Topic: Portland AHRMA Classic at Portland International Raceway

[paulages]

Hey Paul, I looked for you and didn't see you! I was there most of the day Saturday and all day Sunday. The 2 CB160s from Poor Bastard Cycleworks were running some oversize valves I made for them so I had to see how they did. Unfortunately they ran out of time and didn't do any porting on the heads. Big valves in as-cast ports didn't get them up front but at least they were strong. Man we got to get some bikes out there! What do you say we sign up for the classes and get legal to race? Unlike modern bikes I believe a novice can go straight to competition on their first race in vintage with no restrictions.

i'm shooting for the mid-season classes to get my novice vest. i missed the spring classes. i'm all about it though. let's get out there! what will you be running? something in Open Vintage, right? That'll be great if we're in the same class. Funny, I'm pretty much counting on not being technically able to compete at first, because neither of my bikes are legal, both being 550 based. I have to get them to change the rules or swap the clutch and covers to 500 style so that it "looks" like a 500/4. 

The 160 races were cool, just to see 44 people run to their bikes and bump start them. Very spectacular.

[pdxPope]

According to the 2010 AHMRA, I think you might be ok:

10.3.2 FORMULA 500: Two-strokes and certain four-strokes to 500cc. All motorcycles must be
fully GP kitted. The cutoff date is December 31, 1972. Like-design models also are permitted.
Among the eligible motorcycles are:
Bridgestone 350 Daytona GTR
Honda SOHC fours to 550cc, DOHC twins to 550cc
Kawasaki H1R, H1RA
Kawasaki 350 A7R, A7RA
JML (Kimtab 429) with wire wheels
Suzuki 500 Titan factory racer, GT380 and GT550
Yamaha RD350 and RD400 (air-cooled models only), TR2, TR3 and R5 based
TR replicas
Yamaha TX500, TX500A

Going up against those RDs would be tough, tho.

Seeing that race sure gave me the bug to get my novice license, too. If only I had the time, money & skills....

-JP

[paulages]

According to the 2010 AHMRA, I think you might be ok:

10.3.2 FORMULA 500: Two-strokes and certain four-strokes to 500cc. All motorcycles must be
fully GP kitted. The cutoff date is December 31, 1972. Like-design models also are permitted.
Among the eligible motorcycles are:
Bridgestone 350 Daytona GTR
Honda SOHC fours to 550cc, DOHC twins to 550cc
Kawasaki H1R, H1RA
Kawasaki 350 A7R, A7RA
JML (Kimtab 429) with wire wheels
Suzuki 500 Titan factory racer, GT380 and GT550
Yamaha RD350 and RD400 (air-cooled models only), TR2, TR3 and R5 based
TR replicas
Yamaha TX500, TX500A

Going up against those RDs would be tough, tho.

Seeing that race sure gave me the bug to get my novice license, too. If only I had the time, money & skills....

-JP

we're talking about OMRRA.

[mlinder]

OMRRA is any CB pre 72'

RD's not allowed in any vintage class.

All allow 2 stroke and 4 stroke up to maximum CC (meaning cb450's and 350's run against titan 500's... and, bikes like my Bridgestone SR175 are allowed against the cb160/175's..)

[speedracer741]

Yeah it would be open vintage. Not really interested in racing in the 160 class. Has to be a four of some kind. I need to find out what classes run at PIR the most as I won't be able to travel much to other events. This last weekend I saw all kinds of fours: CB and KZ but I think they might have been just for AHRMA so that wouldn't get me much track time locally. I have heard that they are pretty lenient on the rules as long as you are not dominating all the time. I do have a CB500 four so I may go that route. I don't think my dowdraft head would be allowed though. I just got my second mill home tonight so I can resume work on it as my first mill is a full time rotor drilling machine. Now my backed up projects can start making some progress. It sure would be nice to see a lot more bikes out there! How about starting team SOHC4 PDX?

[pdxPope]

Ahh, forgive me. I'm pretty new to the whole racing thing. OMRAA not AHMRA- gotcha.

Speaking of lenient rules: in an odd cosmic coincidence I happened to bump in to one of the Killer Bee / CB160 guys tonight @ the place I shoot trap.
He said that except for last weekend's turn out, vintage racing in portland has been on a definite downswing over the past couple of years. I got the impression that as long as you could put up a decent argument for your bike, the sanctioning bodies would probably let you run whatever you had as long as it was in the spirit of the law.

Food for thought.

-JP

[bwaller]

It seems turnout at races has been down everywhere, hopefully it's a temporary thing.

[mlinder]

It's expensive to race.

Speedracer, 2V is the most populated.

If you can find a pre 67ish 4cyl 250, go for it.
5V may actually have more bikes on the track, but that's because the 2v guys race in 5v.
5v is 67 and earlier  500cc's and under. Honda CB and CR twins to 72. There's a list if others that are also allowed up to 72. Drum only (as it is with 2V).
Really the only place you are going to get an i4 is in OV. Almost no one races this class, or at least no regularly.
The stupid part is that your cb550/750 is up against bikes of ANY size, 2 stroke, 4 stroke, whatever, up to and including years 1972.

