24 hours of Nelsons Ledges

[OhioTed]

Hey folks, I need some help.  (No jokes about the obvious)  Recently, I engaged in discussion with a POG member about the fact that a Penton was actually campaigned back in the 1970's, in a 24 road race, held at Nelson Ledges, Ohio.  Unfortunately, in my state of perpetual perplexity, I cannot for the life of me recall who the gentleman was.  Could you help me out sir, and contact me?  I wish to discuss more, this unique footnote in Penton history.

[TGTech]

Ted:

   I don't remember if I mentioned our experiences at The 24 Hours of Nelson or not, but in 1975, there were actually 2 Penton's in competition at the race: Tom and Jack! Jack, Tom and I rode Jack's CB400F Honda at the event. It is quite a story.

   Some friends of ours from a Penton, Husky, Suzuki, Kawasaki shop in Avon, Ohio, had done the race a few times, and since they were also off road riders, they kept trying to convince us to give it a try. We pooh, poohed the idea, saying that we were just off roaders, and knew nothing about pavement scratching. They came back with the perspective, that if you don't fall off, you'd win. That really took us aback, because we always thought that if you fell off a road racer, you'd die, so we were really skeptical at that point. In the end, we decided to do it.

   Jack had recently purchased his new CB400F, and we added a second headlight to the machine, took off the turn signals and license plate, and away we went.

   You could have up to a 4 person team, but we only had the three of us riding, but we figured that we could handle 8 hours apiece, so that's what we planned.

   For those who don't know anything about Nelson Ledges Road Course, it's a small road racing track near Youngstown, Ohio. I think that it's about 2 miles around, but don't quote me on that. I know that my lap times were about 1:35 during the daytime.

   We knew nothing about roadracing, let alone endurance road racing, but we were game, so away we went. I think that Jack started the race, and we rode about 1 hour turns. At about 7:00 on Sunday morning, Jack was coming out of a 270 degree turn, when he saw a chain laying on the track in front of him. He had to make a split second decision to either lay the bike over further and take a chance of grounding the exhaust collector, which would lift the rear tire and mean an instant crash, or stand the bike up and go off the track into the grass, which was pretty wet from the dew. Since we were running the stock exhaust, and it didn't give us much extra room to lean over, Jack made the decision to hit the grass and hope he could keep it on the wheels. He didn't. He's scrubbed off most of he speed, and at about 20 MPH, he dropped the bike.

   Once he stopped moving, he picked up the bike, evaluated the condition, cleaned out some mud from the exhaust pipes, started the bike up again, got back on the track and rode back to the pits. The extra light had been damaged and one side of the handle bars had been bent down. We quickly removed the light, and then grabbed the handle bar, and jerked it back into position. When we did that, a crack developed so we got out the torches, and brazed the crack back up. Once everything was back in shape, Jack rode back out and got back into the race.

   After a little while, the Chief Steward came over to our pit, and asked us if we had a crash. We confirmed that we did, and he then asked us if we'd had the bike teched before it went back onto the track. We didn't know, because Jack had left the pit area and rode back out onto the track while we were still picking up after the repairs. The steward said that they didn't have any record of an inspection, so they were going to black flag us, and do an inspection.

   The black flag came out, and Jack rode into pit road for a quick inspection, and then took back to the track. Some time later, the steward came by our pit again, and told us that they had decided that given that we had a crash and that the bike had been ridden back to the pits instead of having been picked up by the "bone wagon" and brought back, that they would have to black flag us again, and do a more thorough inspection. Again, having no experience at this game, we said OK and went along with the process. During this inspection, I think that Tom took over the ride.

   After all this was over, we went back to the game, and kept racing. One point of note here. One thing that we'd learned by this time, was that endurance road racing, even from the seat, was boring by comparison to cross country events. You just keep going around and around and around.

   When the checkered flag fell at about 4:00 on Sunday, we pulled in and began to load up to get ready to go home. Of course, we went to the awards ceremony to see how we'd done, and much to our surprise, after having a crash, having to fix the bike for who knows how long, being black flagged for two inspections, we lost 1st place in our class, by 43 seconds!

   As it turns out, the guys who won, had lost an engine in the middle of the night, and they'd had to change it before they could get going again. Since they were experienced at the game, they kept track of where they were in the race, and when Jack went down, they thought here's our chance to get back into things. Since we had no idea of where we were, we just did what we had to do to get back into the race. This is speculation on my part, but we're guessing, that the black flags, were a direct result of complaints by the other team who was in second at the time, and they were responsible for us being black flagged for the inspections. Since one wasn't enough to get them back into the game, they probably convinced the tech crew, that our bike should have a more thorough inspection so there wouldn't be any safety problems.

   Anyway, we learned how the game was played and while I can't say we had fun, it was another life experience.

   Six years later, when Jack and I were running the Kawasaki enduro program on a contract with Kawasaki, we got a GPz550, to run the event again. This time, we'd have a 5 man team so the riders wouldn't get as fatigued, and we would trick out the bike a little, so it would run better. We got a really good pipe (which was louder than hell!), put bigger main jets and needles in the carburetors, and I built a pair of rear sets for the shifting an braking, so we could be in a more roadracing position on the bike. Of course, we had trick tires and did all the lighting things too. The bike would go just over 130 MPH flat out on the straight and cornered really well because of the position of the exhaust collector.

