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| Article | AMRA 2006 Finals 11/1/2006
Some of you have followed my stories of campaigning my 1973 FLH Shovel Head Dresser in the Street Dresser class of American Motorcycle Racing Association (AMRA). This class is for the touring class of motorcycles with hard bags but with the windshield and mirrors removed. The head light must be taped. Tire restrictions are street DOT legal 140 or MU width only. Class racing is heads up from a pro tree. Meaning, when you roll up to the staging area two beams of light, one on the front edge and the other on the rear edge of your front tire, light up the two small lights on top of the starting light tree. You will then have .400 of a second to leave or be left behind.
The finals were held in Bowling Green, KY at Beech Bend Raceway, September 23-24. The weather was not kind to us. The rain moved in Saturday and that meant that we racers would only get one chance at qualifying to see who would be matched with whom for the first round of eliminations. This left little to no time for adjustments.
Saturday we managed to have fun with our mobile Dynamometer trailer. We started dyno-ing race bikes that wanted to check their set up for temperature, humidity and feet above sea level, which was 2250 feet. We even tested our competitors’ bikes and helped with their set up also. These are the people I will have to run against Sunday and try to survive against to make it to the final round. We changed out some clutches, modified and jetted some carburetors, made some fuel changes to find optimum efficiency levels and before we knew it, the day was almost gone. The next thing I know I see my competitors dragging out grills and food and the Dresser class cookout began! We had good food and fellowship and a lot of fun.
When Sunday came, the track was in rough shape from all the rain. Water had soaked into the track and under the rubber coat in places, making it very slick. We ran some test and tune passes and finally our one qualifying pass. The race was on! In the first round I met Terry Upleger form Washington, MI. Terry is riding an S&S 113 CID Evo which is very strong, but I managed to get ahead for the first round win but it cost me. My bike is 33 years old and this leads to metal fatigue and that run opened up a small crack by the right side spark plug hole insert. The call for round two of eliminations came quick and it was time to show up or forfeit. The second round matched me against the 2005 #1 plate holder, Joe Louis Torres of Peotone, IL and his Electronic Fuel Injected Twin Cam. I’m thinking to myself all you can do is, do all you can. This was another good race that took its toll on my old Shovel Head, which we managed to win. The crack in the front head really opened up this time, now the bike would not idle without dying. Back at the pit area we looked at each other trying to think of some quick way to patch this thing. A racer from across the street offered us some two part epoxy which we graciously accepted. We began slathering this mix into the crack. At this point we came up with another idea of taking a long slender punch and swedged both ends together around the glue. We caught a break and someone had scattered oil down the track shutting it down for a cleanup and this bought us some time. The third and final call came and we pushed our wounded soldier to the line. We light the bike hoping it would hold. The sun had set under the tree line, the track was cooling down and we knew this was do or die time. I rolled to the water box and cooked the tire because this would be the only heat for traction.
The AMRA National Finals came down to Danny Arnold of Robertsville, MO on his EFI Twin Cam and me on my 1973 Shovel Head. I rolled in and staged the light and my reaction off the line was .220 to Danny’s .313 second. The 60 foot line for me was 1.734 to Danny’s 1.789. The 330 foot mark for me was 4.797 seconds to Danny’s 4.854. At the 1/8 mile my elapsed time (ET) was 7.416 to Danny’s 7.431. At the 1000 foot mark I shift into 4th gear with a large pop and this is where the glue and crack blew open again. I’m thinking to myself that I have all winter to fix the carnage that is occurring under me so I don’t let off and I squeeze out all that is left in the old bike. I cross the finish line with an 11.717 ET to Danny’s 11.662. This is .055 or ½ of one tenth of a second quicker. To get the total race time you have to add the reaction time off of the line to the ET, so my total race time was 11.937 seconds and Danny’s was 11.975 seconds. A difference of only .038! Yes folks, the old Shovel Head won the finals! Danny and I got to the time slip booth not knowing who won because in the dim twilight it is a little hard to see three-hundredths of a second. In true sportsmanship, Danny stuck out his hand and told me congratulations, so I hugged him. On a field of honor doing battle with people from different places, with different backgrounds, with different equipment and different tuning theories coming together for a common goal you would be amazed how close you can get. Now I have new found friends from all over the USA and we are brothers of the sickness. We are afflicted with the need for speed. See you next year, Brothers!
Good Riding and God Bless!
Steve Caldwell - steve@precisionvtwins.com
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