VMD 2022
- Thread starter Vet261
- Start date
MarctheSharc
PR Founding Father
Dude....... you cleaned that little Honda - OUT
NQ1965
PR Elite
As much as we love Vintage Days, this year was just really, really tough for us. My old bikes have pretty much set untouched since we parked them last year and life took over in a hundred different ways.
The wife and I have had countless discussions about building another barn or detached garage so that I can work on bikes through the winter, but I just can't bring myself to throwing more money into this house/property. We also always talked about buying land to build on and retire to but being only eight years from retirement and fixed income, the insanity of property taxes in central Ohio makes it cost prohibitive as well. Even my Dads' 6-acre property which is in the country and has been in the family for 80 years is an option for me, but with property taxes of $4000-$6000 a year make it a bad deal financially long term. So, I just do the best that I can with the bikes as time permits in late Winter and Spring, or until Ball season ends at end of June.
After racing my 82 YZ250 at Grear's earlier this month, the decision was made to give it another go at Vintage Days this year. So, I put together a work list and got busy on it. I also had to get busy on the KDX and MX250 as this was the order of racing for VMD weekend. Last on the list of course being the 84 YZ250 which I would give some relief of only having to race one class on Sunday this year. With every spare minute I could since the beginning of July I worked on the first three bikes. Placed many parts orders, and took over the garage, leaving Nancy's car outside. Long story short, we ran out of time before VMD weekend arrived.
The KDX was in pretty good shape, well enough to race. The MX250 could use a fresh top-end but, would get by OK. More than anything needed a really good clean-up and going over. The 82 YZ needed a lot of going through, which I come up short on. The 84 YZ250, needed a lot of mechanical loving, fresh cosmetics and could use another rear tire.
Driving up and back each night, does help in that it gives me last minute garage time to get bikes together. But we ran out of garage hours before the weekend, and then not getting home until 7:30 Saturday evening (because of the rain delay), left me working on the 84 YZ until 11pm that night, only to get back up at 4:45am to drive back up Sunday morning. It sucked not having time to install any of the new parts setting in envelopes and box's that I bought for the 84 YZ.
That brings me to Sunday morning pre-race events. I ran the 82 and 84 YZ250's through tech inspection and the plan was to take the 82 out for first practice and the 84 out for second. And the same for the two different race classes. Well, that didn't work out so well either. I started up the 82YZ, and then it went into and max-rev condition for some reason?? I killed the engine, but then it wouldn't start up again. So, at this point I scrapped the idea of riding the 82, and just ran the 84 in both classes. (they are both EV-3 machines).
I got through both practices, and the first moto of my 40+ class ok. But then when I later came back out for my first moto of my 50+ class, I couldn't get the 84 YZ250 to start while waiting on the gate. After kicking about 200 times, and missing both gate drops, realized the gas was turned off, and then got it started. DAMN IT!!!!.... Soo, I rushed out on the track managed to save the race with a last place (9th).
Luckily, I didn't have that issue in my afternoon moto's and had satisfactory finish's.
So twice this weekend I rode my bikes to the starting line with the fuel turned off. I discovered that my 82-YZ 250's fuel petcock is actually backwards somehow, with "open" actually being closed, and vice-versa. With minimal sleep, excessive hours, work and energy expenditures leading to DUMB mistakes I feel lucky we did as well as we did.
And to add to a much older "Hard Lesson's Learned" thread, I discovered that you should come to Vintage Motorcycle Days with no less that "3" pairs of motocross boots. I wiped out the first pair on Friday in the creeks of the Hare Scramble race. I wiped out my second pair in the rains and mud racing on Saturday.
MarctheSharc
PR Founding Father
Ha!
Someone needs to get Honda 443 on here.
This guy is just chilling & stoken’ on his VMD experience and has no clue the guy next to him will be throwing an elbow to his neck in the next 5 minutes!!
I’d love to hear his take on the weekend!!!
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NQ1965
PR Elite
Probably want me to reimburse him for his entry fee, haha.
I do recall seeing him on the trail through the woods, so he survived it.
Honestly, it happened so fast and he wasn't even in my peripheral vision, that I actually thought that he took me out.
I was into the tire of the guy in front of me and trying to recover and not high-siding, and WAM, I'm getting slammed in the side.
Wrecks happen and are part of racing.
With all this being said though, I have witnessed that there is a learned skill to entering a turn elbow to elbow, tire to tire, and maintaining forward momentum while the bikes are banging and bumping without panicking or anybody crashing. I see this in my Great Outdoors video's at home. I've watched this many times, rewinding the video over and over wondering, "how do they do that?"
Seems to me the key is to keep yours eyes up and forward, and not on the rear tire of the bike(s) in front of you, which is hard to do. Thinking this can only come through repeated experience with race starts.
Damn video!........ I thought the AMA banned those things
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Vet261
PR Addict
Mike, I've been there once too one the other side of it.
Years ago I was racing the "Gobbler GP" at Switchback in PA, and back then we used to go off the MX gate like a normal MX race. Normal other than the fact that the race was mostly woods goons that had no idea how to go off a gate.
Anyway, I'm all set to rip a good start for the hour long GP, and a dude next to me whiskeythrottle loops out off the gate into my side/back. So I literally went 10 feet out of the date and was down in a heap and then raced for an hour with twisted bars and scraped up body!
