Dirt Quake US 2014

Back in Sacramento..."Freeway Lagged"...still on a DirtQuake US high...decided to take off the rest of the week and catch up with life back home. So, a little blogpost....as I digest the events of the past week. To sum it up in a few word's ...it was a blast! Even though I didn't race my bike (more about that later).it was a good road trip. My partner in this adventure was Rick Willis, recently retired Plumber/welder in the school district maintenance department I'm still currently employed in. I dubbed him "crewchief" for the weekend.

Rick...in the blue shirt, with swiss army knife connected to a lanyard so as to always be handy....and another Rick. Rick Burchett, is a local racer we met at the local "four corners" food, gas and ammo stop.

We left Sacramento with a barely running Honda SL 100....that still had a laundry list of jobs to do... After telling us how to get to the race track....Castlerock....he drove down and fetched us back to his house where he kindly loaned us space, tools, a compressed air line. Here the two Ricks are setting up an on/off switch for the ignition

Between moments assisting us, he was taking his bike out on his front yard 'track' and testing out his gearing. Here he's just got off the phone with Sammy Halbert the GNC racer asking for advice on gearing for the track at Castlerock. He and Sammy's father are old friends. This is the bike he raced in Saturdays pro races.

Rick is looking for a grinding wheel to put on my battery operated grinder so as to shorten the new drive chain. The old one was as stiff as a stiff thing... and would have made a good club...

An out of sequence shot...but you can see how this bike had acquired a lovely patina sitting around in various back yards before I acquired it. It had last run in '92...

So the three of us got the hard as a rock Dunlop K70 removed to be replaced with a fresh trials tire. The front tire looked ok and even held air....so decided to leave it alone and not replace the tube. Since I had got it running, really didn't have a chance to ride it much . The tank still had some rust flakes in it, so added an in line fuel filter. The clutch would not disengage properly (the plates were stuck together)....so hoping it would loosen up with some use....proceeded to tear up some grass on our new friend's front yard....with his permission....he had already established a line with his real race bike. Tried bumping the front wheel against a tree and revving it up....it tried to climb the tree! Tried it again with the front brake locked up....it dug a trench in his yard....so after a few more laps around his 'track' which seemed to loosen up the rings....it was barely smoking now... the new oil probably helped too....we thanked our new friend and loaded up to go look for a motel, since camping wasn't supposed to start till Saturday at the track. 

Another bike Rick is getting together...

So ...next time...more on the adventures of two Californian's...looking for Castlerock Washington...