If you read my previous post, you know that it was kind of an adventure getting my bike ready for this Alabama Team Hare Scramble (ATHS).  If you want to read about it, please click here.  Today is the ATHS‘s 2nd round, which is at Deer Run . . . → Read More: Hare Scramble at Deer Run MX]]>

Packed up and ready to race!

If you read my previous post, you know that it was kind of an adventure getting my bike ready for this Alabama Team Hare Scramble (ATHS).  If you want to read about it, please click here.  Today is the ATHS‘s 2nd round, which is at Deer Run MX.  Stick and Tim Melton have a great motocross track and a great setup for Hare Scramble.

So I woke up in the morning, about an hour earlier than I planned, but that is ok.  Guessing I was just a wee-bit excited about getting out on the bike again.  Had coffee, ‘go-fast’ Cheerio’s, and cleaned the pool.  Then packed up the truck with the bike, gear, and stuff.  I was out on the road around 8:45am.  Got down the street and there was my dog, Leo.  Just checking out the hood.  Got the dog in the truck, turned around, and dropped him off back at home.  Ok, let us try this again.

Everybody is getting ready for the race.

Made it down to Deer Run with no problems.  When I pulled up, I saw Mike Pegg’s trailer and he wasn’t around.  So I saw a lady sitting there and I asked her, “Are you a Pegg?”  She replied, “Yes”.  She had no clue who I was so I pulled next to her and parked.  Got out of the truck and then introduced myself.  Soon after that, Mike and Gwen showed up.

Soon after Andy & Christian showed up, and Gray and his buddy also showed up.  Man we were gonna have a party!

Andy is showing off his new NASCAR gas can.

Andy started unpacking and showed us he new toy.  Some type of gas can that looks and operates much like the gas cans that NASCAR uses.  Seemed to work pretty good.  Andy made a slight mess of it, but still was pretty cool.  Just as a side note, somebody wanna tell Mr. Pegg that strips & pink don’t match?  Anybody?  Any takers?

I talk so much, Mike had to put on his helmet.

Well, we all kinda putted around and then headed up to the registration building for the riders meeting.  Was nice, the owner of Cornerstone gave a great sermon and then we prayed.  Once the group headed to the bikes, a gentleman stopped me and asked me if I was Mike Magee.  ”Yup,” I said.  he let me know that he followed my blog, and should be reading this, and said he really like this blog.  Stan, thank you sir!  You made my day sir!

Everyone is lined up & ready to go!

As you can see, to the left, this ended up being a pretty big turn out and if you watch the video, you will see that most of the riders was in the Ironman class!  What a blast.

As normal, during these starts, I am starting my bike each time they let a group in front of us go and then shut it off.  This makes sure that the bike is starting good and it was, except when it was our time.  I must not have gotten a good kick at it.  It just puttered.  It took to more kicks and then she came to life.  That almost never happens.  This was ok, because there were alot of fast riders in our group and I didn’t have to worry about them.  I just had to ride.

I think my butt is stuck to the seat.

I did three laps with little issue.  The forth was a bit different.  There is a section in the rooted part of the trail where you go down a small hill and there were some breaking bumps there and several roost crossing the trail.  I was doing good, on my toes, weight on the back and dragging the rear break.  Then all of a sudden my front end washed out, sliding on a root.  That front tire shot off to my left and I went to the right.  From what I remember is that I somehow landed on the ground on my back and head a loud CRACK!  That was my helmet hitting the ground or a base of a tree.  I knew I was ok, I didn’t feel anything, just heard the loud crash.  Got right up and the bike was still running and my hand was still holding the clutch in.  Guess I figured out how I flipped over the bike.

Rounding the corner and heading to the start finish line.

I finished that lap and stopped in the pits for a quick bottle of water and a splash of gas.  Grey Taylor’s friend (can’t remember his name) filled my bike while I sucked down the bottle of water.  I got back on the bike and was off.  I thought to myself that I must be getting back in shape, as good of shape I can, because I went 4 laps without a stop and didn’t take a third minute break.  Also I was hitting the big uphill double/triple.  Only rolled it once, when one of the woody guys slammed on his breaks right in front of it.  Thought about jumping it and landing on him, but then I would get hurt and that was not in the plan.

