifted up to third..dumped the clutch against the brake and took it to 7k rpm for ten seconds...and then let it spin down to about 3k....did that three times, then upped it to 8k rpm..did that three times, then went to 9k-three times....then to 10k rpm-three times....right on up to the 14k RPM....where they HELD IT for about two minutes straight.


Ohh, and that was the world champion bike that year.....90+hp....it ran a 150/60-18 rear and a 110/60-17 front....kinda tells me our FZR's don't need to have the largest tire possible stuck on the rear.

[sbutler]

Fantastic shots!!!!

[reelrazor]

Some more info regarding the Heron bike (green one)...

the chassis was contracted by the Skoal/Suzuki factory effort. Ciba-Geigy produced the carbon assemblies.

It is carbon fiber mat over honeycomb aluminum, and structural foam in places. There are aluminum inserts in high stress areas (headstock bearing boss-which also had eccentric inserts for adjusting geometry, swinger pivot-same as the headstock stuff, upper shock mount and around each engine mount bolt). The triple trees and upper fork tubes (USD cartridge style forks) were carbon fiber as well-plus the fender which was a brace in itself. All bodywork was carbon.

Gerhardt bought the chassis rights when Suzuki suspended their factory effort.....Ciba had 18 months of the chassis program to complete...so Gerhardt received 4 or 5 MORE frames after this. He also got all the factory Gamma engines and spares.

I have no idea what he paid, but he had a successful engineering firm in Hamburg, plus he was the European distributor for Euroil motorsports lubes, and imported/exported exotic m/c stuff. He also ran the I.O.M. TT quite a few times, in different classes.

The Skoal bike was built to take advantage of the GP1 weight minumums (which were VERY low at the time development was started-I think 120kilos (264lbs)??).

I DO know that it needed 37 pounds of lead tape in the lower fairing to comply with '89s' minimum weight. It was 48lbs lighter than the Spondon framed bike.

Magnesium cased square four-counter rotating cranks(primary drive gears between each cylinder bank and joining each crank, crankcase inducted (carbs on side of engine-not on cylinders). You can see the magneto with four pickup coils right behind/below the left hand carbs. the airboxes around the carbs sealed to the fairing and received clean air from naca ducts in the fairing lower.

It had a ni-cad battery pack to power the exhaust valve servo. It(and the yellow bike) was impossible to bump start unless you hooked up the battery, and then quickly disconnected the battery whilst the exhaust valves were wide open (less compression)....you then bumped the bike running (three steps sidesaddle bump 2nd gear) and then once running, reconnected the battery. I got to start it and ride it in the paddocks three times. The yellow bike I got to run about 12 times-we used it as a PIT BIKE!!

[mike94fzr600]

wow reel that's awesome

[reelrazor]

Ohh, and on the side view of Kosinski's bike.......

Note, the 'dummy shroud' over the expansion chamber......they tinned them so that no one could take photos and figure dimensions (stinger length, cone taper etc.).........that was common....

Also, a peek into the Kenny Roberts/Factory Yamaha/Lucky strike tent....just before the biig japanese bouncer tried to take my camera...

Spencer's bike on semi-wets...(fog forecast for Sunday morning and I think a lot of teams wanted to keep their tire selection a secret until just before race time)......


Niall MacKenzie's and Rainey's being worked on....the swingarm in the foreground is Mac's...you can't see it but EVERY weld on the drive side was cracked...they were putting the third swinger of the weekend on his bike. His style was soooo 'point and shoot'...'slide and grab' that the chain loads were torquing the swinger enough to crack it up. The brake side is a stamping......

[yamaha_george]

Here's a couple more....

recognize this guy? King KennY Roberts Snr.and a good freind to Y-G

And this is John Kosinski's TZ250 being broken in (new rings) Saturday night.

When John graduated to 500GP class he and Kenny, Randy,Wayne & Eddie came to England for a Brands Hatch day of Champions. There was a masive Autograph session but knowing Kenny he would be avoiding that so I went to the big stars lunch tent and I found him there contemplating what to order so I managed to buy him lunch and we retired to Waynes Winibago for beers.
I then got smuggled to the in field by Kenny and at the end of the day he took me out on the track on John's GP bike. Kenny on his matching bike. He was riding one handed faster than me and yelling at me to do this or that I learned more in that 1/2 hour than I knew in my previous life time.

Was I frightened yup of dropping a 100K USD + bike Die ing nah I had have gone straight to heaven just being on that bike I was in heaven already.

I used to see Kenny at the Proton factory but sorry to say i have not had much contact with him since 2003 because of my health. Still have an outstanding invite to go to his spanish place toride the track there.

I learned a lot from just watching the break in process. They bumped it running, put it on a stand..applied the rear brake and wedged the pedal down...let it warm up about five minutes with light blipping of the throttle.....then shifted up to third..dumped the clutch against the brake and took it to 7k rpm for ten seconds...and then let it spin down to about 3k....did that three times, then upped it to 8k rpm..did that three times, then went to 9k-three times....then to 10k rpm-three times....right on up to the 14k RPM....where they HELD IT for about two minutes straight.

Did they still use the old trick of honing the bore degeasing it and leave it to rust overnight (Kel Curruthers magic ) or was this one of the "new fangle plated bore jobs "?

Ohh, and that was the world champion bike that year.....90+hp....it ran a 150/60-18 rear and a 110/60-17 front....kinda tells me our FZR's don't need to have the largest tire possible stuck on the rear.

[fzrbrandon]

That is such awesome stuff. I'm VERY envious of you man! There's actually footage of Wayne, Kevin, and Mick on one of the Faster DVDs (can't remember which offhand). That footage is sooo fun to watch. Very different from the modern era. Sorry that it's slightly off-topic but do you guys know if there are any DVDs devoted to that period? Yeah, there's YouTube but it'd be great to kick back and watch those old races on the big LCD!

[RoadDogma]

Tasty treats of 2 stroke goodness... So punk-rock!

Must have been good times.

[yamaha_george]

That is such awesome stuff. I'm VERY envious of you man! There's actually footage of Wayne, Kevin, and Mick on one of the Faster DVDs (can't remember which offhand). That footage is sooo fun to watch. Very different from the modern era. Sorry that it's slightly off-topic but do you guys know if there are any DVDs devoted to that period? Yeah, there's YouTube but it'd be great to kick back and watch those old races on the big LCD!

Brandon,
Yup a company called DUKE videos (Geoff Duke if you are old enough

"On any Sunday" parts 1 & 2 plus on any Sunday re-visited.

OAS show King Kenny on the BEAST which was his GP engine in a flat tracker frame against the "Harley Wrecking crew" at Springfield and blowing them into the in field. The engine was then outlawed by th race committee I wonder why LoL.
That was the first time I met Kenny at the after race gathering celebration.