From the Barber AMA weekend

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wfooshee

O, Woe is me!!
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I've just now completed the sorting and uploading of images from this past weekend's excitement at Barber Motorsports Park. Just like DMG on Speed, I'm bringing delayed coverage of the event. Where possible, I've used available light images indoors rather than flash, and as is my habit, the images are clickable thumbnails to slightly larger versions. If you're interested, the full set of pics can be found here and here.

My brother (Motortoad) and I went up Thursday in Big Blue (my '89 Grand Marquis) because we packed like girls and brought everything we owned. That's not quite true, but with two tents, bedding, clothes, and him not coming back to P.C. but continuing on to North Carolina, we just logistically could not take the bikes up this time.

So we went up Thursday, set up camp in a space inaccessible without worker credentials, at the top of the hill west of the motor home zone. It's so far up there it's not even visible from anywhere else at the track. But here's the campground. Mine is the second on the left, with no rain cover. (You see where I'm going already, don't you?)



Here's a stitch of two frames showing the view from On High. The street passing underneath is the exit road from the motor home park. The part of the track you see is the short downhill to the left onto the front straight. You can also see the fan zone tents off in the distance to the left.



So after some beer, some food, some more beer, and some sleep, we awakened before dawn to the call of nature. Not that call, the real calling of the damn birds! Noisy *******s those things are! We greeted our fellow corner workers for their morning meeting, but since we weren't working Friday, we watched them leave and carried on with out own plans. We had a day to be regular track visitors, something we've not had a chance to do before.

First: the museum. Saw this in the lot outside and wondered if my fellow 2003 owner is one of our Brotherhood.



It had this sticker which I found amusing. Probably old news to many of you, but I'd not seen it before.



Before you even pay to get in, you see a wall of several bikes, inluding this 1912 Indian Twin. Bicycle power or motor, and I really like the throttle linkage; apparently cables hadn't been discovered yet. B)





The number one baddest-*** motorcycle that exists, as far as I'm concerned: 2008 Bimota Tesi 3D:



A nice exhibit for the Ferrari 158 in which John Surtees won the 1964 World Championship. Semi-monocoque chassis (copying the previous year's Lotus 25) and a 1.5-liter V8. They also had some bits on display in a case near the car.







There was also a large display for Dan Gurney, featuring the modified Lotus 25 used at Indianapolis in 1963. Also featured are a couple of his Alligator motorcycles with thir unusual recumbent seating position: a bodied 2002 model and a bare frame prototype from 1988.







Around the corner from Gurney you'll find a large display of Morbidelli motorcycles, from a 50cc to this 500, with its monocoque frame.



There is also one of the four prototypes of Morbidelli's 847cc V-8-powered "superbike." (I would probably pay good money to hear this running.)





The sign says the bike was poorly received because of its controversial styling, and thus not produced. I thought it looked rather nice. That is, until I Googled it and found the original color scheme:

morbidelliv84.jpg


The other side of the entry level of the building is devoted to Lotus, from cars more ancient than the Model 7, to the last of the Lotus Formula One cars. The video projected on the wall is the Lotus episode of Victory by Design. 10 of the 23 cars in that episode were Barber's cars, shot at and around the facility.





The car on the right of this display had inboard rear brakes, like most formula cars of the era, but they were drums on this car!



Motortoad covets the aluminum car:



We crossed the bridge over the center and went into the main motorcycle displays. My brother took us straight to this and continued the salivating and slobbering he started over the Lotus Seven. This is the Britten V-1000, from New Zealand, number 7 of 10 that were made. They were developed in the man's back yard, with limited tools and equipment, and occasional assistance from some friends. The bike carries a 60-degree 1000cc V-twin in a carbon fiber monocoque frame, with the front end carried by a pair of A-arms (much like BMW's Duo-lever system), and the radiator lays flat in a ducted area under the seat. Some of these bikes took on the world's major manufacturers in several V-twin series, and won! Now that's back-yard engineering.



That's the rear shock behind the front wheel!



