| The Vintage Dirt Racing (VDR) season got started
once again at Wards Creek in Raymond, Washington. The threat
of rain kept some riders home but we still ended up with 125
+ racers and 17 motos. The track was laid out on the back
side of the modern motocross track with the VDR crowd only
using a slight portion of that track with a majority being
on a large grass section. |
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| We got to the track on Saturday night and quickly set up
our massive tent so we could beat the rain. We put the Eazy-ups
together and set in for a relaxing night. Soon after we heard
the sound of rain on our tent. What do you expect when you
are in Washington? |
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After a quick glance at the track and signing up for only
one race, I had an 8 hour drive home, we pulled the bikes
out of the trailer and got ready. This was going to be my
first race on the Redline XL350, so I was excited. I signed
up for the Four Stroke Vintage Intermediate, but once the
moto order was posted I changed to +30 Vintage intermediate,
from race 15 to race 7, so I could get out of there sooner. |
Time to kick her over. For the last few years I've
been racing either a
'72 250 Husky or a '73 450 Husky so the starting routine is a
little different. I gave the kicker a few easy pushes and found
TDC and gave it one push thru and she fired right up. A good sign,
but the weather was a different story.
I lined up for practice and gave the XL a nice warm up lap. Second
lap I opened her up a little and she responded like I hoped. I
had taken it out to a previous race but only ran it in practice
since I had older tires and it just wouldn't 'bite' when I wicked
the throttle. The new Dunlop 756's did the trick, but boy did
I have grass all over that bike. A quick clean up and I was ready
to wait for my moto.
With the rain starting just after practice the organizers thought
it best to run the grass portion only since the modern part was
red clay, big up & down hills and just plain slick! To make
up for the cut portion we added extra laps. In my race I was gated
with +30 Vintage Intermediate, +40 Vintage Intermediate, +30 Vintage
Expert and +40 Vintage Expert, the cream of the crop of our racers,
15 to be exact. Oh, we were using a rubber band start. The first
moto I get a good start, 4th into the first turn and end up first
in my class. The second moto is basically a repeat of the first
but I start to figure out 'how' to ride the 4-stroke. I notice
my lines are much different than the 2-strokes in my class, more
rounded than squared.
The flat grass turns were a blast on the big 4-stroke.
Usually I have a bunch of photos but with the rain I was very
limited in my ability to get photos, I didn't want to ruin the
camera. We have 2 web sites that post our pictures so feel free
to check them out. The first is the official page of VDR at http://www.siegecraftnw.com/VDR.htm
and the other is my club Gas-it-N-Go Racers at http://www.gas-it-n-go.com/page/page/12845.htm
Hopefully I'll have another report soon since up here in the Pacific
Northwest we race a winter series, VDR and we race AHRMA during
the summer months. As long as it's not snowing, I'm racing!
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