Results and News

--- September 2005 ----

This was the weekend of the Northwest Nationals in Woodburn, Oregon. Its normally one of my favorite races. Lots of friends and even family will make it to this race. The weather always seems great in Oregon during this part of the year. Lots of bikes show up to make it a fun event.

Becky made several good runs on the dragster, and although she didn't qualify for Sunday's finals, she continues to get better and better times. For a change, no significant damage to the bike.

Different story on the pro fuel bike. Another mild explosion and another torched head. We're just chasing our tail getting it sorted out, but we'll get there. Dan Baisley felt sorry for me and grabbed the head. He'll fix me up.

But none of that particularly matters. Our good friend and fellow racer Mo Rockefeller died as a result of injuries he suffered on a pass late Sunday afternoon. He was just behind Becky, in the next pair out, and apparently got in trouble with a cross wind. Hard to say for sure. He hit the wall near the finish line, was thrown from his bike and died a few minutes later.

Those of you who have attended an AHDRA event may remember Mo, or at least his bus. He had an old, gray, short school bus that was his rolling shop. There are some photos of Mo and his bike on his web site. Follow the links from: http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Speedway/2593/

Mo was pretty much old school. He'd been racing for many years, designed and built most of his own parts, improvised, tinkered, tried new ideas and always had an opinion. He loved to race and sacrificed a lot to participate. He was always trying new things. He stopped by our trailer at the track Saturday night, looked at the damage I'd done to the pro fuel bike and promptly announced the cure was in cryogenics. Huh? But Mo, last time you said it was in ceramic coatings, the time before that, heat treating. But that was mo. Always looking for that special edge. We'd occasionally stop by his place in West Sacramento on the way to southern races and he'd do the same if he was headed north.

The racing community is a pretty tight group. Especially those of us that race nitro bikes. Every one of us knows how dangerous it can be and all of us know that we're relying not only on our skill to pilot the bikes we race, but a bit of luck as well. The luck was with us today; there were no wind gusts when Becky ran. I wish the luck had been with Mo as well.

Our condolences and love to Mo's family, friends and his "Bad to the Bone Racing" crew.

-- (More) August 2005 ---

Since I've not written in a while, you can guess the news isn't great. But....its improving. And, we're having fun, which is what this stuff is really all about.

After Bakersfield and the continuous problems with the new bike, I decided we wouldn't travel any distance until we worked out what was going on. All spring the bike has been banging and sputtering when I'd hit the throttle, breaking chains, sprockets and all sorts of stuff. As we were getting ready for the Seattle AHDRA race, I thought we'd found the problem. As a tune up for that event we were invited to the NHRA Division 6 race at Pacific Raceways. Although I managed to qualify, it was in 8th spot and the bike was still having the same old problems. Frustration doesn't begin to explain things.

As luck would have it, I decided to check one more thing and yes, miracles do happen. All along the problem had been that a tiny weld on one of the cam shafts had broken. That had the effect of fouling up the cam timing. For you non motorheads out there, its kind of like trying to take a drink of water but closing your mouth just as you put the glass to your lips...things just don't work right. Dropped in a new set of cams and the months long problem went away.

That was the good news. The bad news was that I had to run Mike Lehman from Palm Beach Florida in the first round of eliminations. Mike ran an unbelievable pass, and was at 202 mph at half track. That put us on the trailer for the rest of the weekend. It was still fun though. The Division 6 race is basically a car thing and most of the folks there hadn't ever seen a nitro Harley. The crowd loved us and was really jazzed up each time we were on the track.

The following weekend was the AHDRA race in Seattle and we entered with better expectations. Although we were plagued with some problems, they were the more normal things that happens to nitro bikes. We broke a wrist pin warming the bike up on Friday night, which took out the rod, piston and cylinder. We managed to cobble things back together for qualifying Saturday, but the bike was really bandaged up. For anyone who understands such things, I had to bore out the cylinder so big that there was .040 clearance between the piston and cylinder. That's huge. If you're not familiar with that kind of stuff, its like trying to run a race with size 36" pants when you have a 30" waist. Again, things just don't work right. We did manage to keep the bike together and had to race Pat Fenderson from Boise Idaho in the eliminations. Although I ran a faster time, I was snoozing at the lights and he beat me on a "hole shot". In other words, even though I was faster, he left so much before me that he crossed the finish line first. That little snooze cost me about $500.00 in prize money so I'll be a little more alert next time. As it turned out, it didn't make too much difference because I really hurt the engine on that pass and its taken me the last three weeks to fix the damage.

Meanwhile Becky ran her quickest time ever on the Dragster and although she didn't qualify for the field at the Seattle race, she's feeling confident enough that she should do well in coming races. You know she's getting the hang of things when she starts breaking parts like I do. Her dragster was on a great run Sunday when it snapped the drive belt.

