Flying Circus

RACE WATCH

Flying CIRCUS

Serious fun racinq a Honda CB160

MARK HOYER

FINGER POINTING IS A FAVORITE HUMAN PASTIME. “Check out those weirdos,” you say about the DKW people as you roll up to the local hangout on your 1961 Zundapp Super Sabre 250. “Man, they’re a different breed.”

So a couple of years ago, not long after I’d finished washing off the cylinder head from my Ducati 350cc Single in the bathroom sink at the office, a press kit arrived for The Flying Circus, a group of Portland, Oregon, vintage racers who created their own class-within-a-class based around the pre-1968 Honda CB/CL160 Twin.

“Hey, check out these weirdos in the Northwest,” I said to the boss, trying to forget how poorly the restoration on my 1958 Thames Estate English Ford van was going.

The thing was, we actually knew some of the weirdos. Proof that it takes a certain touch of madness to join a fledgling motorcycle manufacturing concern, several of the Circus stalwarts are Norton Motorsports employees. Simon-Pierre “Simo” Smith, one of the class founders, along with Paul Gaudio and Patrick Leyshock, clock in at Kenny Dreer’s factory every day. Every day they aren’t racing CB 160s, that is.

During a recent visit there, I mentioned that racing a little old bike like that was just my brand of strange. Moments later, I was signed up to compete in the next round at Portland International Raceway, and a bike had been arranged for me. Gaudio was foolish enough to lend me his own 160-complete with mini-Virgin Mary expoxied to the top tripleclamp-while he was off in Germany on Official Business.

Leyshock was my mechanical help and “handler,” not to mention social planner for the weekend, while Smith dropped wry nuggets of spiritual advice and eased my passage through the official channels of the Oregon Motorcycle Road Racing Association (www.omrra.com), which hosts the 250 Vintage class races that “contain” the Formula 160 contingent.

What makes a competitive CB160? Buying one and making sure it runs.

Seriously, drop way less than a grand, or get it for free, as many racers have, then toss on some Avon Roadrunners, Hagon shocks, maybe some clip-ons and you’ve got a racebike on the track, if not quite in the lead. As baselines go, that’s about it. Modifications can be made to the carbs, exhaust, ignition, transmission, bodywork, brakes, wheels and suspension. Engines should be 161cc (a 1mm overbore is allowed), while the rest of the engine internals are to remain stock. There is plenty of work involved in building a reliable, competitive bike, but the basics are pretty easy. For some how-to, check out www.groupwracing.com.

Some guys, understandably, go off the cosmetic deep end, gorgeously finishing frames, making custom bodywork, polishing engine cases and the rest. There is a sort of Design Mafia made up of class stalwarts. They’re a group of engineers and designers (a couple of the guys work at Nike and Adidas), who take their love of materials, finish and design and apply it to some very fine machines. Product designer Eirik Lund Nielsen, for example, made his own molds and hand-laid the fiberglass fuel tank on his very Hailwood-esque silver-and-red racer. When he couldn’t get the tank to seal properly, he took a pair of water-bottle-size spunaluminum cylinders, threaded-in fuel taps, put quick disconnects on the lines, then velcroed the combination under the old tank, which is now simply a cover. Custom trumpet-maker Dean Willoughby used a jeweler’s saw, drills and files on his countershaft-sprocket cover to carve out an artful and stunningly accurate likeness of Jimi Plendrix. Industrial designer Charlie Johnson has a painfully clean orange bike, which he brings to the track in a 1964 Dodge A100 race van, one of the coolest transporters this side of a ’58 Thames Estate. Yet another I.D., Jon Munns had pieces of magnesium chemically etched with the Vicious Cycle logo to make cool gas-tank badges.

