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God i felt like an idiot.
So - I decide to brave the cold and hit up a local outside carwash to spray down the bike so it looked as cherry as possible for the next show. I had run out of time on my wash meter so I stretched over to throw some more quarters in and when I did this the slack on the hose expired and pulled my bike over and slammed it on to the concrete - which smoked the brand new bars that never even saw the track.
Good times.
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I was adjusting my chain, when my then 5 year old son, came up asking to please start his bike for him. He had just gotten a new KTM 50 and was excited to get on the track. So I dropped what I was doing and took him out for a few laps on the peewee track to break it in.
Came back to the truck and threw my helmet on and proceeded to spin some laps. Totally brain farted on the chain adjustment/ axle nut. I got a couple laps in before the chain derailed and locked up the tire, on the biggest jump on the track !
I went straight over the bars and was lucky to only break my collarbone. Needless to say, my 5 year old was pretty upset that his few laps were all he got to ride...
You can only imagine my confusion.
So the next day after he drops it off at my shop I start the tear down process to see WTF happened. It took literally 4 bolts to find the problem. I removed the number plates and seat to find something I had never known possible... The air filter was in backwards. Yes, I know... How is that possible??? Well... it is. And when the kid took the bike to the sand dunes that weekend with his freshy cleaned air filter that wasn't sitting in there right imagine what happened? He had enough sand in the engine/carb/intake boot that I could have built a sand box for my kids!
Needless to say I called him up and said "you need to come over here right now." He showed up 20 minutes later to realize the valuable lesson on how to properly install an aor filter like it WAS installed before. He tried to argue with me that I put it in wrong but he knew his arguement was flawed when he looked at the other 3 bikes of mine at my shop. He also told me he had cleaned the filter before he went to the dunes.
I didn't fix the motor at "no cost" either. He wanted me to clean the bottom end as best I could and just throw a new piston/rings in it. My response, "nope, take it somewhere else." I was told that he took it to a dealership which cost him about 1300 to split cases and replace everything that was damaged. Haven't heard from him since he left my shop with his bike that day.
Valdosta, Georgia...1988. I get the holeshot on my 1987 CR125 and am leading the race! Finally! No roost to deal with, just clear sailing. Man, my first lead! I like this!
About two laps in, I land off a jump and my handlebars collapse down and back. No more lead. In fact, DNF. It was extraordinarily difficult to steer with the crossbar hitting the fuel tank cap.
Why did this failure happen on the first time I ever led a moto (with a clean holeshot no less)? During the week, I had the bars off (this was so long ago the reason escapes me) and had put the right side bar clamp on backwards. That mistake was just enough to let them slip down in the speed of the race.
DOH!
I unscrewed the throttle slide and looked at the needle. I pushed on the needle and it slid into the slide without resistance. I looked up at him and asked if he had been "tuning" it. He said " a little". You probably figured it out by now but instead of assembling the needle clip between the slide and the spring plate, he reassebled the needle ON TOP of the spring plate so nothing was holding it in place. You open the throttle, it vibes off center and doesnt go back in the needle valve hole. Voila', instant rich.
the alternate part of that story is that i've over-done it on the WD40 and my grips were more slippery than the inside of a van full of fat chicks on the way to the Ricky Martin concert
Pit Row
That announcer was most likely no other then Tom White...
I also made the announcement speaker, but in a bad light. Tom White gave me a very hard time for stopping on the lip of the water jump one year and swan diving into the water....I was in 2nd place at the time, but what he didn't know was i was paying tribute to my best bro who shattered his foot on that jump the year before. I told him I would do it for him..i just had no idea I would be in 2nd place when it happend. damn it! lol
It was early 2000's
After the race, and halfway home, my family and I are bs'ing around the trucks in the parking lot of the Mexican restaurant. I'm looking over my once again disappointing bike. Then I see it......The spark plug is hanging by the plug wire. I obviously didn't get it tight when I rebuilt the bike. I don't remember if I fessed to it or not, but my heart sank.
I go through qualifying, get my bib, and get ready to go racing. The bike was prime. My taller gearing was killing me on the crazy fast qualifier course, but I knew everything would be good once we hit the gnarly stuff. Race morning I'm sitting on the starting line, full Red Bull spectacle......film crews, helicopters, and the big starting cannon. I'm psyching myself up, warming up the bike and my hands on a chilly Texas morning. I've got my hand behind the silencer, when all of a sudden, I hear a "pop" and feel something. I check out my hand. My palm looks like I just rubbed all the glitter off a local stripper. I was holding the fragmented remains of my new piston.
My new crank was backordered so I put the bike together, figuring the crank was more than fine after a year of racing. I was just trying to cover my bases before the big race. Apparently I was wrong. Lower end locked up and sent everything wonky.
That was a pretty shitty walk back to the truck. Pushing my bike off the line in front of all those people suuuucked.
When I was a kid I was bad about tightening my chain and cleaning the air filter. I finally broke a hub that took me weeks to pay for...soon as it was running again it blew up from the dirty air filter. I learned the importance of maintenance the hard way
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