Well, my first race weekend with the BMW in AHMRA has come and gone. Good news: I didn’t die. More good news – I won both of my races!
I raced my BMW in BEARS (The British European American Racing Series for certain two-cylinder machines built up through 1968 and competing under Formula 750 specifications) and my Kramer 690 in Sound of Singles 1 (Unlimited-displacement single-cylinder four-strokes) as well as Sound of Thunder 2 (Any AHRMA SoS or Motard machine, liquid-cooled twins to 900cc, unlimited air-cooled twins, and triples up to 765cc).
As this was my first race weekend with the BMW, I admittely was a little naive about certain things (including if it would run well). Based on my reading of the rulebook, I thought that the best class would be Sportsman 750 – but when I checked the entries a week before the race I saw that all the BMW R75s were in BEARS. In hindsight this makes sense as the Sportsman class was full of bikes like Honda CB750s, which make 65+ hp versus the 50 of the R75. So I asked AHRMA if they would move me to the BEARS race and they obliged – it ended up being a “spec” class of exclusively R75s, though they were all definitely built to different levels. Here’s how it went!
Practice – Friday
To be completely frank, I had no idea what to expect. Due to a variety of reasons (mostly my own procrastination and the fires in LA), I never got the chance to do a proper shakedown run with it that included actual corners – just a highway run. Olly had thankfully noticed a bad suspension mount bushing a couple of days before the race but it was always in the back of my head that I didn’t really know how well this bike was going to corner so I tried to take it easy. But once you’re on the track with other people, it’s hard not to push…
At the end of the day, the bike was either going to work or it wasn’t but one variable I wasn’t sure about was tire pressure. I wasn’t sure how it would be perceived to reach out to a competitor for advice but after my first practice I asked a fellow R75 racer (Dan May, more on him below) and he kindly advised me to go with 30 psi in both tires to start. I was at 32 and was planning on going lower so I wasn’t far off but he definitely helped me save some time. Everyone here is so nice, I really do love the AHRMA community and I hope some part of this story inspires you to join us in the future!
Here’s the steed of one of my competitors – Michael Jefferies on a BMW R75.
He had a very cool VW Transporter setup!
Plus an amusing catch can.
After the second (of four) practice sessions, I felt like my suspension was a disaster. It was just bucking all over the place and it somehow felt worse when turning right versus turning left. I went to adjust the preload in my shocks but my C spanner wrench was too thick. Thankfully, Ed Sorbo of Lindemann Engineering was kind enough to lend me a tool that fit. My Koni shocks have three positions for preload (basically low, medium, and high). The shocks were set on low so I made the greedy tuning mistake of going all the way to the other extreme. I went back out for another practice session to find things as bad, just in a different way. So I borrowed the tool from Ed again and split the difference, preload-wise. I wasn’t happy with the final result but it was the best that it was going to be for the weekend.
With all of that said, it was cool to see this bike back with AHRMA for the first time in about three decades!
Attempting (and presumably failing) to get focused:
That evening, our little racing crew of Ted (left) and Olly went out to a Mexican restaurant. We ordered a round of cadillac margaritas and when the waiter asked if we wanted a small, medium, or large, we jokingly said large. This is not what we expected. But we’re nothing if not determined, and we made sure to finish them up. Hopefully our bikes would also finish their respective races the next day…
Race 1 – Saturday
Part of my lack of my prep meant that I didn’t have a good camera mount for the BMW like I do on my Kramer. Thankfully, Dan May (the Executive Director of AHRMA) was in the same class and had a camera going, you can see his footage from the Saturday race here and you’ll spot me at 4:08:
Dan’s bike is a 1972 model done up as a Butler & Smith replica and it is absolutely gorgeous – my buddy Mark Hoyer (Editor in Chief of Cycle World) rode it at Barber last year and did a story of the test day plus a video about the experience.
That same weekend at Barber, Mark also signed my Kramer:
Back to Willow – Dan got a better start than me (and everyone else in BEARS), becoming my target to chase in in the class. I sat behind him trying to catch up in the straights (his bike is built real well!) and learning from his lines and riding style. After a couple of laps I felt like my best bet would be a pass on the outside of Turn 2 – I had a line that I really liked in that corner that I learned from earlier practice sessions with the Kramer and I just had to trust that the BMW would be OK with it, too.
I think Turn 2 ended up being the difference. Dan and I seemed pretty equally matched otherwise, but I was able to gain a bit of time in that corner each lap and that adds up in a eight lap race. I ended up winning with a best lap of 1:45:387, averaging 78.568 miles per hour around Big Willow. For context, my best lap with the Kramer 690 this weekend was 1:34.130.
I ended up winning both BEARS and Sound of Singles 1 on Saturday!
Race 2 – Sunday
Heading out for Race 2:
For Sunday’s race I already had a general idea of what to expect. Dan kindly shared his video from this race and I tried to make the Turn 2 pass a lap earlier so you’ll see me at 2:29 in his video:
You can see in these videos that my bike pogo-es around a bit. To me it was just a symptom of what it’s like to push an old bike, but after the races Dan came over to my pit to congratulate me and tell me that I need to address the suspension, starting with a call over to the folks at Race Tech. I wasn’t going to be able to sort that out before our next race at Inde a week later but it looks like that’s on my to-do list soon.
Dan is a wonderful person and an amazing steward for AHRMA. I look forward to seeing how he continues to grow the organization, he’s doing a great job running it right now (things were a bit dire a few years ago). As a sign of my appreciation, I asked Dan to sign my Kramer this weekend:
Another wonderful person that showed up: my girlfriend VyVy! Willow is about 90 minutes away from my home so I was incredibly excited that she came out to check out the shenanigans on Sunday (though I’m bummed she missed Saturday as that was the more-attended/action-packed day).
On Saturdays, AHRMA has a podium ceremony. They don’t do it on Sunday as people typically want to head out right after their races and get home, which is understandable. When I went up to get my 1st place plastic for BEARS, Dan took the microphone and had some kind words about how AHRMA likes seeing folks who normally race new bikes get the bug and show up with old stuff. So come join us and make Dan proud!
Next up on the AHRMA calendar: Inde Motorsports Ranch!