So here we are in the beginning of August and everyone that motorcycles knows what that means; Sturgis South Dakota Both bikes are fixed and packed in the trailer. Racing at Sturgis is normally at odd times and this year is no exception. We're scheduled to start qualifying this Sunday at 4 p.m. and eliminations are Monday at the same time.

You can check the AHDRA web site for results as they happen. From the AHDRA main page, www.ahdra.com click on Live Race Updates, then click on the class you want to check. My bike will be running in pro fuel and Becky's in pro dragster. You can also follow the links and if your Karma is good, you'll be able to listen to live audio. Keep in mind that the track at Sturgis is only an eighth mile, so the speeds will be slower and the times quicker then what you'd normally expect. If you bounce around looking at the various classes, you'll get a feel for what various bikes can do. The class labeled ET is basically a street bike class so you can see what the average bike you encounter running around town does compared to the purpose built dragsters like ours.

--- August 2005 ---

Just a quick update. We've made a few changes on our mailing list, so if you get this note, and don't want another, just let me know and I'll get rid of you. With that out of the way...

We're back from racing at Sturgis Dragway in Sturgis, South Dakota. Our up and down year continues, but man did we have some fun. You can always have fun in Sturgis. If you're a biker type and havn't been...go. If you're a non biker type and want to mess around with a couple hundred thousand smelly, sweaty folks in black leather...go. Otherwise, you might not like it.

Sturgis Dragway is an interesting track. Its the only eighth mile track we race on. The big bikes finish the race in about 4.5 seconds, so if you're spectating, don't leave your seat for a beer or you'll miss the action. The track also has the unusual feature of having the shut down area being quite short, so the minute you cross the finish line, you pretty much need to be on the brakes or you'll end up in the kitty litter they put at the end of the pavement. You don't want to go there. Its good for cats, but bad juju for motorcycles. Another problem is that the safety wall ends about 100' before the end of the pavement. So, you have to get your bike stopped, get off and push the bike back behind the wall. It's normally about 100 degrees and the bikes weigh about 650 lbs and don't push very well, and you've got all this protective gear with kevlar reinforcement on so by the time you're all done racing and pushing you pretty much don't care if you won or not. And finally, its narrow. Really narrow. Cart path narrow. Given that the fuel bikes pretty much run the length of the track with the front tire off the ground, they aren't the easiest things to steer and adding that to the narrow track can cause problems as it did for me on one qualifying run.

On the first qualifying pass for the pro fuel bike, the fuel shut off switch wouldn't stay on, so the bike shut it self off. Back to the pits. Second pass was better. At least we made it down the track. But, I started off pointed wrong, couldn't pull the bike around and had to shut off early. Good enough to qualify for eliminations, but not great. Even then, I couldn't get the bike to stay it my lane and pretty soon we'd crossed into the other lane and are headed closer to the wall then I wanted to be. But I managed to get it back under control and down to the end of the track where I did the push and collapse on the ground thing.

Third round was the most spectacular. It was dark so the explosion that followed really showed up well. About 30 feet off the start line the engine let go and sent a huge, bright white mixture of nitro methane and molten aluminum sailing off into the dark. When it happened I thought for a moment one of the photographers had used his flash and started reminding myself to chew him out for blinding me. After a couple seconds I realized it was me that was on fire, not some flash bulb. The cool part was that some guy happened to be sitting on the start line and caught the moment on his instamatic. So, as you read this Mikey has either put a copy of that photo up on the web site, or is about to. Great photo. Check it out. Wish it had been someone else's bike. The other good news is that unlike the Seattle race, I didn't get burned.

That pretty much put the big bike on the trailer. Becky ran pretty well on the dragster. She qualified 4th out of 8 bikes present, but because of a quirk in the licensing rules, they wouln't let her run in eliminations. We were certainly irritated, but rules is rules so she had to sit out. The good news is that since my bike was broken, I grabbed hers and ran it in the first round of eliminations in place of my bike. Got beat but still had some fun. Becky's bike is quite a bit smaller then mine and just can't compete in the class I was running in.

The rest of the week was spent running around Sturgis, meeting friends and having a good time, and driving my street bike home in hail and snow. In August. Ick. We did enough damage to both bikes that I couldn't get them repaired for the race in Ashcroft BC this past weekend. But they're both nearly complete and we'll be at Woodburn, Oregon this weekend. Woodburn is a great track and everyone always has lots of fun there, so come on out if you're in the neighborhood.

And finally. I have a wrong date on the web site. The race in Sacramento, CA is on October 15 and 16, not in November as indicated. We'll get it changed but in the meantime, don't plan on going to Sacramento in November...we won't be there.

--- April 2005 ---

Its funny how things come in threes. You hear about that, but when it comes to disasters, and you've just dealt with the second in the series, you REALLY start thinking about what's going to happen next.