The headers have a pipe for each valve, not just each cylinder:



Here's one for ya: a water-cooled parallel-twin 2-stroke Harley-Davidson! The RR350. Actually, it was built by Aermacchi, an Italian stablemate under the AMF banner at the time.





Motortoad got a woody for this bike, which is odd, since he sees one just like it every time he walks out his front door. Well, almost just like it; his is maybe not quite as shiny. . . . Honda VTR1000 SuperHawk.



Say you're sitting at a light, and this goes across the intersection in front of you.



Correct! The Ariel Square Four, with 2-seat sidecar! Here's the other side, and an engine shot.





I stupidly failed to get a shot of the sign for this bike, and now I don't remember what it is. Love the mechanical detail around the engine and controls, though, including the hairpin valve springs.





Continued in following post . . . .

 
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We took a lunch break, met our worker friends at the control tower for lunch, had a paddock walk, then went to the Fan Zone and the Ducatti tent to check out bikes!













The paddock was not exactly jammed this year. . . .



Off to the Fan Zone, where we sat some bikes and visited vendors. Steve was infatuated with helmet vendors for some reaon, but I didn't bother photographing those. he took my camera from me so I couldn't get him sitting on the DN-01. He had to try it so he could state emphatically that he doesn't like it, but he would not allow the image to be captured. While at the Honda spot, ran across this. What's the world coming to, a green Honda?!?!??!



Aprilias on the other hand, are OK to photograph!



Trying on a Monster. The grin is not a smile, it's a grimace. Apparently the tank wants to be in the same space previously occupied by ******.



Oh, look! They had bikes on the track, too! Some of the Moto-GT qualifying. I was intentionally pushing it with my shutter speed, 1/250 and even 1/125, even zoomed out to 200mm. Most were uselessly motion blurred, but some were rather nice, and somehow that one of the Triumph (#14) was (if I say so myownself) phenomenal!













Superbike Superpole session:







Wasn't quite ready for this, almost missed it completely.



Back to the museum. They had the lower shop level open to the public. It's usually closed, visible only by looking over the railing at the center of the floor, like so:



2003 solar-powered racer, Sol of Auburn. It's mounted on the wall, you're lookup up towards the ceiling in this picture.



Arrows Formula One, bare carbon fiber. I'd seen this car previously on the floor where the Lotus exhibit is now. Apparently not being a Lotus, it can't play there any more.



Its engine (I think, since there wasn't one in it) sitting on display on a counter.



A 1968 Indianapolis car engine from Ford. It's like the one in the #2 STP car in the look-down shot earlier.



Another one of those, this one with one of the heads pulled, and the oil pan done in a cutaway. (The guy attending said it had a hole in it when they got it, not much else they could do except make a cutaway display.)





No, I ordered a water pump for my Coventry-Climax. . . .



. . . . . not a Coventry-Climax-powered water pump!! You *****!!



Doings in some of the shops:







Some of the cars on the bottom floor.





Lookit that giant 4-cylinder Offy. This was one of the last to run at Indy.



A Bonneville belly-tank racer:



We then went to the elevator to go back up, and saw his at the bottom of the shaft:



The elevator has doors at each end to accomodate the mixed levels of the upper floors, but at the basement, both doors open. When it arrived and we could look through it, we saw that the roll-up to the warehouse area was open. All thought of leaving the museum vanished. The warehouse wasn't open to visitors, but they can't keep eyeballs out.



In the center stood these two bikes. I want someone to tell me what the bike on the right is. Count plug wires as you think about it. It's not a test, I have no clue and really want to know.



One more continued . . . .

 
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Saturday we had to work. Not as many pics because I was, you know: working! Weather seemed OK while we had breakfast, but wtf do we know?

I was stationed Saturday across from The Hill, near Charlotte:



Some shots from the Moto-GT session:







Supersport riders went out, but it immediately began to rain, and looked like this at the infield hairpin:



. . . and this on the back straight:





They packed it up for the day when a bike hit a puddle at the beginning of the main straight. Water off the front wheel knocked the rider off the bike, and the ghost bike continued down the straight and crashed into the pit wall. Rider was OK but the session was aborted so the track could be attended to. My understanding is that a drain at that corner was covered over when curbing was extended on the corner exit, and no new drain was ever installed.

