Fatdog Racing - Team #67

Thursday, November 15, 2012

(Fat) Dog Will hunt!

Our first parts hunt down under! Thanks to our great friends for letting us scour their parts stashes....it was epic! Don't worry, the FatDog doesn't bite off more than he can chew. We never took anything we didn't have a need for. But believe me there was a ton we had a want for! It would have been great to bring home all three versions of 8-valve cylinders that we got to hold. We spent a full day at Redfern Motorcycle Spares in Wolongong and were sent into a spiral by the awesome inventory they beheld. If you are ever in New South Wales, see Tony and load up on those WLA parts you have always dreamed of.

We also got to spend 4 days at the shop of Steve "The Genius" Raffils and dig through all the amazing work he is creating in New Zealand. Right now, he is on the downward swing of creating 6 perfect late 8 valves that will undoubtly race against each other sometime soon. Here I am holding a real keystone 1927 8-valve frame in my left hand and a real 1917"M" racing frame in my right. Heavy shit!

8-Valve and M-frames

Real 1915-1916 Exhaust port 8-valve cylinder

Real C-port 8-Valve Cylinder

Real NOS! 8-valve oval port cylinders

Raw C & Oval port 8-valve castings.

Steve's one car shed machine shop, with Brough Superior frames in progress

Diane and I in Steves storage Shed.

Redfern Museum Floor.

More at Redfern

Digging in the early stuff.

Nice early cylinder and valve pocket, (No I didn't take them home!)

Stacks of NOS Walla parts!

The front door of the old Pharmacy!

Awesome PurpleTurnip Eater!

Nice Original "Durty Nine!"

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Podium Ride!

Back from Alabama and what a trip! If it could go wrong it did! Got the truck and trailer stuck in the Alabama Mud on Friday morning but our good friend Southern Andy "yanked" us out! Off to Barber only to find out we had no space in the pits and no one was going to let us in! So our accomodations were less than desirable. With a total of 5 minutes prep time reading about the track in the track brochure, we waited for the AMCA Confederate boys to pick us up out in the garbage truck lot. At the track we warmed the bike up and it was running great. We shoved Bruce off at the green flag and off he went! After lap one he was in 5th place, but Matt Walksler blew a tire forcing him out of the lead. With Joe Gardella and Matt's dad Dale battling for the lead Bruce held tight to 4th place. With Dale edging Joe out at the finish line, Bruce made the run on third place rider also on an Indian twin. Bruce caught him on the final straight to take the flag! Many thanks to our good friend and great support from Scott Byrd who came all the way from Arkansas.

Turd Place!