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Race Report Follows

Thurs – Departed at dawn and trekked 628 miles down the interstate towards the track. 11 hours later arrived in the paddock, registered, and set up my pit.

Fri- Race School- After hitting the coffee truck, which was a welcome sight directly across from our pit, I push the bike over to Tech and completed the inspection without any drama. The bike has far more safety wire than is required, because AHRMA and AMA rules overlap, but not completely. The fire sleeve on the fuel lines raised questions, but there were no issues.

Race School students were called out during the riders meeting to report to class and the class was an equal mix of classroom instruction and track time. The first track session was a couple parade laps to just run the course and slowly ride the track lines. The bike fired and stuffed into my leathers I made my way to pit out. Even in second gear, the Corkscrew is terrifying. The entry is blind, the apex only comes into view as you crest the hill and you do not see the dogleg until you are at the apex. It is not like any other track I have been on and is a lot more technical than fast.

For the first time in ten years, the bike was pretty much uncooperative all day. I had lots of little problems from jetting to electrics to shifter linkage issues. During the school riding sessions I would get a lap in and have to come back in to sort out something. School was an all-day affair and I completed my test without any additional drama, got my certificate and blue shirt, and was turned loose on the racing society.

Sat – Practice – After a good night sleep, I elected to go out on one practice session after sorting out some mechanical issues the previous evening. The bike popped, sputtered and lacked power, but got around the course for a couple laps and allowed me to tighten up my lines a bit.

Sat – Race – I was assigned into race two, which on one hand I was grateful to get out early but the lineup was a bit lopsided. BEARS and Historic Production Heavyweight were lined up in wave two, however Phillip Island Challenge went out in wave one and was loaded with ridiculously fast big superbikes from the 80’s.

I am one of two in my class, so if I can finish I am guaranteed a podium. The other bike in the class was a nice BMW R75/5. Flag drops and we take off. BMW runs away and I am not catching him. I settle in and focus on running my lines and riding my race. I got passed and lapped by most of the field almost immediately, but all passes were clean. At some point I found my line through the corkscrew and it was suddenly not so scary. I finished my race and made my way back to the pits.

I got back to my pit and noticed oil dripping from the exhausts. Checked the plugs and they we also oil-soaked. My suspicion is blow-by through the rings since it was losing power on acceleration , but still had compression when I rolled off the throttle. Being done early allowed me to walk the paddock and check out the other bikes. There were a lot of interesting and rare bike in the pits and the vibe in AHRMA is actually quite friendly for the most part. I spoke with other riders and enjoyed the day. I attended the day’s awards ceremony and it was a riot as they went through the awards. They had the podium set up and folks made use of it. I collected my 2nd place placard and enjoyed my 3 seconds of podium glory. As the day closed, we all tucked into a bottle of vodka and told stories into the night.

Sun – I had made the decision not to run on Sunday. The bike was not going to runn any better than the previous day and I was not there for points. I had completed what I set out to do and there was no point flogging a tired machine just to get track time. I slowly packed up my pits, walked the paddock and talk to a few others about what the appropriate class would be to run my Gold Star in. I got a lot of positive feedback and direction for my next build.

As for the future of the Swiss Army Racer, I have been racing the bike off and on since 2011, so basically ten years. The engine is well overdue for a full rebuild, and will get it before going back out on the salt. The plan is to set it up as a permanent salt bike, go with a full period race fairing and run it in a faster class than I had previously.

As far as future road racing goes, I have the Gold Star as well as a small Rickman frame. Between those two bikes, I can build a couple race bikes that I can run a few classes in and have some fun. This was the only racing event I can afford this year and that’s OK. My company is my sponsor, so I will just have to hustle for more work to be able to get out more next year.



Other BSA's spotted in the Paddock

Thanks for the report. What class do you run in on the salt? What is your speed? What is the record? This weekend we were in Loring, Maine running 2 A-65's. Not successful this year but at least we tried. The MPG bike has a dangerous weave at speed. He bravely got up to 121 on a 135+ record. The other runs MPS/PBF 650 and kind of revolted at what we wanted from her. We were hoping to break our record of 166. No joy. PRT

I have run M-CG 650 in the past and with the wrong gearing, ran a 97.1 in 2018. the record is in the 130's

To bad you had trouble with the Gold Star, sounds like you had success anyway. Did you go by yourself, long trip if you did. Thanks for the report.