Once the lake was swept off the track and the rain subsided, Superbikes went out for a qualifying session.







Nobody was gonna beat their dry times, but they used it for wet practice, until something came off of Geoff Mayes's bike and oiled the track. Oil slick started before the infield hairpin, and he pulled off when the engine sounded funny as he climbed the hill onto the infield straight that leads to that hairpin, having done nearly an entire lap pumping oil onto the racing line of a wet track! To be fair, he had no idea until it actually broke. Had it not been raining the oil would probably have been visible and called in by the corner stations. Next time by Matt Mladin sat up and raised his arm, turned almost sideways to the track and called for other riders to slow down. At our stations we had no idea what was going on until the call came out from control to check our track areas for oil. The slick was not at all visible until you got out onto the track, and then the rainbow sheen was plain as day. Cleanup took about 2 hours! We marked the slick with cones and they filled a water truck with Dawn and hosed the track down. Mmmm, lemony fresh!

Last thing before lunch, the Moto-GT boys had their race, And the race ended when a bike crashed coming out of the final turn, rider was able to resume, but he oiled the track AGAIN. That's lunch! Long delay for cleanup, some more rain which actually helped the cleanup, then the Superbike race 1 and Sportbike race 1.

Got to the campsite afterwards and found that my tent is about as waterproof as dishrags. EVERYTHING not locked in the car was wet! Sleeping bag, suitcase, dirty clothes, towel, pillow. I put my laptop in the car to lock it up, and I had my camera with me, so no electronics were killed, but I had nothing else dry except what I'd been wearing all day in the rain. If that makes any sense. We called a friend of my brother's, a couple he knows from Floribama Riders, and begged some floor space. They were only a couple of miles from the track, so we tore down the campsite and headed for dry land. In my case, tore down was literal. I cut up my tent and threw it away! Even if the tent had been dry, I wasn't interested in camping, as the weather report had nasty things to say that night. The tornado sirens were going off about dusk, as well. Not good!

Got up Sunday without having seen the storms that were supposed to be here all night, but the radar didn't look good. Nothing in Alabama yet, but Mississippi was covered in yellow. Got to the track, had normal sessions in the morning, warmups for Supersport, Daytona Sportbike, and American Superbike. I was working the end of the straight before the dive towards the museum. We had to retrieve one bike, a Supersport, that lowsided going into the downhill right after the straight. Rider's suit opened up at the stitching on the arm, got him a spot of road rash, but he was OK. Bike was toast, front brake reservoir missing, muffler smashed into the swing arm. Two of us picked it up, but it took four to shove it across the gravel!

Broke early for lunch, we had a long lunch scheduled, so I ate and had another paddock walk:



Go ahead. Say it to his face: A clean bike is . . .









They had an autograph session which the fans lined up for, all riders available.





After that was the Fan Walk on the grid for Daytona Sportbikes. (They had the Superbike Fan Walk on Saturday, but we had to be on station and I couldn't get to that one.)





Geico girls, of course! After this picture, she turned and smiled at me . . .



. . . then turned this way! Work it, baby!!!



Enough, already. OK, no, it's not! Look at that tail!!!! (No, on the green guy. To the right.)



All right! Bikes!







We went out to our stations for the afternoon races, and were almost immediately brought back in when a tornado formed a ways down the highway along I-459. We sat here



and watched this roll in.



When the rain started for sure, we shut the doors, and never saw the worst of it. We had no idea how bad it actually was until afterwards. Anyway, we went back out to the track for a ten-minute Superbike warmup, and lightning started up. They finished the session and brought us back in. After another quite lengthy delay we went back out, and got all three races in, albeit shortened. The day ended about 7:00, when we'd expected to be done before 5:00. I still had to drop Steve off with the folks he was going to the Dragon with, and then I had a 5-hour drive home! I had to stop twice and take a nap in a parking lot, as things started spinning around in front of the car where I was trying to see. . . Not good.

 
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Thanx for the pix.

The bikes in the museum you had questions about:

The one where you forgot to get a pic of the placard -- Brough Superior.

