"the triumphs and the harleys were pretty well matched in '67 but 1968 was the year that harley davidson raised their game, triumph rider gary nixon was less than pleased, we were running 135mph and the harleys were running 150, i told them they needed to put a mirror on the fuckers so i could see which side they were going by me"

"what people need to know is that if ever there was a motorcycle racer who was fearless, it was cal rayborn, he always had that great smile, but cal rayborn was a different breed of cat"

cal rayborn, picked up a copy of classic racer magazine on the way home from the match, [got beat one-nil by swansea, bad tempered game, both teams reduced to ten men, swansea played a good game, frustrated the rams into making rash challenges and getting cards, poor officials, ref made a rod for his own back, dishing out cards rather than talking to the players, twat,], me and jack had a pint while waiting for the bus and i started reading the rayborn story, legend.

early start this morning, i was up at the darley moor circuit for my c.t.c [competitor training course], arrived around 0830hours, darley moor is a god-forsaken place even in summer, today it was freezing, about thirty of us huddled in what i can best describe as a barn, two little propane heaters did nothing to warm the vast space, cup of tea and two biscuits and down to business, multi choice question paper at the end, got my c.t.c certificate signed off, got to post it to bemsee for stamping, they send it off to the acu and licence should follow soon.

my dog-tag turned up today, quite a sobering moment when i realised i could actually die doing this.

bottle on left, putoline tech 2 castor racing oil, seventeen quid a throw, glass on right, mcguigan estate australian shiraz, £4.69 from sainsbury's.

i know, i know, iv'e been bitching about the swingarm but check out the photo, you can see the left hand shock is a fucking mile out, dangerous took the 'new' swinger up to kev's today for powdercoating, we are looking at two-weeks turnaround for the coating, that's another setback there is always something to do but it's really frustrating not to have a rolling chassis yet.

pipe on left is standard header pipe for the 250cc mz, pipe on the right is the earlier 250mz header pipe, which do you think offers the best performance?

not much to look at i admit but a crucial part of the racer project, this is the expansion chamber, the class rules state that the exhaust header pipe and the first diffuser cone have to be standard, we have cheated a little by using the header pipe from the earlier ts250 model which is a better shape for performance and also to allow us to tuck the exhaust under the engine so that it exits on the left rather than the right as on a standard machine, the reason?, most tracks are predominantly right handers so we gain ground clearance, two stroke tuning is a black art, i have lost hours researching on the interweb, what i have determined is that we are basically bolloxed using the small diameter header pipe and the small chamber diameter, compression ratio, ignition timing and the temperature of the spent exhaust gases combined with the port duration, [we are using a piston ported engine, no reeds], effect the performance, we really need a tapered header pipe when you look at the tuning models available but the rules state you have to use a standard item, which, on inspection looks like it has no taper at all, dead frustrating really, like i said before, slap a mikuni 42mm carb on and go for a tapered header and fat belly chamber and they would really move.

amazing photo of the honda rc115 50cc racer crankshaft, rods and pistons sitting in someone's hand! beautiful, nine-speed gearbox, four valve per cylinder, twin cylinders, made in 1965.

aermacchi, bubble visor, rigger-boots, no gloves.