Andy finally caught up to me on the 6th lap. We were in the woods area where the fences were and I pulled over to let some of the faster guys by.  I saw Andy and I took off.  Then I just stopped, blocking Andy.  Andy finally went past me and I hit him on the helmet with my hand.  He stopped to talk because he stalled his bike.  Once I noticed that, I took off, leaving him behind.  Funny as hell…To me.  Later, where that uphill turn to the right, next to the tree with roots, Andy passed me back and off he went.  Soon after that, Stan Burke passed me!  Hey, he said he was old, out of shape, and old.  Well he was at least two out of those three.  Old boy was scoot’n.

Wow, talk about a fashion statement. Makes me speechless.

The remaining laps went without a hitch.  I do remember on my 6th lap yelling at Tim Melton, who was at the line taking number, asking him when in the hell will the white flag come out!  I said I am getting old out here.  He smiled and said it would be a while.  That entire lap I couldn’t image making more than two more laps.  UGH!  Next lap, yep the white flag was out!  LAST LAP!!!  I could do this.

I think Andy is having a stroke. At least it looked that way.

When I came in after the last lap, I was presented with Andy laying all over his bike.  Hmm, what’s wrong with Truck Driver, I thought.  Then it dawned on me, Oh he is just old and not so use to it.

I pulled next to a tree and parked the bike.  Grabbed a bottle of water and sucked that thing down.  Grabbed another one and repeated step one.  Started to cool down and then was able to talk.  Mike, Christian, Andy, and Gwen were all there.  It was over and nobody got hurt!  Man, what a great time.  This last picture is what is all about.

Three really tired old guys!

 All three of us could barely stand up, but we damn sure were going to stand up and take a picture together.  If this isn’t fellowship, not sure what would be.  Great bunch of guys.  Miss the old SNAG group, but I believe we are expanding the membership here.  God Bless everyone on the Easter Sunday.  Remember today is the day Christ was resurrected.   Thank you Lord for watching over all the riders this past weekend.

Ok, let us get this out in the open now.  The rider who crashed my bike is ok.  Laynes buddy, DJ,  asked to barrow my bike like many time before.  No problem, . . . → Read More: Fixing a wrecked bike!]]>

I guess the bike landed upside down, on the back fender. Seen it happen before, but just not to my bike!

Ok, let us get this out in the open now.  The rider who crashed my bike is ok.  Laynes buddy, DJ,  asked to barrow my bike like many time before.  No problem, just bring it back in one piece.  Well, it didn’t come back quite like that, but it did make it back.  DJ endo’d on the start-finsh line at JB’s and the bike flipped to the point where it landed on the rear fender.  This pushed the fender down and into the pipe, which was just smooshed.

Earlier this week, I started taking the bike apart to see what we had.  I knew I needed another pipe, that was a given, but really didn’t know about anything else.  Got the pipe off and the head, with little problems.  Luckily I remembered that I thought I had stored my old pipe, from my 1st yzf250 up in my attic of the shed.  Went to luck and sure enough, had the pipe, the header AND the plastics!  Happy DAY!

Is it my eyes or is the level bent?

So back to taking the bike apart.  I have the pipe and header off, the back fender off and that is when I noticed it!  OMG, WTF!  Yeah for sure, the bike landed upside down and on the rear  fender.  However it seems as if it landed on the sub-frame and bent the crap out of it.  YIKES!  Call in the sledge hammer!

POS!

You know, it took me a while with my Big Ass Sled Hammer (BASH) to get that right side back to something near normal.  Ended up putting the ‘V’ part of the sub-frame on the edge of a cinder block and hammer on that puppy till the right side was even with the left.  Pulling it off the block wasn’t so easy, so I SMASHED the block.  YEAH!  Take that!!!  Bust up my bike and see what you get, when you mess with the WARRIORS!  Oh ahh, sorry about that.  I love the Warriors.  Bad ass flick!

Ok, so now off to the front of the bike.  Looks ok.  Take the handle bars off  and the look ok.  Not bent.  That is good.  I decided to loosen the forks pinch bolts.  Knowing they were most likely twanked and under some crazy like pressure.  As I loosened the 8 pinch bolts, I waited to hear that “PING” noise.  That noise right there tells me, if I hear it, the forks are under some crazy like twanking pressure.  Yup, heard it once.  However, I suspect all is good.

Bent!

Twankology

Then I went back to the top of the triple clamps and found this!  OMG!  Alert!  Look to the right, you big dummy!  You see that, The world is not level in Scooter-Land.   Ok so I guess that makes sense, sense from on top of the bike, it looks like this!  Now look to the left, big dummy!  UGH!