I think they stopped using the MX gate for the GP after that year LOL
Years ago I was racing the "Gobbler GP" at Switchback in PA, and back then we used to go off the MX gate like a normal MX race. Normal other than the fact that the race was mostly woods goons that had no idea how to go off a gate.
Anyway, I'm all set to rip a good start for the hour long GP, and a dude next to me whiskeythrottle loops out off the gate into my side/back. So I literally went 10 feet out of the date and was down in a heap and then raced for an hour with twisted bars and scraped up body!
I think they stopped using the MX gate for the GP after that year LOL
Dano762
PR Addict
Mike, always look forward to your VMD race reports - you do such a good job catching the racing and emotions through your eyes. Plus Nancy takes great action photos.As much as we love Vintage Days, this year was just really, really tough for us. My old bikes have pretty much set untouched since we parked them last year and life took over in a hundred different ways.
The wife and I have had countless discussions about building another barn or detached garage so that I can work on bikes through the winter, but I just can't bring myself to throwing more money into this house/property. We also always talked about buying land to build on and retire to but being only eight years from retirement and fixed income, the insanity of property taxes in central Ohio makes it cost prohibitive as well. Even my Dads' 6-acre property which is in the country and has been in the family for 80 years is an option for me, but with property taxes of $4000-$6000 a year make it a bad deal financially long term. So, I just do the best that I can with the bikes as time permits in late Winter and Spring, or until Ball season ends at end of June.
After racing my 82 YZ250 at Grear's earlier this month, the decision was made to give it another go at Vintage Days this year. So, I put together a work list and got busy on it. I also had to get busy on the KDX and MX250 as this was the order of racing for VMD weekend. Last on the list of course being the 84 YZ250 which I would give some relief of only having to race one class on Sunday this year. With every spare minute I could since the beginning of July I worked on the first three bikes. Placed many parts orders, and took over the garage, leaving Nancy's car outside. Long story short, we ran out of time before VMD weekend arrived.
The KDX was in pretty good shape, well enough to race. The MX250 could use a fresh top-end but, would get by OK. More than anything needed a really good clean-up and going over. The 82 YZ needed a lot of going through, which I come up short on. The 84 YZ250, needed a lot of mechanical loving, fresh cosmetics and could use another rear tire.
Driving up and back each night, does help in that it gives me last minute garage time to get bikes together. But we ran out of garage hours before the weekend, and then not getting home until 7:30 Saturday evening (because of the rain delay), left me working on the 84 YZ until 11pm that night, only to get back up at 4:45am to drive back up Sunday morning. It sucked not having time to install any of the new parts setting in envelopes and box's that I bought for the 84 YZ.
That brings me to Sunday morning pre-race events. I ran the 82 and 84 YZ250's through tech inspection and the plan was to take the 82 out for first practice and the 84 out for second. And the same for the two different race classes. Well, that didn't work out so well either. I started up the 82YZ, and then it went into and max-rev condition for some reason?? I killed the engine, but then it wouldn't start up again. So, at this point I scrapped the idea of riding the 82, and just ran the 84 in both classes. (they are both EV-3 machines).
I got through both practices, and the first moto of my 40+ class ok. But then when I later came back out for my first moto of my 50+ class, I couldn't get the 84 YZ250 to start while waiting on the gate. After kicking about 200 times, and missing both gate drops, realized the gas was turned off, and then got it started. DAMN IT!!!!.... Soo, I rushed out on the track managed to save the race with a last place (9th).
Luckily, I didn't have that issue in my afternoon moto's and had satisfactory finish's.
So twice this weekend I rode my bikes to the starting line with the fuel turned off. I discovered that my 82-YZ 250's fuel petcock is actually backwards somehow, with "open" actually being closed, and vice-versa. With minimal sleep, excessive hours, work and energy expenditures leading to DUMB mistakes I feel lucky we did as well as we did.
And to add to a much older "Hard Lesson's Learned" thread, I discovered that you should come to Vintage Motorcycle Days with no less that "3" pairs of motocross boots. I wiped out the first pair on Friday in the creeks of the Hare Scramble race. I wiped out my second pair in the rains and mud racing on Saturday.
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On the 6 acres and property taxes - does the county have any discounts for agricultural use. I get a tax break on the land I have because I planted quite a few fruit trees and actively keep honeybees (apiculture). The county came out and audited me and they were satisfied - might be something to check into.
Vet261
PR Addict
NQ1965
PR Elite
Thanks Dan.
Yea that's done commonly around here as well, even though my Dad doesn't utilize it. He does get a break on his property tax's due to the Homesteaders provision (I guess it's called that?), but that would go away if I bought the place. We'll just have to look at it all closer when Dad and his wife decide to downsize and move closer to town again. He has a two car attached garage, and a 2-1/2 car detached garage as well. But the property needs a separate barn to store mowers, tools and such.
NQ1965
PR Elite
AMA Vintage Motorcycle Days is the highlight event of the year for the wife and I, but the one thing I have to poke fun at them for are without exception every year we end up having to go to the trailer to resolve results scoring issues. Three times this year and still not accurate.
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