Vicious Cycle? It’s an old-time Portland bike shop owned by Joe Pethoud, where the real push to establish the class took place. After the initial fun factor was demonstrated by Smith, Tim Fowler and John Bundy-the true fathers of the movement who started racing each other at Seattle International Raceway in the early ’90s-the seed was planted in the Oregon area with the help of Gaudio. He’d watched the founding trio have fun battling each other, and got tired of “racing” his Ducati 250 Single by himself. So, over the winter of 2001 a core group of PIR racers begged, bought and hauled away about 19 CB and CL 160s, all for a grand total of less than $1500. The greasy, rusty mess was deposited at Vicious Cycle, where Joe & Co.-Chris Page, Gaudio, Johnson, Damon Clegg, Nielsen, Tucker Franzen, Munns, Leyshock and Steve Callan-took the best parts and assembled nine running bikes.

The Circus was in town.

That was critical mass, and since that first season in ’02 the class has grown considerably. My first start-Le Mansstyle, no less!-there were 34 bikes lined up against the wall at a roughly 45-degree angle, waiting, engines dead. Thirty-four!

Cool thing is, an inverted grid is used, wherein the previous race leaders are lined up at the back. Thanks to Gaudio’s poor finish last time out, I was second in line! Mustering every ounce of my former fitness, as well as being both inspired and insulted that the track announcer was playing Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyrie” over the PA in a good-natured mocking gesture, I sprinted across the track in the lightly falling rain. In startling contrast to the rest of my life, these few moments went perfectly. No tendons snapped, I thankfully got my “second wind” about halfway across the track, managed not to hurl, cramp or knock out my bike holder as I swung my leg over the fiberglass tailsection, pushed off and bumped the little Twin to life. Suddenly, it was eerily quiet, save for the throaty growl of the straining Honda beneath me. Thanks to my gifted grid position and pure, dumb luck, I got the holeshot. The track was open before me, and I looked toward Turn 1 in utter disbelief and total paranoia. The race was mine to lose...

Rain was really falling by this time, and while there had been some wet practice sessions, it was pretty difficult to gauge the available traction. Still, things were going well for a 220-pound guy on a 15-horsepower bike small enough to get stuck in his butt crack if he wasn’t careful. In fact, things were going great, because even the “smoke-yourself-thin” riders (as fellow big-man Gaudio calls the 150-pound usual front-runners) were only just showing me a wheel by the third and fourth corners. The rest of what happened is all a 40-mph blur. Entering the last right before the long, arcing backstraight, the pack was nipping at my heels, but I was still leading.

“Ell just turn it down a little tighter to the apex for the killer (relatively speaking) drive onto the straight,” I thought as I tipped it in.

As the front end tucked and the bars irrevocably crossed, my last thought was, “ƒ’m wiiiinning... ” CRASH!, and I left the party at a tangent. Gaudio’s poor bike clipped the curbing as it slid off the tarmac and flipped into the wet grass, with me not far behind. I saw one of the float bowls jettison skyward while I realized what a complete jackass maneuver I’d just pulled. The Virgin Mother was never found...

Thankfully, I didn’t take anyone with me. Obviously, I was in the lead because I’d been taking greater risks. Four turns of glory followed by the ultimate in anti-glory.

I watched the rest of the race from the tire wall as pack sorted itself out in the driving rain. Rich Mathews pulled out a margin, foot-down in turns at times, and was untouchable. Pethoud, Page and Munns weren’t far behind.

“Man, that guy’s good in the wet,” I thought.

Turns out, he’s just good. Mathews is an experienced 125cc GP racer who spends a lot of time at the front in F-160.

Luckily, my so-far extremely short career wasn’t over. Racing in both the 250 and 500cc Vintage classes on the weekend allowed for an abundance of track time. So while I did miss a race as the forces rallied to repair my mount (bent clip-on and footpegs, two broken levers, more grass than a golf course), I got back out on the track later that afternoon. Why were some of my friendly cohorts also missing from the ensuing race? At least 10 other guys took a trip into the mud after I did. Camaraderie rules.

By that afternoon, the track had dried a bit. And while I was definitely getting killed on the straightaways (dudes were thanking me for the giant hole I was punching in the air), I could hang in the corners, provided I wasn’t sliding off.

Subsequent races were spent trying to learn the technique for riding these tiny 215-pound machines. As suggested earlier, drafting is key. Radar taken at earlier rounds showed that in packs of three, the bikes reach about 85 mph. A lone bike, in contrast, struggles for a peak of 75. This is why the lead group was usually numbering about seven bikes, with Matthews, Page, Johnson, Neilsen, Pethoud, Munns et al scaring each other into Turn 1.

