CL450 Racer - Mt. Washington Auto Road - Memorial Day 2016

This past Memorial Day Weekend, my friends and I traveled to New Hampshire to ride our motorcycles up Mt. Washington. Bags were packed and bikes were started....except for me, who opted to wuss out, transport the bike in the bed of my pickup truck, and unload it at the motel.

(Despite the jokes, my buddies had no problem filling the rest of the available space with their extra luggage and tools :-P )

We arrived at a motel in North Conway on Saturday night, and hit the Auto Road on Sunday. Afterwards, we explored the back roads and ate ourselves into comas back in town.

(All photos courtesy of Maggie Rusch)

Loring Spring 2015 - Road Trip To The Race (Video Post)

The full video of the road trip to Loring Spring 2015.

Loring Spring 2015 - Video of the Fastest Pass

Here is the video of the fastest pass on the CL450/CB500T Frankenstein. Full speed was 94.08mph. This set the new record in the class.

Loring Spring 2015 - Tales From The Road - Part 2

It rained and snowed most of the night, but by Saturday morning the track had begun to dry out. We arrived around 9am to set up camp and get some last-minute tuning done. There was a small turnout, but still enough for an interesting day of racing!

I installed the velocity stacks and megaphone pipes, and ran some test passes on the backup track. Most of the carb tuning was fine, but I did have to increase the main jets from 100's to 120's. Once the track had dried off completely, the race officials opened it up for runs. 

Unfortunately, the weather didn't completely cooperate, and there was a stiff headwind all weekend. The first pass went poorly. I am not used to wearing the race boots, so I missed a shift. The next pass was spot-on, but the bike maxed out at 7500 rpm in top gear. We were shooting for 100+ mph, but the best the bike would manage was 94. Still, that was enough to beat the previous record, and I'm satisfied with the results.

Base Camp

Final Prep

Saab 93 Racer

Former Stock Car

Resurrected from a field, and running a Straight 6 truck engine

Datsun Racer

Setup at the start line. 

Fox Body racer

The most impressive cockpit instrumentation of the entire weekend.

500cc BSA Partial Streamliner

Newer former stock car

Loring Spring 2015 - Tales From The Road - Part 1

I'm happy to say that, after a nearly 2 year hiatus, we're finally getting back to Loring for a Land Speed Event. After work on Thursday, I picked up Justin at the Port Jeff train station, caught a ferry to Bridgeport, and we drove to our friends' house outside of Boston. This morning, we hit the road and drove the final 450 miles to Presque Isle. Here are some pictures from the first leg of the trip.

Bridgeport Ferry

Barbeque in Derby, CT

Welcome to Maine

And then the weather took a turn.....