Taffy Road Racer!

i recently did some work for Uno and he asked me for a photo of my roadrace days and i couldn't find anything digital! i finished in '94 so all i could do was take three pictures of the photos i have hanging in the house.

this first one is of me at snet in may 1981 on a standard pantah which i got round in 1.25 which is 1.29 in todays money. it was resprayed by me in the original release colours of red and silver whixh i loved. needless to say, it didn't last like this for long!


in 1984 i did 35 meetings and tuned the bike some more all for the totally ridiculous cost of £2,000. you could buy a mayfair mansion for that (ok i fib a bit!) but you do get my point. the two trophies are the newmarket MCC club's F1 championshuip won on a F2 BTW!!! the photo is from spring 1985 when i had just bought the harris chassis used from steve wynn of sports motorcycle racing (he of hailwood's return fame!). the other trophy is the grantham pegasus up to 750cc 4T championship. came second to the 1988 manx senior GP winner brian raynor from sleaford so no disgrace there. i was flying that year!



this one is at gerrard's corner mallory park circa '88 or '89. i started the season with no misfire and ended it with an unrideable heap due toi the ignition system not giving a plug colour. as you can see from the photo - it's mid summer and so i had only a 'bad' misfire! the bloke with the sky blue bike way down beat me here. graeme ritchie. went on to do world superbike and was killed at brands hatch WSB in about '98.


hope you like them. ned isn't allowed to ask any questions about any of the 'other' bikes in the third photo (LOL!!!)

regards

Taffy

great pics Taffy, & what a respectible racing career!!

If you want those pictures (or an others only in print) transferring to digital properly, you can get somebody to scan them.

I'm more than happy (with "time on my hand" as it were) to do this for you if u want?

Crispin

won a few championships in the end. weird thing is, the more expensive it got the less competitive it was for me and i found it easier. was beating foggy in the our first manx which was the '85 but i had a cam lobe go soft on the last lap and had to stop.

would i change a thing/ yep! i wouldn't even have started. i'd have kept my money in my pocket and shagged more birds! lazy is good.

thanks for the offer crispin, these are BIG photos but i have 50 small ones! fancy doing them all in exchange for something for the weekend sir?

regards

Taffy

Sure no problem doing them Taffy, I'll drop you a note with my address to post them to shortly. The largest I can scan is A4.

cheers

Crispin

Re: RE: Taffy Road Racer!

Taffy said:

won a few championships in the end. weird thing is, the more expensive it got the less competitive it was for me and i found it easier. was beating foggy in the our first manx which was the '85 but i had a cam lobe go soft on the last lap and had to stop.

would i change a thing/ yep! i wouldn't even have started. i'd have kept my money in my pocket and shagged more birds! lazy is good.

thanks for the offer crispin, these are BIG photos but i have 50 small ones! fancy doing them all in exchange for something for the weekend sir?

regards

Taffy

Click to expand...

You should look at it from the positive side Taff...
Racing bikes and spending all your time and money for little long term gain may seem like a futile venture ...aka plan "A"
But its better than working two jobs to pay child support payments aka plan "B"

RE: Re: RE: Taffy Road Racer!

i'll have a look on sunday crispin, my day of rest!

regards

Taffy

this was my first meeting and it's at my lewkel track - snetterton - shortened to snet. it's an old airfield circuit used by the USAF in WW2. you can even see 'LT KOBLOSKI 6/13/43" written in the concrete at the bar. i think it's a lie coz everyone knows there's only 12 months in a year....

the bike is shorn of centre stand. indicators, headlamp taped up and the oil filler bung lockwired. later that night i rode it up the pub!


this is about my 5th meeting, back at snet and the corner formerly known as esses 2 but to everyone in the wor;d as the bomb hole! i'm leading a couple of LC's and guess what! a CBX1000 honda! between jhima dn the bike they did little. anyway, on the next time round i fell and the bloke in the dark leathers came to see me later in the medi centre: "you ok mate?"
"yep fine mate!"
"are you sure?"

anyway, later that night i see a red line across my ribs and the next week i see him on crutches? "what's up with you?"
"it was you last week! i rode over you, i had no choice, came a perler myself and ended up with a cracked ankle...."
"oooh! that explains the red line....."


