What was the oddest mechanical failure you've had during a race?

70sSuperstar
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70sSuperstar 2/10/2012 2:42pm
2/10/2012 2:42pm
kill switch failure, took awhile to find the short circuit
StretchRcr 2/10/2012 3:07pm
2/10/2012 3:07pm
I was racing an 89 KX125 in the last ever Barstow to Vegas desert race. About half way to the first gas pit, it got stuck in 4th gear. The shifter would move, but something had clearly broken inside. I kept going the best I could until I got to a hill that I couldn't never climb in 4th. I still tried several times until it popped into neutral. I was done. No matter what I did, I couldn't get it to go into any gear. I sit there for an hour or so and along comes a guy on an XR600. He's just riding the course behind the race for fun. He has a tow rope and offers to pull me to the gas pit, roughly 10 miles away through some of the softest sand I've ever seen. I accept and we link the bikes up. Unfortunately, his rope is so short that my front wheel is less than a foot from his rear. I spent the next two hours getting roosted at point blank range as his bike struggled to find traction. My only relief was when I would accidently run into his rear tire and crash. It's hard to remember exactly, but I'd guess that happened about twenty times. By the time we got to the pit, I looked like a corn-dog. I had sand everywhere in ridiculous quantities and I was coughing it up for the rest of the day. when I got home and pulled the side cover off, I could see the centering spring on the shift mechanism had jumped off. I put it back on and everything was fine. A five minute fix that I could have easily done on the side of the trail.
catatonic
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catatonic 2/10/2012 3:12pm
2/10/2012 3:12pm
catatonic wrote:
had a rock jam betwen the chain and sprocket on a fast 4th gear sweeper.........Bike stopped dead and pitched me.
level wrote:
Damn.
Yup......took a few minutes to realize what it was......I was sure the engine had locked.
KMC440
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KMC440 2/10/2012 3:13pm
2/10/2012 3:13pm
Was doing a flat track race in Cycleland, south of Chico, for fun, was running in 3rd when I noticed a streak of coolant down the backstretch and around turn 3 and 4, then I saw it again going into turn 1. By now the streak was lapping itself! ! Freaking awesome I thought some ass doesn't even know they're going to kill their motor ... HAAAA FUCKIN IDIOT ! ! !

Took the white flag as the second streak ended coming out of turn 2 ... no problems for me I'm pinned down the backstretch WFO BAYBEEEE ! !

Take the checkered feelin pretty stoked had a good heat pulled off the track around by turn three and looked down ....

OH THE HOLY HORRRRORRRR AAAAAHHHHHHHH ! ! ! !

Shut it down coasted to my truck and fixed my little "issue". Without telling anyone. Whistling Blush Whistling

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Motodude
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Motodude 2/10/2012 3:15pm
2/10/2012 3:15pm Edited Date/Time 2/10/2012 3:21pm
1980, RM125, just got into the lead and the bike died for no apparent reason. We pulled everything apart trying to find wtf was going on...when we physically removed the carby from the engine we found wedged in there the bolt and washer that usually holds the air filter in place.

Another time I rode my buddies WR200 in a state championship enduro. He said it was good to go, he just put a new top end in it. HAHA...200mtrs into the first stage and I realize I have no power above 1/3 throttle...he installed the powervalve incorrectly we found out later...but I rode the whole day like that and still got a gold medal. Some gnarly hills on that day were negotiated, but I found I could short shift and still go fast. Special tests were a total dud haha..talk about having those nightmare dreams come true.
TriRacer27 2/10/2012 3:20pm
2/10/2012 3:20pm Edited Date/Time 2/10/2012 3:21pm
KMC440 wrote:
Was doing a flat track race in Cycleland, south of Chico, for fun, was running in 3rd when I noticed a streak of coolant down the...
Was doing a flat track race in Cycleland, south of Chico, for fun, was running in 3rd when I noticed a streak of coolant down the backstretch and around turn 3 and 4, then I saw it again going into turn 1. By now the streak was lapping itself! ! Freaking awesome I thought some ass doesn't even know they're going to kill their motor ... HAAAA FUCKIN IDIOT ! ! !

