Group W Racing

Hi all, Ari Henning here. I had a blast riding and racing the 160, it’s entirely likely I will be building one myself!

I highsided the little squirt on the last turn of the 3rd lap; my big feet were dragging badly and I levered the rear wheel off the ground. When it came back down, over I went. Thankfully I’m fine, and the bike fared suprisingly well. My apologies to Wick…

Unfortunately, my cameras only recorded the long wait to go on track and the warm-up lap. I’d used the same batteries to record practice on my CB350 and apparently there wasn’t enough juice left… Damn! I was gridded dead-last and blasted up to 1st on the first lap, I couldn’t believe it. I really wish the crash footage had been captured, it would have been phenominal.

It was a pleasure to partake in the 160 race, I’m now an addict.

Ari

Here’s a good example of the brotherhood of the 160.  Don Marr was having some tuning issues at the 8/30 WMRRA race, and was not looking forward to trying to sort them out at the race the next weekend at Miller Mototsports Park.  Instead, Mark Etheridge insisted that he take Mark’s 175 down with him instead and ride a good running bike as he wasn’t going to Miller.

Nice work Mark – way to hold up the brotherhood!

Michael

Brandon Bones got some more fantastic shots of us racing at the last WMRRA round.  I’ll be buying my entire gallery from the 30th just as soon as next payday for sure.   Check out http://studio819.smugmug.com/wmrra and buy pics from Brandon if you think they’re as fantastic as I do.  He’s making special trips up here to take pictures at the remaining WMRRA rounds after moving to Texas, so let’s show him we appreciate it.  He’s especially done a great job of getting lots of shots of vintage racing, something we’re not entirely used to.

Michael

I just heard  from TimO with the thumnail report from Miller -

He’ll have to write more when he gets back, but the short of it is that Polen ended up winning the F-160 LeMans race on Saturday, but not by much.  Our own Mick Hart gave him a run for his money, closely followed by TimO and Mike Polkaba (I think that was the order anyway).   On Sunday Ari rode the blue rocket, and was battling for the lead with Mick when he threw it down the track near the end of the race.   Sounds like Mike Polkaba and TimO had a good seat to see it happen.  I’m sure there’ll be more reports and photos. 

Ari had video cameras on his bike, so there should be some good video of the racing as well.

Also sounds like 200 and 250 gp were interesting races – I’ll let TimO and everyone else tell the story when they have time.

Michael

I got this tonight from TimO – our first news from the track at Miller.  The Ari he mentions is Ari Henning – Todd Henning’s son who’s been racing a Buff Harsh/Todd Henning 350 in AHRMA races this year.  And apparently he’s quite fast.

Michael

Where to start….   First Marcea and I went to Bonneville to watch the bikes run on the salt. Holy shit, you guys have to see this place to believe it. Chris Carr went 355 mph in the Bub Streamliner, only to have a fire take out the electrical system, giving him no chutes. Burned out the brake almost immediately, and then coasted…for about 5 miles!   Today was wild. This track is really cool, but frankly, it scared the crap out of me for the first couple of sessions. By the afternoon I was doing alright, figuring it out. The blue bike took some extra attention to get the gearing  and jetting right, so I let Ari Henning ride the green bike while I rode the blue bike. He took off like a rocket, set the fastest laps of the day, and came back grinning ear to ear. Said he wished his 350 would handle like this.   Took the bike over to meet Doug Polen…interesting character. He is going to ride the Lemans race with us in the morning, then Ari is going to ride it on Sunday. So far we have about 30 entries for the Lemans race. Slow practice had over 45 bikes on the track at once!   Some how, I am going to have to find another 2 seconds a lap to compete with the fast guys. You can really rail this track, but there are a lot of those “faith” corners, where you have to turn off your brain. leave it pegged, and flick it in. After last weekends fiasco, I am feeling my “faith” skills are a little bit unsteady, so…..   Great weather, wish you all were here!   TimO

All the guys are at Miller Motorsports Park this weekend. I couldn’t make it this year, hopefully next year. Hopefully we’ll hear soon about how things are going, as well as how Doug Polen is adapting to our little bikes, and all the usual gossip around an AHRMA national race.

Results are available on the wmrra website – but the upshot is that TimO got a flat in the first race and handed me the win. I took second to TimO in the second race, giving me the overall win for the day. Wohoo!!! Not too bad for my second race weekend back.

Tom Deem took second, and Mark Etheridge took third. Congrats to both of you!

Class standings have TimO in the lead with 160 points, Mark Etheridge in second with 138 points and Tom Deem in third with 132 points. Looks like a close race to the championship, with a new spoiler (me) added into the mix…

There’s WMRRA racing at Pacific Raceways this weekend.  I’ll be there on Sunday for sure.  Looking forward to it – see you out there!

Michael

Got some cool new shots from Bones. He is the MAN when it comes to making me look fast!

TimO’s “Blue Rocket” bike built for Aaron Frank to ride at the Sounds of the Past weekend August 8/9 at Pacific Raceways has been purchased by F-160 lister Wick, and will be ridden by Doug Polen in the Lemans start F-160 race at Miller Motorsports Park during the Bonneville Vintage GP weekend (see http://www.bonnevillevintagegp.com/).

This bike has all the Bateman Racing go-fast goodies and knowledge built into it.  It’s a virtual copy of TimO’s green bike and includes all the things we’ve learned in developing TimO’s bike (exactly as described in the “engine specifications recommendations” article in the Tech section of the Bateman Racing website.

When describing the thrash to get the bike together in the weeks before the SOTP race both Tim and Michael have been heard to mutter “we will never, ever do that again and if we even mention the idea smack us…”

Michael