Six hours on a Honda 50

Raced the 6 hour this weekend. Problems with the bike's jetting first two hours relegated us to fourth. We were
fast enough to win, just too much pit time and lap times were off first two hours do to fat jetting. The bike was
almost impossible to ride until the jetting was leaned out.

Anyway, here's a group photo of the team. Left to right, Mark Tuttle (asked to ride due to length of race), John
Casley (bike owner and rider), Billy Wiese (sponsor and engine builder, WRW Racing), and me, Jack Giesecke,
rider.



A pic of Mark Tuttle, pretty good one stuffing a Derbi.

??? 50cc ???

Just curious, how fast will that little thing go ???

A stock NSR50 will run maybe around 60 mph. This one is a 63cc. Billy has a "eddie current" dyno, which is a bit pessimistic compared to a Dynojet, but his says the stocker makes a little over 7 bhp at the tire. This bike is making nearly 13. I'd guess it will run around 75 mph, maybe 80 with enough straight. My KX80 motard runs against 85cc stuff in 125GP chassis in F4, CMRA's biggest mini class. It'll run near 100 mph. Now, the shockers are the little 125GP bikes like the RS125 Honda I just sold. They're not minis. They handle like they're on rails and make about 40+ horsepower pushing 160 lbs. The'll break 140 mph. I've beaten GSXR750s on my TZ125 to win over forty classes in WERA. Those things are a bunch of fun, all about corner speed. A good rider on one can eat a big bike up on a small track like Oak Hill. I've seen Ben Spies totally embarrass fast guys on much biggger street bikes with his 125 and that boy was unreal on a 250GP. He ain't doin' too bad now days riding a Yoshimura GSXR1000 in the AMA superbike. He, like the Haydens and Colin Edwards before him, started on minis in TMGP and CMRA.

Minis handle fantastic, like a 125GP. They just lack the motor. It was quite evident at a track day at Oak Hill earlier this year. John and I went up there to work on gearing for the track with the big motor. I'd be zipping along down a straight and a fast guy on a 600 would come around me just before a corner. They'd friggin' park the thing and I could put a wheel on 'em on the outside before they got on the throttle. LOL. The difference in corner speed is amazing, 150 lb mini vs 400 lb 600. I enjoy riding these things for this reason, but the big tracks ain't the place. Oak Hill is fun, but bigger tracks are boring. We race Texas Mini GP on little kart tracks. Katy's track ( http://www.racekarts.com ) is 7 turns and 0.33 miles per lap. You get NO breaks on a track like that, LOL! It's a total blast, though. I've ridden bikes from 1000cc down and I have the most fun on little bikes on the kart tracks. It evens out the bikes, makes the rider the main ingrediant to winning. Big tracks tend to be all about motor. That's no fun to me, win or lose.

You're lookin good there Goose. Ya gonna make it out to Arizona?

Goose, you got 2 months to win the champeenship and come up for a visit. It's probably midpoint for the two of us. I remember when we had a neat little kart track up by the airport..it's gone now..prime land big money but they used to have a pretty serious kart series and they used to run those YSR 50s a number of years ago..they were fun. I almost bought a kart back then but couldn't really make the races..shiftwork you know.

Know all about shiftwork digging into the racing. That's no longer my case, thank God. Man, I wanna make that last race, but I wanna make Springerville. If AFNurse goes, I'm probably going to skip the championships. I'll likely have enough points by that time in Motard class for that win, but I won't in Unlimited and Backwards depends on the next two race weekends. I can get a fast friend to sub for me on the endurance ride, that's not a problem. I just hate missing it cause it's at Katy, real close to home, and won't take much bite out of the budget. If AFNurse decides to ride with me to Springerville, that might be the determining factor.

At least I'm making some money, now. I'm wrenching over in Edna (about 30 mile ride) on small engines, tractors, four wheelers, jet skies, what ever. It's an agricultural county and they guy who I'm partnering with (his shop was established, but he doesn't do small engines) has had lots of business in the past. I'm starting to make decent money over there already. Just finishing up a rebuild on an International Cub Cadet which will be a good chunk of change this week. And, I've got no experience on big tractors, but he does 'em and he's going to put me to work rebuilding an old Ford 8N. It's not really much different from working on a small OHV car, except there are injectors where the spark plugs oughta be, LOL! I get to learn tractors, though, which is cool. Never too old to learn something. Doing that will fill in, for now, while we build the small engine stuff and even out my income a bit. It's cool cause I pretty much set my own hours over there according to the work load. But, if we have a large workload by Springerville time, that might keep me here. If it's like right now, taking a few days off won't be a big deal. We'll just have to see.

I'm getting a new rear tire on the SV, though. If I ride it out there, when I get back it should be getting close to time to check valve lash (every 16K miles). I haven't cracked a bolt on that thing since I bought it other than the oil drain plug and the spin on filter, oh, and the axle bolts when I've changed tires. You know, I've only had to adjust the friggin' chain twice in 11,000 miles. Man, drive chains have advanced! This is the first chain drive bike I've had in over a decade. I will have to remember to pack some chain lube for the trip, though.