The Bikes and Riders: Part 2, Mr. Big Max

For your edification I present the second in my occasional series on who we are, this time focusing on the youngest and most energetic Swamp Donkey, Max. And here's the man now, standing next to his latest project, an air head BMW he plans to use for longer distance motorcycling

Though he's clearly a Thinking Man's Max, he's not usually one to just sit around, being possessed of more energy than I recall having at his age.

Though primarily a Triumph guy, regularly doing battle with models old and very old, he's also got a smattering of Hondas and the aforementioned BMW.

Way back in the mists of time, the time at the start of this blog, Max began his vintage Cross Country journey on an enormous 650 Tr6, dubbed Smokey Bacon, which you may recall.

He had many ups and down with that bike. Ups, like winning his class in 2009, and downs, like what he did to the engine at Durhamtown, also in 2009:

In the end, Ol' Smokey Bacon finally screamed "enough!" at Barber that year, where Max borrowed George's Tr5t and was well and truly smitten

Through the North Carolina boys, one was acquired, though Max had to sell his Rickman Zundapp to pay for it.

It was kinda crusty, having obviously sat for decades, but really wasn't in horrible shape. Even the rear frame loop that had been cut off was still with the bike. So, fueled by beer and the crack of George's whip, it was soon torn down

The pistons were stuck solid in the bores, but otherwise, there weren't really any horrors lurking inside. Soon, a flurry of shiny new parts began arriving

 And the rolling chassis, freshly spruced up with paint and more new bits, was soon ready to receive its fresh powerplant

 And in pretty short order the little Tr5t was serving Max well in its first race

Since then its been pounding along pretty happily for a couple years now, its only real problems have been funky electrical glitches mainly caused by it starting with a complete, stock, road going loom with lights, switches and everything. That and the time it's rear wheel tried to grind through the swingarm

Not that there hasn't been some drama in its life. A couple years ago, it was stolen out of Max's bike room. Poor Max was despondent for days, until he got a call from the police that his bike was recovered. Sadly, it wasn't just found, oh no. It was "recovered" after it rammed the back of a parked van as the finale of a short police chase. First impressions were not good

Amazingly, despite the front end being trashed, the rest of the bike was surprisingly undamaged and once again, in fairly short order, was back out pounding around the woods. These days its a story of incremental improvements, tweaking carburetion, suspension and gearing to suit Max's evolving riding and installing a Morgo rotary pump to improve lubrication and cooling while eliminating the horrid plungers and ball checks of the stock pump.

Its a happy bike, which makes Max a happy rider, which is good because now in their third season together they're almost like an old married couple, grousing at each other and complaining about their aches and pains. But there's real love there, Max worries about scratching the paint when loading the bike even though he's gonna go beat the heck out of it in the woods. And the bike responds by always getting him to the finish, even when parts come loose from the abuse it receives. But that's just fitting; after all, they do make a great couple.

West Virginia (sorta) and Another ISDT

So, my bike was blown up. Really truly broken. And I had 4 weeks to fix it. Our points standings for the season were looking pretty tight if we were gonna each win our classes. Max in particular was in a real close fight with Dave Lamberth (Ahrma head honcho) which was looking to go down to the wire and be decided by a couple points either way. I was more comfortable, but my main competitor in the points was seriously good guy Keith "Skipper" Voss who was seriously quicker than me on a 100cc Hodaka. The math meant Max had no choice but to make the next race, and I'll be honest, I was pretty sure if I was gonna win I was gonna do it by attendance. So with a wrecked engine and four weeks I set to work to try and make Mountainfest in West Virginia. Almost the minute I got home the engine was pulled and torn down. Everything was trash, from big ends to timing side bush to (sigh) crank the entire bottom end would need replacing. With mighty help from Jay and John French's Part Department a useable crank was acquired. To get as much time as possible, as well as being able to fit the race in, we left at the last minute. With Max watching, the finishing touches were done at 5pm on Thursday afternoon, the bike was ridden up and down the street, and it was loaded in the van. We were on the road for our overnight drive by 6pm the same afternoon, arrived at 10am next morning, and racing 2 hours after that.
Sadly, I don't have a single picture of this race. Not one. It was a good race, a shorter lap laid out by Chicago Jerry. Amazingly, my bike survived and ran a good, solid race bringing home the points from a much needed first. Max was running solid second in his class until his headlight/kill switch came apart shorting his bike costing him nearly 3 minutes to fix and dropping him to third. Even so, he still got critical points and the math was looking much better for his season.
Racing over we immediately loaded up and headed back to Florida. In all, the trip was less than 48 hours. It was the most excruciatingly exhausting trip we've ever done.
We had a leisurely month and a half till our next race, an ISDT in West Point Tennessee. All three of the Florida boys would be in attendance for this one. The first day started clear and sunny as we pulled our bikes out of impound and lined up for the start.

I really hadn't run my bike at all since WV, but had removed my timing cover to put in an oil seal and it was ackin' da' fool. I thought I had screwed up the timing, but it seemed fine when checked. Since I only had a short time to play with it before it went to impound, my plan was to start and go the required minimum distance then head back to camp and recheck everything. Going the required distance was enough. Apparently there was some gunk in the carb and it cleared out pretty quick, so it was on with the race. There was nothing too nasty over the two days, just a lot of ping-ponging through trees that required a lot of energy and focus, which meant I was very tired and hit a bunch of trees.

But it was pretty straight forward and the day went quick. Voss was beating me to death, but that was no real surprise so I finished the day in second with a silver. Max was running unopposed in expert, so finished the day with a gold and more much needed points.

George had clutch problems, with slippage bad enough to make it difficult to start. The twisting through the trees only made matters worse and when he didn't show up at a break we hoped he wasn't stuck on the course unable to restart. Luckily, he had made it back to camp and when we rolled back in he was preparing to go to work on the steels with a rock and rusty file, which seemed to do the trick.
Day two was more of the same, except that Voss must have taken pity on me and decided to get lost on a timed section, earning a pretty hefty penalty. We all made it back safe and sound, finishing with the traditional grasstrack race for the last special test.

 

That's Voss, #119. He clearly ran wide because the sight of a bike that doesn't stop and can't turn coming right at him scared him off the tight line, which meant I got the hole shot and held the lead for approximately 3 seconds until he flew past me...followed by Max....then pretty much everyone else.

Max got another gold and some good points, Voss' penalty cost him enough that I got my first Gold and ISDT 1st, with him and George close enough behind they both got silver. We finished out the weekend with an incredibly refreshing wash and sit in the nearby creek and it was back in the van to sunny ol' Florida.