this is the same day as a photo at the beginning of this thread. you do a right through the bomb hole, a very fast right around coram's curve (that photo on page 1) and then through this fast chicane known as russel's.

i'm about midfield here. the bikes behind are the last of the line RD400s! about 4 months later my lifelong race mate nick airey and i came down to the chicane (this is a flat out left in and right out) we were side-by-side as we went either side of a backmarker, he was on the right and on the racing line into the above left. i had to back off as he dived in front of a backmarker and clipped both the left then right kerb. i went through and behind the backmarker and slammed everything on as he decided to retire mid-corner. as i skated along on my arse i looked up at the stupid c...t holding his hand up to retire (try bottle it) just 80M from the finishing line. nick still mentions this one occasionally!

this is a photo of another airbase only this is from 1983 and RAF west raynham in norfolk. the photo is of a chicane they had at a helipad whcih actually protruded up on this: a perimeter road. it's my only race of either 1982 or 1983. i could cry! i fitted a race cam and it caused nothing but trouble. pops and bangs etc, i tried everything. we retired in this race with it. a lot of money had gone in but that was that!

turned out to be a duff cam given to a man named bernie adey, well if you walkinto the raceshop and beg a race cam what the phuck did he expect! steve wynne found out after starting it up. i however, was 21 and nobody told me.

the guy that made them had road roller fall off it's transport onto his car.


this is 1984 and my big effort. it starts here, rider number 39, early march, coming out of sears corner (near the old A11). now we have a rotax 250 fairing fitted although it was off this day for some reason. this is a season of radical development as i try everything, girling shocks, cut 'n weld the frame (everyone was trying to get lower then), home made rearsets, painted by moi. frankly if it looks bloody rough it's because it was bloody rough!

more to follow another time!

regards

Taffy

Think my life would be more complete with an old Duke alongside my Berg! Could stay with the same mechanic as well, - even if the transport costs are killing me . Pics are supercool Taffy!

Uno

Hey Taffy, love the write-up with those pics, very interesting stories, please keep em coming.

I'm looking forward to the IOM chapter. After having visited for the TT a number of times I've fell in love with the island & the road racing on it. Can't wait to hear the background stories for those pics, I'll be all ears!!

Cheers

Crispin

well this is a photo of myself going around the gooseneck at cadwell park in lincolnshire. i used to think that all photos were taken during races but i soon discovered at this, my 7th meeting that that wasn't true. phil masters took this in practice the cheeky bugger.

how do i know?

well there is something wrong with the bike that only happened during practice.

spot it anyone. (became a 'common fault').

i had decent results that day coming 10-12 of 25. best 4T etc etc. second visit to cadwell - a circuit that became easily my favourite. i used to love the combination of hard work, adrenalin, laying under the trees for an hour to sleep and then doing it again. sometimes i still went to the line begging that i'd wake up soon!


this is just about my favourite photo. i like it because if you're a techno geek (at that time) you can see soooo much of what i was doing and couldn't afford to do. one of the biggest, if not thee biggest owners clubs in the UK is the ducati owners club or DOC as they are called. it started in 1980 as a folded sheet of A4 and then became a mag, then 4 photos for a centre spread and then they decided to use this as their first ever cover photo.

the gearing was huge, that's a 35T rear and a 15t front. it didn't pull it as i was always trying to protect the engine. in 13 years i never had the bike redline in 5th.

it's got girling shocks on the rear which were rubbish but better than the marzocci 'piggy backs' (or remote reseviors as they were called). i've cut 3" out of the frame rails to lower it, TZ seat, standard and by now phucked petrol; tank, the forks had hypoid 90 gear oil in them and i doubt that there is a man here who can tell me why? also you can see the cable drive to my std speedo which in itself was borrowed from the 1970 revcounter from honda's CB750.

standard wheels 260mm cast iron solid discs with 3/6 spokes cut out, home made rear sets. also note that i was running 2 into 2 which was ungeard of then. but i had a top end cam(s) and the 2/2 gave fantastic upper to top. the bike went nuts!

later i settled on the NCR7 cams and the usual 2/1 system.