Took the white flag as the second streak ended coming out of turn 2 ... no problems for me I'm pinned down the backstretch WFO BAYBEEEE ! !

Take the checkered feelin pretty stoked had a good heat pulled off the track around by turn three and looked down ....

OH THE HOLY HORRRRORRRR AAAAAHHHHHHHH ! ! ! !

Shut it down coasted to my truck and fixed my little "issue". Without telling anyone. Whistling Blush Whistling
My coolant hose popped off during a quali heat at the mini olympics in 97 while I was running around 7th or 8th. Bike died about 50 feet after the finish. WOO, at least I still qualified well but I was so scared of it quitting on me up the face of a jump.


Had another big race (like the Des Nations but for south and latin america) where it rained all night. The race was a mud bath and my bike literally died when it landed off the finish-line table top in the second moto and never re-started. My trusty Honda held together till the very very end and then called it quits, just like me


It's weird thinking about it how many times my bikes have just barely made it through a race before locking up or giving up the ghost.
stackman17
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stackman17 2/10/2012 3:57pm
2/10/2012 3:57pm
I had an early 80s model xr 80 that had the air intake under the side panel. Bike would start and idle up then die. My father took it completely apart and could not find the problem. After checking sparkplug, carb, points and all, he finally took off the side number plate and ah ha. I had taken a pair of goggles and stored them there blocking the air intake. He was not a happy camper at all.
bultokid
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bultokid 2/10/2012 5:18pm
2/10/2012 5:18pm
My fault .....On '85 M-Star GM500, had huge lead in rain and water got in top of pos Bing carb.....game over
EastFlorida
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EastFlorida 2/10/2012 5:44pm
2/10/2012 5:44pm
In 1980, the YZ's had a nylon roller to protect the swing arm pivot. I had one spin of and wrap around my countershaft sprocket. I heard this happened to many others too... I started installing ones that were not cut - but this required removing the swingarm bolt for the install.
musmanni
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musmanni 2/10/2012 5:49pm
2/10/2012 5:49pm
1. Chain broke on the face of a triple, last lap of the race, causing me to endo. Broke my two front teeth off and fractured a vertebrae in my back.

2. Holeshot a race and about 100 feet after the first turn my front sprocket broke in half.
Motodude
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Motodude 2/10/2012 7:02pm
2/10/2012 7:02pm
....countershaft broke while leading a race..1980 RM125. Thought the chain had come off at first.
Halfast816 2/11/2012 5:58am
2/11/2012 5:58am
Were the countershaft sprockets groovedlike the sidewinder ones of yesteryear. I split a couple of those and never went back. Stuck with the 'good' and cheap ones after that.
Vet57
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Vet57 2/11/2012 6:11am
2/11/2012 6:11am
IceMan446 wrote:
I had a drain plug fall out on my YZ250f. Ran it almost four laps with no oil. Took it apart and eveything was fine. Replaced...
I had a drain plug fall out on my YZ250f.

Ran it almost four laps with no oil. Took it apart and eveything was fine.

Replaced the clutch plates and threw some more Torco oil in and never had a problem after that.