The multi-cylindered 2-stroke -- a made-up Kawasaki 6-cyl (2 triples together); parked next to a Munch Mammut....!

 
You Bay County Boys always have rain followin' ya around. B)

As always though, excellent pics. My son was "torqued' at the motion shots. :good:

 
As with the other posters....I really enjoyed your humor, titles and pictures.

The Geico lady could almost convince me to try them again. Almost. Maybe. Probably not but....she made my eyes smile! [SIZE=8pt]Then again....leggy blonde....my terminal weakness![/SIZE]

 
Thanx for the pix.The bikes in the museum you had questions about:

The one where you forgot to get a pic of the placard -- Brough Superior.

The multi-cylindered 2-stroke -- a made-up Kawasaki 6-cyl (2 triples together); parked next to a Munch Mammut....!
I keep looking at that bike in the warehouse, and I keep seeing room for only 5 of those cylinders. I wish I'd actually noticed that when I was there, and I'd have shot it from a little bit to either side.

Here's the Kawasaki triple, also from the museum:



Anyway, measure the space between the two adjacent wires you can see on the warehouse bike, and move that space across to the other one you can see. There's only room for two wires hidden behind the forks.

For the Munch, I found this on bikepics: what a beast!! And look about halfway down this page for some technical specs.

bikepics-1290306-full.jpg


 
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Wow, very cool. Thanks for posting. Excellent narrative and fotos...

oh, and, ummm, Geico... me likie Cowgirls.. :rolleyes:

 
I keep looking at that bike in the warehouse, and I keep seeing room for only 5 of those cylinders. I wish I'd actually noticed that when I was there, and I'd have shot it from a little bit to either side.Anyway, measure the space between the two adjacent wires you can see on the warehouse bike, and move that space across to the other one you can see. There's only room for two wires hidden behind the forks.
Could be..., 5 cylinders would add a little to the difficulty (but, hey, that's what it's all about).

For the Munch, I found this on bikepics: what a beast!! And look about halfway down this page for some technical specs.
Friedel Munch was ahead of his time.... :)

 
Was there a sign denoting the signficance of this item in the museum?If not..., would you care to know...?
No sign, so say on.
Okay, it goes something like this (old memory):

Back in WWII the Coventry-Climax company got orders from the govt. to provide an engine for use in a portable fire-pump to be used aboard Her Majesty's Navy ships. The result was the "Handy Billy" -- as seen in your photos.

Next on the scene was Colin Chapman; engineer, inventor, and builder of Lotus Cars. Looking for a light, somewhat high performance engine for one of his first cars, the Lotus Elite; he found these war surplus fire-pumps with aluminum, OHC, engines (perfect match).

And finally, enter George Barber -- enthusiast, collector, etc. As a motorcycle fan, his car interests appear more limited -- but, he has one brand he really likes -- Lotus. A lot of engineering purity -- light weight, form follows function, dedication to performance.

The "Handy Billy" is part of that.....

Thanks again for all the pics.

 
The Kwackasaki is a 5-cyl, made by the same guy that made the air-cooled V8 from two 750 (IIRC) I-4s that was parked upstairs. I've seen the 5-smoker puttering around the facility a few times, but I've never seen the V8 running. I wouldn't be even slightly surprised to learn that the V8 doesn't run well; I doubt it could get adequate cooling and I think it might have "master/slave" con rods like a radial engine. I can't find most of my museum pics ATM. You'll have to suffer with no V8.

Another Munch

DSC00757_Medium.jpg


Damn, that thing's ugly. Here's a CB400 Four to take some of the pain out of your eyes :)

DSC00758_Medium.jpg


 
Something you may not be able to see in the pic of the basement warehouse: '08 and/or '09 CBR1000RR and Hayabusas fresh from the showroom. I just have to wonder, exactly how much restoration do bikes off the showroom need before they're museum-worthy? :)

 
Walter, I found this looking through some older pics, I took it in '05 or '06 in the basement near where all the cage engines were. They have almost as many unfinished models as you do! :)

DSC00779.JPG


 
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