Wicked fast Harley

Friend of a friend I met at the Denton 12 hour is a Grand National series expert rider, watched him qualify for the main at the Springfield mile on Speed Channel last week. His name is Jason Tyer, from the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. He was at Denton trying road racing for the first time. He was riding on top of the bike, foot down, on a motard. You could definitely see his flat track roots showing, LOL. Anyway, his sponsor just sold one of his XR750s, this one, for somewhere around 30 grand, serious iron for the serious rider! I'm posting it full frame for detail. Notice the right side shifter above the brake. This ain't no street bike. It's the RC211V of flat track. The XR750 has evolved over 30+ years dominating flat track racing. Flat track is a sport that rewards drivability over raw horsepower. If you can't get the power to the dirt, to get drive, don't matter how much horsepower you have. The XR is no slouch, though. They're running straight away speeds on the miles of around 140 mph.

Flat track racing

Goose
That flat track racing is something that just started to interest me. I wonder how someone would get into something like that? I have seen it a few times on tv. When you say XR750 I'm thinking Honda.. but you mean Harley? No sh!t... I want one. I am starting to really get into Harleys. Yes the new ones, but also the old ones.. If you have ever been to the site www.zero-eng.com those are the bikes I am talking about. I wish I had that talent.

Yeah, the XR750 Harley has been around forever and been dominant in the miles and half miles forever. The things are not for the novice, however. If you have local short tracks, we do here in Texas, go check them out. Get into "mad dog" class. All you have to go is buy a XR100 Honda or TTR125 Yamaha, or KLX125 Kawasaki. The class is for up to 150cc four stroke thumpers. I bought a pre-built and hardly used XR100 with Frank Nye stroker motor out of California for $1500! The thing is FAST! It's quite linear in power delivery and easy to control to get that drive that's so important off a corner. In Flat track it's all about who can get into the corner, who can hook the tires up, and who can drive off the corner hardest. Suspension, tires, and throttle control are important. It's that wide power delivery that has kept the XR750 dominant over the years in the face of higher horsepower bikes that come and go.

The local stuff is usually short track, 1/5, 1/4, or 3/8 mile dirt ovals. The competition is there, but the triple digit speeds aren't, which really suits the beginner. AMA classes, and AMA is usually the sanctioning body in amateur flat track, are 505 pro, 505 amateur, 125 amateur, Vintage, and mad dog. Where I race, they also run quads. I sometimes run 125 amateur for practice, but the two stokes are too fast for a poor ol' thumper. I do have a KX80 Motard I road race that'd be a lot of fun, and might shoe some rains on it for a flat track sometime. Mad dog pays money, though, so that's where I'd rather concentrate my efforts. 505 pro and mad dog are the money classes, the rest are for trophies only.

You can check out what I'm doing at http://www.jarrellracing.com .

Norton Commando

Thats cool... I'm not sure even if they have flat track racing around here. Dirt track for cars we have a couple moto cross tracks... I'm not sure. Being from Newfane (North of Buffalo NY) we don't get to see all the cool stuff you all have down there in the south.. Like figure 8 racing??? Who thought of that?? You crazy bastards..LOL My father used to have a 71' Norton Commando 750. I know they used to race those way back when, but I think it was mostly for road courses. I've been trying to find one for years to buy. I think I want to start collecting bikes. It is always nice to meet someone that does something different than what your used too. Like a flat track racer.

here in OH.

We get to watch the PROs in Springfield track and the one up north.
I actually watched indoor flat track across the street last winter in a building our local fairgrounds! Theses fellas were flying around on a concrete floor for a couple of days that was never intended for racing. Just a couple of tires in the corners and hay bales rounding it out. It could not bave been more the 50-70 feet long and 30 feet in width!!! They were hauling some butt though!!!
Even got to see "grandpa" (his name escapes me right now) whipping around there for a bit!! Gotta be one of the bravest/nerves of steel crazy things I have ever seen. These guys were racing 8-10 deep!!! all classes. (AMA) There were a few Pros # there,the one fella puts carpet on the bottom of his boot. Good stuff hopefully we'll have it here again. Part of the HOG term history comes from the flat tracking of the earlier days. This is something everyone I have ever taken to see always has went back for more!!!

A few years ago, we had a yearly flat track on ice speed way style. There were JAWA'a a couple of CZ's, a half a Harley (literally) and some home brewed Honda's etc. They raced on our ice Hockey court at the convention center.

Big spikes, flying ice and it was some serious fun to watch. Speeds were pretty low and it was tight but it sure was fun to watch.

It ran for several years but vanished about 1998 or so.

I ran over the younger brother (Pookey Serrano) of Carlos Serrano (world class MX GP rider in early 80's) in a whoop section. He fell right in between two whoops and right in front of me. I was already in the air and all I could do is blip the throttle to raise the front and let the rear roll over his chest. I was on a CR480R and it is no light bike.

I dropped the bike and ran over to him expecting to see all sorts of gore....He did not have a chest protector on and He was just laying there, eyes shut and when Carlos and some others ran up he opened his eyes and says "ouch" and cracks up! He pulled up his jersey and there was a nice pattern of knobs off of my Dunlop 5.00... He even raced that day but was one sore Hombre.

Carlos Serrano was killer fast and raced for many years but never got the big breaks. He raced for Maico in Europe for one of two years.

His little brother Pookey was a lunatic on a 125 and could jump further than anyone I ever watched race. He loved flying off of the top of Sunshine hill and landing flat on the bottom about 150' forward and 50' down. That was about 50' further than most of the rest of us jumped. If it wasn't for the 180º corner he probably could have jumped further. He was always in rythym and made very, very few mistakes.

Carlos went on to race dirt oval modifieds and ran the first couple of years of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck series. He now crew chiefs for a west coast truck and still races a vintage Maico last I knew.