So I took off the risers and nothing the bent!  Not the bars, not the risers, nothing.  Looks as if the bolt gave some and allowed the riser to move like that.  Hmm, ok.  Best I could come up with at the time.  I mean, it wasn’t bent.  So you are telling me it was the riser fairy.  Naaa, don’t think so, bub.

Now it was time to put everything back together.  Worked from the front and then went to the back.  The front was quite simple and had not problem.  Everything fit back together very well.  Not quite the same for the rear.  The sub-frame is still not quite prefect, which lined up everything just about perfect except the lower bolt to the exhaust.  I figured for one hare scramble all will be ok.  At least that is the plan.

Once everything was back together, I started the bike.  Took only 4 kicks, with flip-flops on, and she fired right up!  5 points for me & the BBB!

Tomorrow morning, at the bright eyed time of 5:30am, I will be heading out to meet Andy (aka, Swooft) down in Falkville, Al. We are heading down to Monster Mountian to compete in the buddy hare scramble. He & I did this last year and it turned out to . . . → Read More: To Tame a Mountain]]>

Directions to Monster Mountain

Tomorrow morning, at the bright eyed time of 5:30am, I will be heading out to meet Andy (aka, Swooft) down in Falkville, Al. We are heading down to Monster Mountian to compete in the buddy hare scramble. He & I did this last year and it turned out to be a very fun time. So, wish us luck. Ride report to follow soon.

4/3/2001: Talked with Andy Friday afternoon and we decided to head down that night and stay in Clanton, Alabama.  Clanton is a little less than an hour away from Monster Mountain.  This will allow us NOT have to get up before the crack of dawn, which is fairly taxing on the body.

Andy in his breakfast eating, dirt bike racing, gear.

We got to the hotel around 8:30pm and I guess the Spring breakers made it there just ahead of us.  As soon as I walked upstairs to my room, LOADS of beer swigg’n kids were hanging out on the walkway.  OH BOY!  These kids did ok, about 10:30pm they shut it down and everything was quite till morning.  Nice job!

We woke up & met down in the breakfast bar.  There we tried to eat some breakfast, but it was really bad.  So he stopped by the local McDonald’s for some ‘Go-Fast’ food.  We got our fill and headed to the Mountain.

Finally got my front eibach front sway bar and today I am putting it on.  I will take pictures, as I always do, to help out anyone else out there that might be considering doing this.  It . . . → Read More: On goes the front sway bar!]]>

Got the tunes going, the tools at the ready, and the car up. Lets do this.

Finally got my front eibach front sway bar and today I am putting it on.  I will take pictures, as I always do, to help out anyone else out there that might be considering doing this.  It really isn’t that difficult, assuming you have a decent set of tools.

Ok, I have the car up on jakes, the front tires off, and some tasty tones on!  Ok, lets do this!

I think, at least with these smaller cars, to put them up on jack stands is the best thing one can do.  It allows access to all of the car.

So, the first thing to do was to locate the front sway bar, which is in the front  and it is the black bar, with the green sticker.  It is mounted to the frame by the rubber mounts and then it is connected to the traction arm.  Same on both sides.  Duh.

A closer shot of the sway bar rubber mount bracket bolts removed.

After locating the stuff, remove the bolts to the rubber mount and then to the traction arm.  I did the on both sides.  I also had to bend up the metal ABS mount to help me get to the rubber bushing mount.

Now both sides of the sway bar are lose from the car. Now need to get this 4 ft bar out of a 1ft hole. Hmm...Trick is to rotate the bar clock-wise by 90 degress and then easliy pull it out.

Releasing both of these, on both sides of the car is pretty much all you have to do.  Expect the really tuff part.  Removing this puppy.  Not so easy.  What I ended up doing was to rotate the sway bar counter clock-wise, over the traction bar.  The first side was pretty easy, but the second took a bit more muscle.  Nothing too bad.

Ok, sway bar has been rotated counter clock-wise by 90 degrees, over the traction bar.

Now I pushed the end of the sway bar down to the floor, while forcing the other end up.  This gave me the clearance I need to start pulling the bar out.  I could see enough in the engine compartment to see where the other end was and when it was stuck on a hose or something in there.  Needed to be careful and not cut or pull on these hoses too much and make my job harder than is needed.

Ok, bars are of the same size, but the weght difference is significant. The Eibach might weigh a pound more.

After I got the OEM front sway bar out, I put the two next to each other to make sure they didn’t send me the wrong one or something.  By the looks of things, everything was ok.

Reverse the way I took the OEM sway bar out. See that the bar now needs to be rotated back over the tracsion bar by a clock-wise rotation.

