The Hondapotamus Cometh! Gatorback 2012

Its been a while since I posted anything, funny how life can take up so much time. So its time to get some stuff up or I'm gonna fall even further behind. We're now a couple races into the 2012 season, so I'll get back to the old timey tales later, for now I'm gonna get some of the recent stuff outta the way. Earlier this year (March 9th, in fact) was the first race, our "home" event at Gatorback cycle park outside of Gainesville.  For us this is always a good way to start. Its close to home, its a friendly course, and it usually attracts a good collection of friends. This year was no different, the course was much as in previous years, a good balance of fast dirt sections, scrabbly bits, and some not too tight woods. Along with the usual bunch of riders we always like seeing at these events, we were also graced with the presence of some of the Carolina boys. Making the trip were Alex (he of many BSA singles), Hippy Jim on the Field Pig, and for the first time, Eric, who showed up with the Hondapotamus: a ginormous Honda CB450 that weighed just over 856 pounds.

Max was on his Tr5t, of course

And I was on the Mongrel 20, fresh off its latest round of off-season fixes and possibly needless "improvements". I overfilled my oil tank and it was oozing slippery stuff out the filler cap, which oddly seemed to alarm some bystanders...guess they hadn't seen my bike before. This led to a particularly long conversation with the gent below where I had to explain each leak and why I wasn't concerned

The sighting lap was pretty straightforward, so without much fuss it was time to line up for the start. Max was, as usual, on the line ahead with the faster kids

My line had the rest of our bunch

Pretty much everyone is visible in the next pic

Alex, 652, on the left, Eric and me behind the bucking 11A, with Jim on the far right on 57c. Special notice must be made of Tre (future of Ahrma) Allison, 33A...in pink, because he is soon to figure rather prominently in our little narrative.
As usual, I got a crap start. My bike occasionally needs 2 kicks to get things whirring, which is a Bad Thing because you can't hear its gentle blub, blub, blubbing over the ungodly racket the two strokes make at a start, which usually means you put the bike in gear to go before you realize there is no combustion occurring. Oddly, the same thing happened to Max at his start.

Eric was off like a smallish dude on a large, porcine rocket, his nemesis Tre the Pink Destroyer in tow

Eventually followed by me and Alex

Though we oddly caught up to Eric and Tre fairly soon,


Which was the aftermath of this little gem, caught on Tre's helmetcam

Listen close and you'll hear the sound of Eric's "ooofff!" as he gets Hodaka'd. He did get a bit of revenge on the murderous little two stroke, snapping Tre's shift lever (prolly with his helmet) leaving him to finish the race stuck in first gear.
Max was happily bombing along, he seemed to be having a slight carb issue, but nothing bad enough to make him stop

He would later discover that the jet holder had managed to unscrew itself in a bid for freedom, but was restrained from doing so by the float bowl.
Alex and I settled into a fairly gentlemanly scrap over the next few laps, as smaller nimble BSA-ness was pitted against Raw AMC Twin Power!

However, Alex's bike was geared too high for a longer CC course, which meant much revving and the onset of Hot Sulky Single-itis which caused him to drop back. Happily, he and the bike made it through the race despite finishing with a case of Sweaty BSA Face.

The AJS was finally really settling down to a happy groove. It kept steadily ploughing along and finally had a race where it was my shortcomings as a rider that kept holding up progress...which is great! I'm not sure why, but I have no issue with me being a crummy rider but a real issue with my bike being crummy.

In the end, I think everyone had a good day. Jim, for his first time out, didn't try to push his luck with himself and his bike (which he is still in the developing-relationship-with stage) and bagged it after a lap. Max was a bit concerned about his bike, he wouldn't find the carb problem until he got home, but was nonetheless happy as hell to be racing again after a long winter's nap. Eric, broken brake lever a-floppin' even managed to to keep moving, and pretty darned quickly at that.

Alex, despite his bike puking 6754 pints of oil throughout the formerly pristine Florida woods, not only survived, but managed to be re-oiled for the next day's MX (where he was joined by Indiana folk Rich and his Dad and Sean), which suited the little C-15's gearing much better. Then it was back to St. Augustine for beer, and beer.
All in all, a good weekend.