unadilla over the top

[chicagojerry]

wow. what a weekend. quite a few penton guys there. the track is the best. unbelievable. i got there thurs about 10am and ended up putting together the CC course along with paul/art busick and zahn lewis.  the track owners jill and greg robinson are a pleasure to deal with. many many legendary racers there. guy cooper put on another riding clinic albeit on a bultaco or a big post-vintage rm 500. big crowds there too, both riders and spectators. i was glad to be a part of it.    chi jer

[Dale Fisher]

Guy seems to have been a featured favorite.  Going for an itch or the mid-jump tear off [?]



Dale Fisher
POG Memberships
74 Berkshire 100
70 Six-Days 125
73 Jackpiner 175

[Lew Mayer]

Guy put on quite a show. Impressive to watch him dominate that track.

Lew Mayer

[brian kirby]

Helmet cam of both motos of Sportsman 100. I didnt get much of either moto of my other class, Classic 125, because we were grouped with bigger bikes and the camera got covered with mud on the start.

https://vimeo.com/album/1964267

Brian

[Ron]

Great riding Brian!
Did you win the first moto? You rode like you were possesed after that Kawi passed you on the uphill slip.
Did a pretty fine job of shifting too, I'm impressed.
Thanks for the videos!
Ron

[tooclose racing]

Sorry for my silence - a way too busy week after a fun-filled weekend.  What an event! First - hats off to Jerry and the the Unadilla team for the Friday XC race course and races.  HUGE kudo for making a course change after the warm-up lap and doing a small re-route around a short, tricky hill climb - that really made it possible for everyone to complete laps. Otherwise, that section would have been an awful bottleneck.  I ran the morning vintage race on the Six Day and and the afternoon PV on the MC5 and it looked like there were 100+ starters for both races.  Brian K was a front row guy that I never saw in either race (did you catch me in the PV?), but I got some quality trail time with Lew and a few others.  Unfortunately, a very crisp Six Day went off-song/rich/or something on its low end at end of warm up lap (very wierd, not sure what happened yet) and it took me 30 seconds to start the bike after the flag dropped.  Gawd - I should have gone ahead and signed autographs....I caught everyone on my lap and in Sportsman 200 Int with the exception of a Can-Am and a Yamaha that were simply running laps one minute faster than me (the leader was running sub 12 minute laps).  No excuses, no crashes, but I just expended too much effort riding "around" my engine condition. For comparison - our official fast guy Brian Kirby was also running sub 12 minute-ish laps on his Berkshire. FAST MAN!  But not faster than a very large guy named Gary Jones, who beat him in overall time by about a minute!   PV Historic Open was a THREE kick start on the MC5 (we were on fifth row for some reason), so I was passing a lot of guys for a lot of laps, but kept showing up 2nd at the barrels in my class.  Turns out there was a Tennessee kid on an Ossa 250 out of Nashville that - in the end - finished about 1 minute + in front of me.  

I took the day off on Saturday, at least partly to save money after paying full class fees for both XC races on Friday (Jerry knows that I looked him in the eye and said "Really?" when I signed up) and because I was too tired to take the 125 apart and figure out what was going on.  And...so I could start drinking beer at like 10 AM! But it was just FANTASTIC stuff to watch. It's Unadilla for chrissakes. The crowd was biggest on Saturday for Vintage and I think the sign-up may have been larger too.  Guy Cooper was amazing, nobody had anything for him, not even Stanton in their Pro race.  Brian K wrung out his Berkshire on that larger than life course and gave them hell in his classes.