   Jack again started the race, and I took over in the second hour. About 1/2 way into my first ride, I caught a rider going into the slowest corner on the track, and I  moved out to the left, to go around him. Bad move. I hit a patch of sand in the turn, and dropped the bike. The corner was so slow, that I was on my feet and running after the bike before it had stopped moving, but because it slid to the edge of the track and stuck the wheels into the dirt and flipped it over to the other side, there was some hidden frame damage to the chassis. As the tires wore, the bike started handling worse and worse, and we had to back off the speed, just to keep from crashing again. I don't remember where we finished that year, but again, it was another experience.

   One thing that I learned from these experiences, was that I can ride faster at night than I can in the daytime, because there is no perspecive at night, except for other bikes. You can't see the trees standing straight up and realize that you are really layed over. You have to "feel" the bike and the track. At night, I got my lap times down to the high 1:20's.

   So Ted, there's the story of 2 Pentons who raced the 24 Hours of Nelson.

Dane

P.S. I ran across pictures of the bike and our trophies last week.

[firstturn]

Ted,
  Check this out for Penton Road Racing.

http://www.pentonusa.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=629&SearchTerms=road,racing

I will check the archieves I have in Keeping Track.

Ron Carbaugh

[Lew Mayer]

Cool story, Ron.

Lew Mayer

[OhioTed]

Thank you for the reference, Ron.  That is really cool.  Dane, great story!  You guys really HAVE done all the things I always wished to.  You can stop now.  All kidding aside, I am definitely recalling a Penton motorcycle competing in the Nelsons Ledges event.  It was running in the 250 class, so I presume it was a modified Hare Scrambler.  While I did observe the bike circulating the course, and also wandered through the pits and spotted a camper with Penton stickers all over it, I never saw the bike up close or made contact with the team.  Keep in mind that certain, ahem, "circumstances" relative to the era have left few other memories of that weekend intact.  However, it had to have been at either this year's Penton Day at the AMA or at the March POG meeting, that I had a conversation with someone possessing inside info on the Penton entered in that 24 hour.  I just need a little memory-jogger - can't remember who it was!

[firstturn]

Ted,
  Why don't you try a end around on this question.  Why don't you see if anyone has a Nelson Ledges Program so that you can find out first hand the name of the rider;  I was Pit Manager for a Honda entry in the 1979 30 Hours of Rockingham and I will see if anyone had a Penton entry.  Ted you are the greatest on you investigative reporting.....keep up the good work.  Great Memories.

Ron Carbaugh

[firstturn]

Ted,
  Try this web site.  You may be able to find some info on the chat forum.  Good luck.

http://www.na-motorsports.com/Tracks/Nelson.php

Ron Carbaugh

[jackpinejim]

Hello Ted, It was my son John that talked to you about a Penton being raced at Nelson Ledges. One of the crew involved was Bruce Williams from Cortland Oh. Hope this helps you some. He's a great guy with many great stories to boot. You can meet him at Vintage Days, he                 sets up next to my sons in the swap meet area in the northwest corner, closest to the showers. See you at next POG meeting!

     Jim Borer

[OhioTed]

Thank you, Mr. Borer.  Now that you've said that, I DO recall that John is the person I was thinking of.  (How we got onto the NL subject, I'll never know)  Mr. Carbaugh - great idea.  I did indeed research my li-bary, but found the oldest program in my files is from 1979.  Hey, while in that file I did run across some other neat stuff, though - like a program from the old Lexington, Ohio 125 Gran Prix, that has MUD on one of the pages!  Hoo-hah!  Mark Barnett put that mud there, you know.  Wow, whatta keeper!  Thanks to all for your help.  TED

[jackpinejim]

Hello again Ted  Please, no formalities here, the name is Jim, butI s
till apreciate your courtesy! See you at April POG meeting.



      Jim

[firstturn]

Ted....formalities are appreciated, but my Father doesn't read the POG site so Ron will do[)].  Ted you have done so much with your research and writing skills in such a short time with POG.  It is much appreciated.  Thanks.[^]

Ron Carbaugh

[OhioTed]

Thank you, fellows.  You guys are so gracious - is someone PAYING you on my behalf?  (haha)  Ron, I like the little green smiley-face guy in your reply - he kinda looks like me.  Well, after a "good" weekend, that is.  Thanks to POG, I am meeting with Mr. Williams and will attempt to properly document his unique story.  Speaking of which, because of POG, a nobody like me has been introduced to and met with, persons I never would have otherwise.  I'm still pinching myself.  Ow!  What a great organization.  Ow!  I still can't believe it.  Ow!  TED

[OhioTed]

Thank you, fellows.  You guys are so gracious - is someone PAYING you on my behalf?  (haha)  Ron, I like the little green smiley-face guy in your reply - he kinda looks like me.  Well, after a "good" weekend, that is.  Thanks to POG, I am meeting with Mr. Williams and will attempt to properly document his unique story.  Speaking of which, because of POG, a nobody like me has been introduced to and met with, persons I never would have otherwise.  I'm still pinching myself.  Ow!  What a great organization.  Ow!  I still can't believe it.  Ow!  TED