this is the very first race of the 1985 season and over the winter i have bought the ex-roger burnett chassis from steve wynne at sports motorcycles racing - IF it were in colour ned would be shouting 'mike the bike's ducati!!!'. it's the left handed drop around gerrards bend. the bike cost me everything i had and more! i started by removing the stickers and just racing it like this.

the previous season on the cut 'n shut special had been brilliant with 2 championship wins and 135 races without a DNF but 4 falls. what a great record!

the interesting thing about this day was that i had my mate/neighbour opposite say that although he couldn't make it, he had a cousin with a mate who would like to come up. i said 'OK' as a little help can be useful and anyway, company etc is good.

i came in after race one and asked the lads if they would remove the tank and fill it with the gallon of fuel that lay in the boot. i came back from the loo, did some jetting changes, fitted the tank and went out for race 2. the bike "siezed" (sic) on lap 4 and i pulled over to the armco. after the field had gone by i could hear the 'dugga-dugga' of the bike running!!! (R & T cam and a heavy flywheel) so jumped down, got on it and rode back to the paddock.

the lads asked me what had gone wrong to which i didn't reply (something i often repeated as i had no interest in talking about something so profound).

on the way home they laughed and said "ere dave, you will laugh, when we removed the tank, we left the taps on ha! ha! ha!".....

my neighbour did go to the next meeting and when bump starting the bike managed to smash my rear seat hump to pieces.

same wheels and brakes but a set of used marzocchi magnesiums on the front. '85 was a bad season. i changed to castrol 'product 351' and it was dreadful. did i know that though when i started? nope! i screwed 3 cranks in the season but it was the cam it wrecked and the mains with it that did me....

later ron

regards

Taffy

Taf
Yer showing yer age
Reliving our youth is the sign of an older gent........... thought you were younger than me :lol:

Great photos and story........ thanks for sharing........... ya know I can see and hear YOU from that time from how I know you now.
Yep Thanks for the Mammeries

Later ron

good read that taffy
thanks

loving the memories taff... hoping one day i will have similar stories to tell! :bow:
loving the pics too, keep'em coming!
ben

Taffy, are you going to put me out of my misery with the two questions? (notice something wrong with the bike that only happend in the practice sessions, and the use of the hypoid 90 gear oil in the forks)?

Has anybody else got a clue?

p.s. re: hypoid 90 gear oil i the forks, all I can think of is that the higher viscosity oil (10W as standard?), was used to stiffen the damping? (there is probably another reason).

actually, i've just noticed that the seat on #7 - underneath - has some plumber's mate foam in there to strengthen it. bugger the weight! now my mate can at last push it.... so maybe that was my third meeting of 1985 and not my first.

notice the cutaways in the fairing for oil sight glass - one of the first, and the screw in oil filter. i think that that was a first. the gold wing was first with the sight glass i think and the morini with cambelts. pantah was second to both though i believe. the wheels are those ancient things that MXers still use called 'WM rims'. they're WM2 and WM3s.

engine is essentially the same today for the 1100s! incredible.

not too many trters at the questions crispin but you really will have to wait a bit longer....
notice the round 'cam' system for adjusting the chain. excellent idea and worked really well. the chassis was a harris replica of the factory verlicchi. it was gusseted for when the engione was out. it was far better made than the customer version.

by the way

road bike in the first photos +430LB
cut n shut was 350LB
harris chassis made that 330 or so.

you're gonna get such a shock where (yes where) i lost 56LB in weight off it...

regards

Taffy

and i wasn't on a diet before you say it!

regards

Taffy

Crispin said:

p.s. re: hypoid 90 gear oil i the forks, all I can think of is that the higher viscosity oil (10W as standard?), was used to stiffen the damping? (there is probably another reason).

Click to expand...

Taff, what did you think of this as a suggestion for the hypoid 90 gear oil? Getting warm??

Crispin

the forks were so bad that the best thing to do was to stop them working.

at least someone is interested at the back!!!!!!!

come on class!

regards

Taffy

I think there were issues with them being relatively "weedy" (that they would distort & twist), so folks would also use strengthening brackets above the mud guards in an attempt to stop em twisting?