The first race of the season in Phoenix could have been better. Way better. But we're back in one piece with no major disasters or explosions, so things could have been worse as well.

We left early for some testing at Speedworld Motorplex in Surprise, Arizona. The track is ancient, but in pretty decent shape and the track crew couldn't have been better. The good news is that Becky made her first couple passes on the Dragster with no problems. Her times weren't fast, but she didn't tip over and came back to the pits with a huge smile on her face. Nitro will do that to you. Riding a fuel bike is like nothing else in the world. Picture climbing under the hood of your car, laying down on the engine and going for a ride. Its noisy, hot, vibrates like crazy and has more power then anything most of us have ever been close to.

Things did not go so well with the pro fuel bike. This new bike is capable of building up something close to 600 horse power and we discovered what that can do. In five attempts to make a pass down the track, we snapped the drive chain four times. These are 10,000 lb chains made specifically for top fuel motorcycles which aren't supposed to break and we broke four of them. We fussed with the problem during testing and then when we moved over to Firebird in Phoenix for the race. Never did get it solved and never did get the bike down the track. The good news is that other then destroying $800.00 worth of chains, we didn't do any damage and I've pretty much eliminated most of the things that could be causing the problem. I'll be REALLY happy when I get it sorted out. We're headed up to British Columbia in a couple weeks for some more testing and hopefully we'll straiten out the bugs and finish the licensing process.

Meanwhile Becky continued making passes at Firebird and is well on the way to getting her fuel bike license. She should finish that up at the next race and be ready to compete. I borrowed the dragster to make a couple passes, just to be able to see what the far end of the track was like, but I think she likes it enough that I'll have a hard time getting it away from her next time

Back to the three disasters. The first involved our good friend Steve Heidner, a top fuel rider from here in Washington. He and bike owner Carl Pelletier are probably two of our closest friends in racing. On his first qualifying attempt, he went through the lights at 208 mph, and fell off his bike. A more accurate description is that he got peeled off the bike by the wind. From the video, it appears that when he reached for the brake lever with his left hand, the wind caught his fingers, peeled his arm back and shucked him right off the right side of the bike. Remember when you were a kid and you stuck your hand out the window of the car and played like an airplane, letting the wind move your hand up and down? Think about doing it at 200 mph. Although the bike was destroyed, fortunately Steve suffered only some burns through his leathers, a fractured wrist and some hopefully minor back problems. He's supposed to be out of the hospital today. Serious injuries, but those of us close to racing recall the death of Elmer Trett several years ago in a similar accident and we're all thankful that Steve should make a complete recovery.

The second involved another friend Bruce Woltz. We didn't see this accident but understand that again, it happened at the far end of the track. Our latest report is that like Steve, he suffered a fractured wrist and was headed home for more medical care. As in Steve's case, we're thankful the injury was not more serious and we're all rooting for a quick and complete recovery.

By this time we were getting a little nervous and hoping to avoid becoming the third victim. As luck would have it, indeed there was a another fractured wrist, but this time it was an acquaintance who dropped her bike while loading it into a trailer and somehow suffered a break during the process. Not sure whether to feel bad for her or lucky for us.

That pretty much ended the excitement for the weekend. Time to sort things out and get ready for the next couple races. See you at the track.

--- March 2005 ---

Time for the 2005 Court Jester Racing season to begin.!!! Lots of changes this year. The first is, we are running a new bike. We should compete in both the Pro Fuel and Top Fuel categories, depending on the race. This bike is capable of running 200 mph plus, at under 7 seconds. It's chassis was built originally by Alan Zonker, is powered by a 150 cubic inch engine with heads made by Hi Gear, Kinsler injection, Dyna Ignition, PRP crank assembly, rods and cylinders, Arias pistons, Performance Machine controls, Heidner clutch and jackshaft, and PMFR wheels. It has a 13" wide rear tire and weighs about 600 lbs, so it will take some work getting it down the track. We're trying to get some body work finished up on it and when its done, we'll get some photos posted.

Becky will ride either the pro dragster from last year, or her pro gas bike. She's going to do some testing in Phoenix to see what suits her.

Speaking of Phoenix, the first race is coming up on April 2 &3 at Firebird Raceway in (hopefully) sunny Arizona. Since we have not had any testing time here in the Northwest, we plan on renting the track at Speedworld, also in Phoenix, for testing on March 31. It will be the first trip down the track for the new bike and for Becky on the dragster, so we're pretty excited.

The tentative schedule is posted, but may be changed. It will depend on how the new bike runs and whether the NHRA schedules some events for Top Fuel Harleys. We wanted to make an east coast swing this year, but with the cost of fuel rising as it has, that's become pretty impractical.

Thanks again to those who are helping us out, Competition Motorcycles of Boise, Idah, JARZ Performance of Abbotsford BC and Barnett Engineering, who supply our clutch parts. See you at the track.