“At one point, there were five to seven of us drafting in a tight group. At the end of the straight, we fanned out five wide. I saw the cornerworker react like, ‘Oh, this is going to be bad!’ and reach down as if he were about to raise a preemptive red flag!” Page said afterward.

These guys race hard. But while they do go deep into corners, there isn’t really “braking” on a CB160 so much as speed adjustment. I made the mistake of trying to trail-brake entering a fast right, and the resulting flexure traveled like a wave through the skinny front rim and noodlelike fork to the rubbery chassis. Rarely have I broken out into a cold, fear-induced sweat so quickly and so completely as when that sickening, shuddering tension wound up through this little old bike. A CB160 works surprisingly well, but overlapping inputs such as hard braking and high-load cornering-things you take for granted on a modern bike-is not the recommended technique.

Basically, it’s best to keep your momentum, and open that throttle early and wide. The rest is just elegant geometry, and trying not to be at the head of the drafting pack on the last lap.

Gaudio had some additional advice: “Do everything you possibly can to stay with the lead group at the start of the race, especially through Turn 1. Stay in-

side and do NOT roll off! Once they’re gone, they’re gone.”

He was so right. I was, naturally, more cautious in the following race-not that I wasn’t trying. But I missed the tow and was left to battle midpack. I’d even had an unknown (to me) advantage.

“You know that’s a 180, right?” someone asked me in the hot pit prior to one of the sighting laps.

“No,” I said, while I thought, “Coo//” Not that it was much help in finishing at the bottom of the top 10. Or maybe it was...

“Aside from illegal overbores,” I wondered aloud in the pits, “what makes one of these little 160s faster than another?”

“Some of them are just charmed,” Pethoud replied.

Leyshock suggested dinner at the Sandy Hut, an old-time, smoky, windowless bar with Pabst Blue Ribbon on tap. In honor of racing a sub-15-horsepower bike, I ordered the “Fat Man” hamburger. It’s the kind of meal that should come with a defibrillator: two big beef patties, Swiss and cheddar cheeses, plus bacon, which is all within the realm of normal. But then they add ham and, as the ultimate artery-clogging piece de resistance, a fried egg! I ordered it as a joke, but actually kind of liked it. Sad commentary on my culinary tastes, I guess. We later moved on to Michael Fontanarosa’s house for some Saturday-night sociality. “Crucial to the F-160 experience,” I was told.

Interestingly on Sunday, some folks were moving a little slower, and some didn’t even make it to the track. I finally got the glory of a ding-dong drafting battle with fellow midpack bigman Ken Suvada. We traded spots just about everywhere and I finally managed to hang on to the advantage on the last lap of my final

race, getting a really good run through the first four corners for a safe margin. It was the kind of battle you take pretty seriously on the track, then laugh and high-five about on the cooldown lap and back in the pits.

As ever, there is some “mission creep” taking place in F-160. You know, the “I didn’t really port it-just removed the flashing from the castings” kind of thing. So, there has begun a bit of an arms race. Men and machines in competition breed this. There was to be a sort of detent over this winter regarding the quiet mods that were or weren’t going on, and here’s to hoping they can maintain the “gentleman’s race” mentality and simplicity. “No attempts at policing the class will be made. No protests will be heard. If you cheat, you’re just a cheater,” reads the single-page rule sheet. “But it doesn't mean we can’t whine,” added Smith with a laugh.

Simplicity is a big part of the charm, and racing closely matched bikes is superb fun. F-160 has everything you love about racing, vintage or otherwise, plus a cool social scene populated by good people, a low financial commitment, an abundance of bikes, and tires that last a full season. If you have the budget and motivation-because you aren’t spending a fortune on a “Superbike”-spec 160 engine-you can pimp your ride to your wallet’s content and try to win in style.

All I know is that 80 mph never felt so fast, and nobody on the track that weekend had more fun than The Flying Circus. I’m ready to run away and join. Weird.