Always run Torco now,, for that reason.
Wow!...I had the exact same thing happen to mine as well, an 09'. Worse yet it was at Southwick!
ehr400
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ehr400 2/11/2012 9:37am
2/11/2012 9:37am
I had my rear axle shear off right at the swing arm on the sprocket side. It was on a 2005 crf 450. Real wierd. Of course derailed the chain and broke the sprocket. Oh yeah and i was leading the race too.
Knobbyjake
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Knobbyjake 2/11/2012 10:09am
2/11/2012 10:09am
Not really a failure but a huge surprise. I had a '74 Penton 250. I was lined up for a dead engine start hare scramble with about 220 other bikes. The starter waved the green flag, I kicked through with my left leg (left side kicker), she fired, I dropped the clutch and the damn thing took off backward! The engine started in reverse! I almost ran my dad over who was standing behind me, lol. Needless to say I was last into the woods. The bike did that to me again so we retarded the timing a hair, no more issues.
MR. X
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MR. X 2/11/2012 10:33am
2/11/2012 10:33am
StretchRcr wrote:
I was racing an 89 KX125 in the last ever Barstow to Vegas desert race. About half way to the first gas pit, it got stuck...
I was racing an 89 KX125 in the last ever Barstow to Vegas desert race. About half way to the first gas pit, it got stuck in 4th gear. The shifter would move, but something had clearly broken inside. I kept going the best I could until I got to a hill that I couldn't never climb in 4th. I still tried several times until it popped into neutral. I was done. No matter what I did, I couldn't get it to go into any gear. I sit there for an hour or so and along comes a guy on an XR600. He's just riding the course behind the race for fun. He has a tow rope and offers to pull me to the gas pit, roughly 10 miles away through some of the softest sand I've ever seen. I accept and we link the bikes up. Unfortunately, his rope is so short that my front wheel is less than a foot from his rear. I spent the next two hours getting roosted at point blank range as his bike struggled to find traction. My only relief was when I would accidently run into his rear tire and crash. It's hard to remember exactly, but I'd guess that happened about twenty times. By the time we got to the pit, I looked like a corn-dog. I had sand everywhere in ridiculous quantities and I was coughing it up for the rest of the day. when I got home and pulled the side cover off, I could see the centering spring on the shift mechanism had jumped off. I put it back on and everything was fine. A five minute fix that I could have easily done on the side of the trail.
That must have been a common problem for those machines , i had the same thing happen to mine .
AJ
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AJ 2/11/2012 10:44am
2/11/2012 10:44am
a true mudder at LTM motosports/casey IIlinois many years ago (96?97?)

last lap (one of the few times leading open expert) my bike just stopped running,
and wouldnt restart,
this was one of those races that its muddy enough you step off , and the bike just stands there fine without you.

Turns out the carb vent hoses had gotten clogged with mud and ruined my day!
Had never had it happen before, or since, even in equally muddy or worse conditions
Sad just a weird one.
Ing
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Ing 2/11/2012 10:46am
2/11/2012 10:46am
scrubbin627 wrote:
Roost put a hole in my fuel line. It wasnt really a failure I guess because the bike finished the race, I noticed gas pouring out...
Roost put a hole in my fuel line. It wasnt really a failure I guess because the bike finished the race, I noticed gas pouring out when I put it on the stand.
Had the same exact thing happen on my Husqvarna.

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Spooner
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Spooner 2/11/2012 10:47am
2/11/2012 10:47am Edited Date/Time 2/11/2012 10:49am
Mine was roadracing. This was back in 2007 in practice at Mid America Motorplex for a CCS race. Went out for practice and was a little late getting ready so I didn't get my tire warmers on very long so I was taking it easy the first lap to get the tires up to temp. I noticed in a couple corners at the end of the first lap that I drug a peg which was not very common for me, especially with not being fully up to speed. Came on to the straight for the second lap and got on the gas hard to build more heat, plus there were a lot of people funneling onto the track. Get about a third of the way down the straight and I get pulled down and to the left and luckily started sliding through the grass since I was on the left side of the straight. It had been raining that morning so I was splashing though some puddles on my back and I just remember trying to figure out where my bike was and where the armco wall was and I felt BANG on my back which I thought was my bike hitting me. Finally I stopped sliding (I was going at least 100 mph when this happened) and I hopped over the armco wall. I thought someone or myself lost a motor and I spun up on the oil or something so I thought maybe more guys would be crashing behind me. I was under the starting tower and the people in timing and scoring came out with eyes wide open. They heard the bang and I guess it was me hitting the armco. They red flagged the session and I went over to my bike and found that the rear suspension was collapsed which I thought happened in the crash. Get it back to the pits and this is what it looked like:



Turns out the swingarm broke where the linkage connects to it. When it collapsed the rear tire hit the underside of the tail locking up the tire and taking me down. A buddy of mine was apparently right behind me when it happened and he seriously thought I was going to be dead after I hit the wall. Luckily I just glanced off of it as it was running parallel to the track, plus it hit the hump of my leathers which gave me a lot more cushion. Other than the swingarm I just needed to fix the bodywork and put a new front brake line on that cracked the banjo and I was good to go haha!

I then figured out that it must have started coming apart during that first lap giving me less ground clearance than normal which is why I was dragging my pegs so much. I'm really lucky it happened when I was going straight rather than in a fast corner as that would have been a hell of a high side!

Here is the break:

Rupert X
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Rupert X 2/11/2012 10:54am
2/11/2012 10:54am
Two summers ago, my son was near taking over the lead at OIR in 450 B, took a rock to the plastic throttle cable adjuster

smashing it apart - just above the front plate....throttle wouldn't operate correctly, went from sticking to not moving...'twas just


freaky...

Now have a Motion Pro with metal adjusters...
AJ
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AJ 2/11/2012 11:02am
2/11/2012 11:02am
i forgot one, Smile
my carb fell out of the boots once on a very hard landing, after many laps..
and yes they were tight before,nothing had been touched on the bike in several weeks or races...

That one was pretty funny actually,as i kicked forever not understanding what could possibly going n.
finally looking down to see if the gas had somehow got shut off i see the carb displaced and hanging by the vent hoses and cable
slumpstone
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slumpstone 2/11/2012 11:30am
2/11/2012 11:30am
Three years ago at Mini O's my son was leading the 250B stock supercross race with about a 4 second lead and he coasts to a stop. A side link fell off the cam chain and locked up the motor (new bike with about 6 hours on it). Two years ago at Oak Hill with a 7 or 8 second lead on the last lap for the championship and the fuel line at the injector popped off, funny thing was that the fuel line had never been off before.
MX558
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MX558 2/11/2012 12:20pm
2/11/2012 12:20pm
Spooner wrote:
Mine was roadracing. This was back in 2007 in practice at Mid America Motorplex for a CCS race. Went out for practice and was a little...
Mine was roadracing. This was back in 2007 in practice at Mid America Motorplex for a CCS race. Went out for practice and was a little late getting ready so I didn't get my tire warmers on very long so I was taking it easy the first lap to get the tires up to temp. I noticed in a couple corners at the end of the first lap that I drug a peg which was not very common for me, especially with not being fully up to speed. Came on to the straight for the second lap and got on the gas hard to build more heat, plus there were a lot of people funneling onto the track. Get about a third of the way down the straight and I get pulled down and to the left and luckily started sliding through the grass since I was on the left side of the straight. It had been raining that morning so I was splashing though some puddles on my back and I just remember trying to figure out where my bike was and where the armco wall was and I felt BANG on my back which I thought was my bike hitting me. Finally I stopped sliding (I was going at least 100 mph when this happened) and I hopped over the armco wall. I thought someone or myself lost a motor and I spun up on the oil or something so I thought maybe more guys would be crashing behind me. I was under the starting tower and the people in timing and scoring came out with eyes wide open. They heard the bang and I guess it was me hitting the armco. They red flagged the session and I went over to my bike and found that the rear suspension was collapsed which I thought happened in the crash. Get it back to the pits and this is what it looked like:



Turns out the swingarm broke where the linkage connects to it. When it collapsed the rear tire hit the underside of the tail locking up the tire and taking me down. A buddy of mine was apparently right behind me when it happened and he seriously thought I was going to be dead after I hit the wall. Luckily I just glanced off of it as it was running parallel to the track, plus it hit the hump of my leathers which gave me a lot more cushion. Other than the swingarm I just needed to fix the bodywork and put a new front brake line on that cracked the banjo and I was good to go haha!

