Budd's Creek was the first race of the VMX Mid-Atlantic vintage MX racing season for 2000. The track is located in southeastern Maryland, a one hour's drive from Washington, DC, on the the north shore of the Potomac River.

This is the second time I have traveled the seven and one-half hours from my residence to the track, and I was looking forward to a fun day of racing and comradery with my vintage MX friends.

It was perfect weather, a high in the 60's, and no rain. The course was unchanged from my previous outing, and I had great hopes for two wins in the 50+ age group and also the Premier Lightweight classes, but it was not to be.

Two days before, I went to start my CL72, just to make any last minute adjustments. The kick start lever pushed through to the bottom, and stopped. "What now", I pulled the right side engine cover and found that the kick starter "knuckle" was rotating on the internal kick starter shaft. The knuckle is internally splined and slips over the shaft, the knuckle splines were worn. I replace the knuckle with a spare, same thing, it to was worn and the kick starter wasn't turning the crank. After a bunch more fiddling, I did the "racer's thing", applied a liberal dose of JB Weld to the kick starter shaft, mounted the side cover, and decided to take the bike anyway.

Race day, Saturday morning, Susie and I were at the track on-time, "wow". I off loaded the CL72 prior to sign-in, no point in paying the bucks for a class with no bike to ride. Pushing on the kick starter, holding my breath, "nope" the fix didn't work, the kick starter lever went down but didn't return. 

Oh well, I'll just race the 50+ class on my Redline/XL, do a bunch of socializing, enjoy Susie's company,

Now the Redline/XL had ran fine just the Saturday before, at Daniel's Ridge open practice. I paid my race registration, suited up and went to start the bike. It started fine, chugging away, let it warm-up fully, snicked it into first, brap-brap, it was backfiring off of idle. Once again, "now what". The bike had been real sensitive to jetting, and I'd come from an elevation of 2000' to sea level, so I went through the routine of moving the clip up and down on the jet needle, and also adjusting the pilot jet air screw -- no good. Then I tried advancing, and then retarding the timing -- no good. After half-an-hour, someone mentioned, "have you read the plug?". I took'er out, sooty, replace it with new, vroom, vroom; sounds like a bored and stroked, megaphone equipped XL should sound.

Practice was just that -- practice. I learned years ago, having fallen at Talladega GP while trying to "win" a road racing practice session, just to learn the track, pick my lines, memorize the braking points. The one aspect of the track I did notice was how muddy and rutty were the corners. Two reasons, the promoter was running vintage, Evolution, and modern day bike classes on the same day. I've argued against this for years, the Evo and new bikes MAKE (well, maybe enhance) THE RUTS, and I mean deep, nasty, bike grabbing ruts. Were this not bad enough, but the track owner, yielding to the complaints by the local neighbors of a dust problem, was irrigating the track like an Iowa corn farmer. In ground sprinklers watered the corners and the hills, the water puddled in the corners, which were already soft dirt  because he had mixed-in tons of sawdust, trying to abate the dust problem.

But, I can ride the ruts, heck, I've been racing for over 30 years, railed many a berm -- but not today, and not on this bike. Seems now such a stupid thing to do, put a quarter turn, Gunner Gasser, two stroke throttle on a big-bore four stroke. In fact, it made the bike nearly unrideable in the corners. Just a tad of throttle and the front end would get light, the rear tire would break traction, no berm riding today, the bike was jumping like a pogo stick out of one rut and over into the next. But, straight up and down, holeshots at the starts, the bike was a jet. A new half turn throttle goes on as soon as I can find a suitable model.

Anyway, I putted around the track, only falling in a rut one time, came in 2nd in the 50+ class accumulating some points towards the VMX 50+ championship. My congrats to the gent on the Elsie who finished 1st, just remember, I got the holeshots, twice.

Three other pictures, interesting bikes, and one of my North Carolina friends are shown below.

Rick

	Tom Boyd, Mooresville, NC, riding a Bul and a Rickman.
Tom France, American Classic Racing, on his Honda CB750 vintage MX bike.
	Neal Siegel's Aermacchi HD Sprint MX bike, runs in AHRMA's Premier Lightweight class.