Here's the deal, though. Just because 160's and 175's are the only bikes on the grid for 2V, doesn't mean it's a cb160/175 class.
I'm building a cb250 at the moment to compete there, and stock and well built should make a few more HP and at least twice the low end that a completely over the top built cb160/175 will have. Yeah, it weighs a bit more, but going from 7lbft max to 15ish lbft (at least) will more than make up for it. As I also said, my factory race SR175, if I ever put it together, should be orders of magnitude better than a built 160/175. It's a 175 2 stroke, fer chrissake.

You could get a taco 250 and go out there and prolly clean up that class, assuming riding skills were on par with the 160 riders.

[paulages]

The stupid part is that your cb550/750 is up against bikes of ANY size, 2 stroke, 4 stroke, whatever, up to and including years 1972.

yeah, but what would that be? there were plenty of european AHRMA bikes beating john's cb750, but none of those guys seem to run in OMRRA often. SFTP days show more riders, but i bet this year will be slow. there's a guy that comes out on a T500 sometimes, and another guy on a water buffalo, but a competent rider on a 500/4 could do pretty well. where the 750 has 30 or so HP advantage on the 500, the 500 should be able to make up for it in handling. someone (mark leslie, maybe?) told me laptime record in OV was a 500/4, but OMRRA lists Tom Mellor as having the OV lap record, who I believe did so on a triumph triple.

[mlinder]

Yeah, I'm not saying the 500 wouldn't do well in the current climate of OMRRA. If you ran every race on a bone stock 500 you'd probably win the 1st place trophy at the end of the year, just on points alone.

I'm just saying that the rules are dumb, because anyone could get out there on just about anything in OV.

[paulages]

Yeah, I'm not saying the 500 wouldn't do well in the current climate of OMRRA. If you ran every race on a bone stock 500 you'd probably win the 1st place trophy at the end of the year, just on points alone.

I'm just saying that the rules are dumb, because anyone could get out there on just about anything in OV.

i don't care what you say mark, john's a pretty fast rider and he races almost every meet. i think he'll be a challenge to beat, that's for sure.

[mlinder]

Yeah, I'm not saying the 500 wouldn't do well in the current climate of OMRRA. If you ran every race on a bone stock 500 you'd probably win the 1st place trophy at the end of the year, just on points alone.

I'm just saying that the rules are dumb, because anyone could get out there on just about anything in OV.

i don't care what you say mark, john's a pretty fast rider and he races almost every meet. i think he'll be a challenge to beat, that's for sure.

Since when was an OV rider raced "almost every meet"? I don't remember that. Granted, I wasn't there as much last season, but OV usually had no one running.
Of course, you can't actually win anything unless at least 3 riders are out there, so maybe hat's why he didn't bother when no one else was showing up with an OV bike.

However, what I'm saying, is that if there were at least 3 OV bikes out there every race, but the overall attendance of each memeber I've seen out there stayed the same, all you'd have to do is finish every race to get the points to win the class trophy at the end of the year.
He's easy to beat if he doesn't start the race in the first place.

Maybe, like I said, he'll race more if there's actually othe rpeople to race against.

[speedracer741]

I just sold a CB200 on craigslist for my dad. I was considering keeping it for myself to run in 2V as I was told they are ok as long as the front disc is swapped out for a drum. I would be able to bore it up to 250cc and with plenty of head mods it would have run well. Then I looked at all the projects in the garage and decided....nope, gotta get all these fours done before I start another. Can you have factory disc brakes on OV? I don't mind running in that class even though the field is scarce. We could just fill it up with SOHC4 members. It's too bad we don't have real classic superbike classes but I think even in that class they have restrictions on clip-on bars and such. It has to resemble the factory bike like something Lawson, Spencer or Cooley would have been riding. I know guys in California that are running all sorts of 70's and early 80's era fours from 550 to 1100 all season long in various classes. Sure wish we had that kind of activity up here!

[mlinder]

cb200 would not have been legal, but no one prolly woulda said anything if you brought it out.

[paulages]

I just sold a CB200 on craigslist for my dad. I was considering keeping it for myself to run in 2V as I was told they are ok as long as the front disc is swapped out for a drum. I would be able to bore it up to 250cc and with plenty of head mods it would have run well. Then I looked at all the projects in the garage and decided....nope, gotta get all these fours done before I start another. Can you have factory disc brakes on OV? I don't mind running in that class even though the field is scarce. We could just fill it up with SOHC4 members. It's too bad we don't have real classic superbike classes but I think even in that class they have restrictions on clip-on bars and such. It has to resemble the factory bike like something Lawson, Spencer or Cooley would have been riding. I know guys in California that are running all sorts of 70's and early 80's era fours from 550 to 1100 all season long in various classes. Sure wish we had that kind of activity up here!

disk brake is ok in open vintage. maybe we should start an OMRRA thread and try to get some interest going here!

[speedracer741]

Sounds good to me!

[Doctor_D]

For the record, Kenny Cummings did race Portland, but on Bruce Yoxsimer's Seeley G50 and not his Seeley Norton.  I didn't think to look for his results in the 500 Premier class. He took the checkered flag on both days. He gets better each year, making me wonder if he'll give Tim Joyce a run for his money this season.