I then figured out that it must have started coming apart during that first lap giving me less ground clearance than normal which is why I was dragging my pegs so much. I'm really lucky it happened when I was going straight rather than in a fast corner as that would have been a hell of a high side!

Here is the break:

Hey I was there also in 07. I crashed in practice in the morning lol . I didn't care for that track much.
MX558
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MX558 2/11/2012 12:23pm
2/11/2012 12:23pm
For me the weirdest dnf was back in 84 I broke the counter shaft sprocket off my cr125 at Byron. Damn those bikes in the 80's were junk.
plowboy
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plowboy 2/11/2012 1:13pm
2/11/2012 1:13pm
I've had a few mechanicals but never bad enough to DNF. Broken footpegs and shift levers. Broken throttle cables. Exhaust pipes crushed or ripped off. The stupidest was lining up for a two hour harescramble with a flat front tire. No spare tube and even a whole bottle of green goop didn't help it. Luckily the track was pretty technical with few high speed turns. I figured I'd just ride on the rear wheel like ol' Roger D used to do. Long story short...I crashed about a gozillion times that day and surprisingly....didn't finish last. I've always been anal about prep and just plain lucky when it comes to freak stuff. I did crap my pants during a 2 hour race...but I was leading and there was NO way I was gonna give up a priceless plastic trophy because of a little dookie.
cable
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cable 2/11/2012 1:25pm
2/11/2012 1:25pm
broken crank pin 2001 cr 250 bike was maybe 2 months old. nobody had ever heard of this happening, so my local shop called honda. they asked if the cases were cracked. not that i could tell.. honda waranteed the cases and crank, and the dealer had to put the engine back together. Later i found out that other dealers were taking new bikes apart and switching out the cases, because of cracking, causing the crank pins to break.
Spooner
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Spooner 2/11/2012 2:16pm
2/11/2012 2:16pm
MX558 wrote:
Hey I was there also in 07. I crashed in practice in the morning lol . I didn't care for that track much.
Yeah it was the weekend Doug Polen was there.
Frodad78
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Frodad78 2/11/2012 3:12pm
2/11/2012 3:12pm
I was top 5 on the first lap and my engine started cutting out like mad on my 99 YZ 125...I was right behind this kid that always got the best of me because he was a great starter. The damn bike couldn't accelerate out of a corner without cutting out. We were pitted with Dag Boyesen, since he was running yamahas and was cool with us he came over to take a look. Turns out the wire was coming loose from the spark plug cap..arrrg.. still haven't let that one go!!
Sparkalounger
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Sparkalounger 2/11/2012 3:36pm
2/11/2012 3:36pm
lower shock mount on my "95 yz250 backed out and cut my (boyesen) link in half, final straw broke landing a triple. no big deal at all but i was always glad it didnt happen on the face taking off...

one funny thing that sticks out though was that i was riding a buddies sx track all by myself and his HOT sister came out and started watching me. about a lap later it broke and she quickly lost interest. I was like 17 or something and wanting to impress her with my (napoleon dynamite voice) sweet mx skills.
Sparkalounger
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Sparkalounger 2/11/2012 3:44pm
2/11/2012 3:44pm Edited Date/Time 2/11/2012 3:44pm
went out for practice on my kx 80 and it seized up in about a 1/4 lap.

came in hopped on my cr125 and went out for big bike practice. seized in EXACT same spot.

drained old gas the day before. the ol' man forgot to mix the new gas, so i had fresh tanks of unmixed gas....

2 bikes in under a minute. hahahaha

i was only like 14, so my pops handled most of the mechanicals. after that i decided to take over the responsibility of mixing the gas...

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