PRT any ideas why the Hornet was unstable.

Trouble was with the A65, not the GS. I do travel on my own, but I pit with a group of friend and we all help out each other.

The Lightning has 10 years of racing on it and is in need of rebuilding. I am pretty sure the rings are toast, and it probably needs a top end done at a minimum.

I am on the hunt for an A10 crank. I have a spare engine that also need rebuilding and I would not be against building a stroker out of it.

If it needs pistons why not put an alloy nickasil 744 kit on it? It will breath better and it can rev. Modern ring pack forged pistons at .002" or .0025" seal really well. Not that a long stroke cannot make good power but it's more limited. And more work.

The A70 had a strengthened crank. A 650 can make hp though. The photo's do not work. If you find 'hot links for forum's' copy and paste that. Then it displays.

I'd be interested in how the '71 head is ported, one I have has the numbers blanked out and flows much better, (around 135cfm) the 68-701 earlier heads 109cfm. They usually have 71-2022 part number on '71s and I don't remember them flowing so well. It's hard to get a 30mm port flowing great through the AMAL, the port itself can be made to flow around 150. But 34mm can flow much better.

My bike has a 68 engine in it. this was a low-buck racer that started building in 2006 and have been running since 2011.

Like I said, I have another complete engine (year unknown) and prefer to build period correct racers. the 744 kit sounds great and I mike do that on one engine, but I have always wanted to do an A10 crank conversion.

The factory had almost 80hp from an A65 with A10 crank in 1970.

You could say that I have had a little fun with this bike. 10 years of racing and I have about $3000 (US) into it.

That's great. My son has a 71 frame and an engine plus some steel MAP rods a good head and an engine that needs fixing. He wants to race. Not sure when that's going to happen though.

He could probably just run his road bike on a track somewhere or land speed event. The 71 frame came with nothing so he needs to get stuff. It could be fun but tracks are no where near here. And entry is expensive.

He could buy a steering damper for this, it's totally fine till you hit a major bump. The rgv is very stable and light, but I guess he wants to race other old bikes with the 71.

Well, the consensus from two riders is that the cg is too far aft. My 'Big Idea' was to move the fuel cell to the rear so the rider could really get down. The thing looks like 150 just standing still! Pictures on FB. I think a longer swing would do it but I don't think I have the gas at this point to do it. Current thinking is to put the 'killer' NA motor in the turbo bike chassis which handles well (longer swing arm). First thing is to cool down a bit and think about things.

I think I might have seen your bike at Maxton a number of years ago. Black Fairing, turbo'd and Nitrous, Oil Tank frame? I am pretty sure I have a picture of it in my files. Nice bike.

I can see the weight thing Tom I did lots of stuff to an A65 frame trying to address this with a long alloy swing arm as well. I concluded that the engine is a bit back in the frame. On the dirt it's possibly better back, but on bitumen forward has a stability the stock set up didn't have. Though the rgv is totally different. Where the other bike would shake it's head on bumps uphill under power the rgv is perfectly stable. Ben's one below.





This is with a longer swing arm A10 crank and Lectrons. It had nice midrange especially with big valves which possibly did more than the displacement. I took one head off at lunch time and had the other on and riding it again in the afternoon. I don't know if I ever had the Lectrons right. But I had them very good for cruising 70-80mph Getting around 90mpg between Sydney and Canberra on the express way. It was probably a bit advanced and an ignition with a throttle position sensor could possibly make that work. Or a switch.

Yeah, started out as a 1966 Royal Star in 2007. Since then it has had 4 different motors. Three turbos, NA, Nitrous, Turbo and turbo/nitrous.. Speeds from 138 - 166. A great career! For those who poo-poo the bushing the turbo motor is still using the original crank and bushing from the 1966 500cc Royal Star! PRT

A couple pics from the track photographer

Nothing wrong with those bushes if the motor is put together properly and oil changed/filtered.
My own road bike still has the original bush. It's just that if you are changing the crank doing an
end feed with a needle race is as easy as sorting out a bush assembly and makes rebuilds easier.
I know several that bushes have done 50k miles plus.