Now, I simple reversed the process to put the new Eibach sports sway bar in.  First inserting the far-end into where I pulled the OEM one out and slowly pushing it through the lower section of the engine compartment.  Again, making sure to be careful not snag’n it on any hoses in there.

Ok, got the rubber mount all greased up and mounted on both sides and now for the tracision control arms.

After the bar is fully inserted, rotate it back over the traction bar clock-wise on both sides.  Now the bar is pretty much in place and the rubber bushings can be installed.  I used that sticky grease that came with the kit, lubing up the inside of the bushing and then mounting it and the bracket over the bar and then to the frame of the car.  Did this on both sides, not fully tighten down yet.  Figured it needed to breath before firming it all down.

Traction control arms are now both securily in place, on both sides. Put the wheels back on and test drive.

Now I went to mounting the traction control arm to the end of the sway bar.  This is a very simple bolt that goes through the hole on the end of the sway bar and then tighten the bolt.  I did this on both sides, fully tighten it.  Then I did the final tighten of the rubber bushing mounts.  Also, as a final thing, I made sure the ABS mounting bracket that I bent up to get out of the way, was pushed back down and the wires moved freely.

Put the tires back on, removed the jack stands, and now I was ready for a test drive.

Let me tell you that after the test drive, I could not believe how well mannered this car is now.  It went from being fairly over-powered, to under-powered.  The rear-end is hooking up much better than before and will not lift to the point where a single tire will break free and spin out of control.  I know, this free-spining looks cool for the kids, but that is all it is…for the kids.  I want the car to feel under-powered and very well behaved.  Because sometime in the near future there will be an over-powering turbo charger going on this car, but before that I am going to do a break upgrade.  HA!

If you can see this, your browser doesn’t understand IFRAME. However, we’ll still link you to the file. . . . → Read More: Atlanta Super-Cross, Bad Reed!]]>

I don’t know, that last lap had tons of excitement all rolled up into the final lap.  Personnally, what Bubbda did was ok, but what Reed did was not.  What is your thought?

So yesterday wanted to start riding again.  He said he needs something to do during the weekend.  So, we went to our local KTM Dealer (Eastham KTM) and purchased a 2006 KTM SX-F.  I picked it up early this morning, got the kids up, packed up . . . → Read More: Family Ride at JB’s]]>

Tyler got a bit muddy this ride.

So yesterday wanted to start riding again.  He said he needs something to do during the weekend.  So, we went to our local KTM Dealer (Eastham KTM) and purchased a 2006 KTM SX-F.  I picked it up early this morning, got the kids up, packed up the truck and off we went.  Layne, Tyler, and me!

So that little truck was not loaded down with three bike.  Now I am questioning why I sold my Tundra and the toy hauler.  Oh well, I guess it is how these things go.

Layne at JB's testing out the new KTM.

Got to JB’s, unloaded, and got suited up.  While we were doing that, DJ showed up.  Layne was the first one out.  I talked to him about taking it easy until he got his legs back under him.  He is a careful rider and as I suspect, took it easy for a few laps.  Then DJ got out there on my bike.  That got Layne going for a few of the doubles.  He was getting his legs under himself again.

DJ getting my bike warmed up for me.

Now that the big boys were out and riding, it was Tyler’s turn to get out there.  Got him on the XR80R, we talked about the gears, and off he went.  Tyler hasn’t riding the XR80R in over 3 months.  That is when he first learned how to shift.  By this time, Tyler was on the big track and just riding.

I got a chance to sit down and watch my boys out there on the track, riding together.  I don’t know why, but I was very happy to sit there and watch them.

Tyler trying to dry off from the mud puddle.

I did get to ride several laps, one session Layne came up behind me and started feeling a little racy with me.  I know, he wanted to make sure that I knew that he could still out run me.  Yeah, like that is a major accomplishment  :)  After putting in a few more laps, I went into the pits and talked with Tyler, who was now resting after his first ride.  I a few seconds I Tyler back out there riding on the kiddy track.  Man he got out there with like 10 other small bikes and they had a great time.  Watched Tyler ride and slowly get faster.  Tyler happened  find and land in the ONLY mud puddle on this entire 40 acre lot!  He went right down in it.  He and the bike were covered.

I don’t what it is about motocross, the people, the sport, just riding, or the challenge of not getting hurt, but I like it.  I am so very happy that Layne is now interested in at least riding some, which will help me get Tyler riding some more.  I must say that Tyler put some good laps down today and Layne really worked smartly on his bike.  Not pushing too hard too fast.

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