Vintage race report. Westerman ride again!

Yesterday, I drove with my new rig and my buddy and helpful mechanic Eric Yarnell to St. Pete for round 8 of the FLVMX series.

The special part about this one is that I invited an ex-pro from Orlando named Robert Westerman to ride one of my bikes and have it prepped all day by Eric. Westerman was as fast as any 125 rider that I've ever seen. DB even told me that when he was on Bultacos, he just wanted to be as fast as Westerman.

Anyway, met up with him at the track. He hadn't been on a vintage bike since the 70's and had a tough time remembering how much clutch was necessary to make these bikes work. His practices were a bit sketchy, but he entered the EVO 1 Open A (1977 to 1979) class on a new (to me) 1977 CR125 that I just got last wednesday, and he entered the Vintage 0-200 A class on a 1975 Elsinore that I just finished resurrecting last week.

I rode my regular 1974 race bike, which absolutely hauls ass.

Wetserman rode the EVO 1 class first and holeshot it. Led for a bit and then was passed by a fast guy on a Husky 360? automatic. Then the guy that usually wins this class got by and he ran out of steam to finish third. Not bad.

Two motos later was my 0-200 Vintage B class, combined with Westerman in the 200 A class, and all the guys from 50+ Open. I guess there were about 15-18 guys on the gate.

I holeshot all these open bikes on my 125 and ran away for a couple laps. Suddenly I noticed that someone was getting close, and then right behind me. It was Westerman and he was going pretty good.

Just as we're side by side over a jump, I'm waiting for a battle and all of the sudden he's two turns back. I easily win the moto and wait for him to come in to the pits. Turns out that the handlebars on his bike (that I provided) collapsed and he spent the next two laps trying to get them to stay up. My evil plan was working.

Next EVO moto, was pretty much the same for Robert. He holeshot and led briefly, but the 125 he was on was a little peaky and hard to match up with the Husky. Westerman could be very, very fast again if he rode. This was the first time he had sat on a bike in about a year and a half, and that was a CRF450.

In our next combined Vintage moto, my damn bike wouldn't start in the pits, so I rode the 1977 CR that Robert had ridden in in EVO 1. Never been on the damn thing, but I got to the first turn with the lead, but overshot by a couple feet. Westerman dove underneath me and we went 1-2 in that moto.

That gave him a 3-3, a 1-1, and me a 1-1. What a blast. I'll get some shots of the racing soon. Here is the setup before we left.