Motorcycle Drag Racing Team
It would appear my witty press releases have been missed, so I thought I would just put finger to keyboard, as it were and tell you what (little) the Nitrous Junkies have been up to.
The story so far ……
Kev Charman has bought Steve Carey’s Top Fuel bike, the Purple Princess, which suffered a huge and memorable crash at last year’s Dragstalgia Event at Santa Pod in 2013. So far we have upset absolutely no one in the village, much, by firing it up on nitro, or spending a lot of time in the garage. A new chassis is going to be built, and all being well, Kev aims to be out testing towards the end of next year. He is in no rush, and wants to learn as much as he can before he takes it back to the track. Big thanks to Steve to coming up to us, and spending a day with the crew teaching us all “stuff”
Huge congrats to Steve, we went to the reception, so know it’s true….. Annette has made an honourable man of him, and they got married last Saturday !!
Jake Charman’s new Junior Bike, aptly names “The Halfabusa” is now finished and he has been testing. The chassis is 68” long, and needs to be! As Jake at 15 years old and 6’2” anything shorter would be a squeeze! He is learning to morph! The bike engine is from an RM 125cc, and, as we had to start somewhere, we carried on with the standard motocross gearing. Needless to say, although he was getting up the track, it was running out of gears, so this needs to be addressed, as does the clutch and maybe the sprocket. It was a good starting point on a brand new bike, and is happy how he and the bike performed. He is entered in the National Finals at Santa Pod on the 20th/21st September.
The fabrication, and engineering work has been done by Dave Branch, a lot of fettling by Jake, and financed by Dad (Kev)!!. The bike still needs paint, but it runs just as well without, so a new paint job will be unveiled in 2015.
Lizz (that will be me then!) has just been having some fun. So much changes so quickly, that sometimes it’s hard to keep up!
Being bike less, due to a new build, and invited to the Bulldog Bash, spoke to Richard Gipp who had a Pro Mod (somewhere) for rent. This bike has a good pedigree, owned by some pretty colourful characters, firstly Ken Cooper, and then Dave Bailey. So with work commitments, and no testing weekend available beforehand, Kev and Gippy spent a day making good a bike that hadn’t been run for about 2 years, and Kev brought it home. We then went up to Stratford a bit curious to how I would do on it, with the bigger tyre, a lighter chassis, and 10 months for me out of the saddle!!
We decided to join the run what you brung and get one run out of the way before the demo runs. So the first ever shake down run on the bike for me, was to be normally aspirated, and was not too successful. It launched, had massive wheel spin, crossed lanes, hit a timing block, and got to the top end in the wrong lane, swearing at the bike, deeming it dangerous, and deciding that last year’s successful season and the Championship win in Comp Bike, was a total fluke!
My no nonsense crew told me to stop being such a girl and get on with it. So after minor adjustments, clutch checked, aired and fuelled, we were invited to join the rest of the bikes that were doing exhibition runs. They track has just been prepped, and was sticky, the sun was out , the crowd was there, and I was dreading it!
Not a quick run but as normally aspirated again, it went through the gears, and got safely to the top end. 9.7, straight, and a bit relief for me. “That’s the nitrous on next run” Kev was heard to say, apparently! Next run burnout, back into 1st, pushed to the line, straightened up, air tag out, nitrous on, pat on the back, and on my own. Wow! Awesome, it launched, and light gear light gear light gear light gear, off the throttle…… seemed slow, like I was waiting for something to happen. It felt effortless, I was worried. Just had to wait for my tow back to tell me how I did. 7.6 @ 172mph! Yes! Very happy about that! On an known bike? ..... happy days! The crowd were cheering and I was grinning like a Cheshire cat. All the congratulations were quite over whelming.
After that run, Charlie Lester, a lovely reporter from Motorcycle News (a popular weekly newspaper here in the UK ) came to speak with us. She was especially interested in the bike and the fact a girl rode it, so a potential article is on the cards, how very, very cool. Her photographer Simon was a total gent too.
I got a feature in MCN “Under the microscope”. The interest this has generated is beyond belief, and thanks so much to Charlie for not misquoting me once !
One of the other track photographers, Dave Derry asked if he could put his GoPro on the bike for the next run. It was very exciting although a tad daunting to get all this attention, especially as I was riding someone else’s bike!! Anyway the camera went on, all maintenance done, and then the wind picked up.
By the last run it was incredibly windy. We had kindly been advised that there was a cross wind right to left at the top end of the track, so to be careful. And careful I was. I was leaning a bit towards the end. The run off isn’t particularly flat and I managed to get caught by the wind at the top end and couldn’t get myself off the bumps. But I made it in one piece, and ran a 7.7 @ 175mph!!! Here is the run in the wind !