Sunday my game face was back on for PV (Historic 250 Int and PV 50+ Int) and my body had been healed enough with my Saturday alcohol IV so that I could race again.  In Race 4 (50+), I launched 2nd into the first turn with 23 other racers in the same class.  Yee-hah! It was all ahead backwards from there, but I still managed a 6th after getting passed at the line (dammit).  Then it happened - bike wouldn't start for Race 7 (Hist 250) on the line.  Nothing. And I quickly realized no spark.  I waved goodbye as that race took off. Went back to pits - wiggled/loosened-retightened kill switch and wire, possibly found lower wire (female) backed off coil male stab and pushed that back on..and she ran.  Sheesh!  Great start again in the huge PV 50+ class but definitely everyone had grown bigger, uh, somethings and I had a crowd of three or four racers with me into 2nd and 3rd turns.  I hold my own in 4th or 5th until 3rd lap when bike suddenly stops before Gravity cavity descent.  I jump off, wiggle wires, she starts -but a trophy is long gone after a minute beside the track.  No time to rest and it's back at it for Race 7 where I finally get a bad start which is still good for Top 5 into the 1st turn.  Damn this MC5 is fast.  The bike runs fine, but I just can't gain any ground on this crowd after a lot of first lap elbowing and jostling and crashing by others and I finish 7th out of 20 guys.  

So no wood for Sunday. THANK YOU again to Dennis Foley for loaning me his back-up coil - it performed admirably.  Now - I want to mention that I was NOT the fastest Penton in my races with the 250.  Mr. Don Galloway from Edmunton, Alberta (how about THAT!) and Matt Francisco from Hollings Patent NY took 2nd and 3rd overall in Historic 250 Int and in PV 50+ Int, let us all bow slowly towards Mr. Jim Skok from Amherst OH who went 1-1 on his West Coast (red tank) KTM MC5. Yes, Pentons are built for champions.  Just maybe not me...

End of update!

[dennis foley]

you guys need to start planning for next year, it is a three year deal.the dates wont be out till fall. the folks at unadilla enjoyed it as much as all of us did. it was one of the best nationals i have attended.

[jeff greenberg]

Brian, nice vid and race!!  Bike sounded sweet. Looked like they routed you guys around the famous "screw you" part. I remember that from when I raced there. It was gnarly when wet. Track looked great too. Wish I could race it again someday.
Jeff

[brian kirby]

Yeah, we didnt go down/up Screw U. I was disappointed at first, but then when I walked the track I realized even if it was dry I'd never get up it on my 100, it is MUCH steeper than it looks on TV and YouTube videos.

Brian

[paul a. busick]

Unadilla is a fantastic piece of Moto history!  No photos or helmet cam can catch the true topography of the course.  In photos the Gravity Cavity looks like an easy grade down hiller.  But when your on your bike, it feels and looks like you just launched off a cliff to oblivion.  The up hills are the same only in reverse.  I had to boot the 175 PE into first gear to get over the tops of the up hills. Was it fun? You BET it was!  This may be the only time I ever get to ride it. But at least I can say I RODE it!                                                                
Amherst Paul

[Gordon Brennan]

Brian Kirby, What were you riding in the helmet cam videos above; moto 1 and 2?

[brian kirby]

I was riding my '72 Berkshire.

[Gordon Brennan]

Thanks, And thanks for posting the videos. I really enjoyed those.
The bike looks and runs great.

[brian kirby]

Paul is right, the videos and pictures do not show how steep those hills are. The hill right before the finish line table top jump I was in 2nd, the Berkie would not pull 3rd. I do MX starts in 2nd and 1st is only for bailouts in Cross Country races so I never use 1st in MX. I almost didnt ride the second motos because the bike was bogging like it was either seizing or running out of fuel at the top of those hills. Once it dried a bit in the second motos it was better without the heavy mud, but I still had to ride the bike harder than I really wanted to just to make it up some of those hills.

Brian

[brian kirby]

Some pics from Unadilla, I will be uploading almost 2000 pics tomorrow.

Start of moto 1 in the mud



Here is my version of the "tear off" pic, but I am on the ground, not in the air like Cooper.



The start straight, slingin' mud.



Jumping down into Gravity Cavity.



Jumping out of Gravity Cavity.





Brian