Having just moved back to the midwest it means I was moving into a new region of moped racing. I spend the last 12 years racing west coast at the Pacific NW tracks, Tomahawk Cup, Moped GP West, and a visit to the OG Polini Cup as well. The concept is the same but the names and builds were going to be different. It was hard to judge from a distance so my plan was to just build some stuff and show up, see what happens. I live in Spicy Country now and roll deep with them so we worked together and planned our attack. In our stables already were Hunter’s hobbit classic GP style build and my Gary Flyer hobbit I’ve been trying to rebuild for 3 years. I also talked Duane into letting me build a stock class racer from his brand new Tomos A55 classic creme edition he had sitting around in pieces. None of them ran even close mind you. As in none had a motor assembled or anything close to being a functional frame with a month to go, so pretty much on schedule as always.
I’ll get into out specific builds in some other articles but for right now know that we managed to get all 3 running before we showed up. Not tuned, but they rode down the street each at least once. Again, this is my usual schedule. Duane, Hunter, and myself arrived late on Friday and upon arrival I knew I was amongst my people again. Just goofy fast mopeds with the wildest ideas on how to do it. Everyone is deep down the hole of tuning and nerding out. It’s the feel of a moped rally but with all the skill points put in the “speed” category.
Saturday was open track running until around noon when they started timed practice for qualifying placement. Basically set a fast lap to get a grid slot for the opener. That didn’t give me much time to get our bikes sorted. My plan was to get the Tomos sorted first, then work on Hunter’s hobbit, then my hobbit. The tomos was going to be the quickest to sort while my hobbit was the furthest from being ready. Also I needed to learn the track and the Tomos speed was going to be much more accommodating for the task. The first thing I realized was how short the straits were. Luckily Jake Cain came through with a 26T rear sprocket for me to use. Ed from Ed’s Moped Shop also came through with a jet for me to try out, although I didn’t end up using, but he was on point for letting me try it. We started with 20 psi of tire pressure and ended up with 17 eventually front and rear. We did fail tech inspection because the seat brackets fell off but we found them on track and I coated them with an obscene amount of lock tite. And that was the totality of the tuning on the Tomos. Honestly it’s about what I was expecting to do and it just did it’s job, as Tomos are want to do.
At this point Hunter had been working on his hobbit but not making the progress needed so I sent him out to do hot laps on the Tomos while I took a crack at it. His bike is running a version of my hobbit’s drive train so they will have similar tuning characteristics. Basically it needed the highest clutch stall possible and a combo of weights and contra spring that made it move at a high enough rpm window. These motors do almost nothing when out of that special rpm region so it’s critical to find that rpm and then figure out how to get it to stay there. It is running a Mikuni TM24 which is a notorious carb for it’s general meh response to jetting changes so we got it to a place it would rev cleanly and called it for the fine tuning. Duane came in with the secret fence tech to install the dreaded black malossi springs on the delta clutch and it gave us the clutch stall we needed. Eventually I found enough weight to make the ER3 move at an rpm that was acceptable with our rear pink Stage 6 contra spring. All this fiddling around sucks up a lot of time and while I felt it needed much more tuning it was time for qualifying laps.
At this point it was already pretty clear that our best bet was to let Hunter race the Tomos since he was clearly faster on it. He set a 1:08 and slotted comfortably in pole for the heat race. His hobbit was up against some fast bikes and he was only able to get a time of 1:07, which didn’t place him as high. I on the other hand, had not even started my hobbit by this point and missed all of the running for placement. There was some more free practice then the reverse grid fun races started. These were just for fun but a good indicator of who was going to place where. And for our story Hunter pulled out a solid W for stock class on the Tomos and a 3rd in non-variated on the same bike. Variated wasn’t as solid of a result with a middling finish due to the unrefined tune of the bike and it’s general hard to ride geometry. So far so good and we were feeling fine.
At this point the track was open practice again but most people were tired and not riding. This was finally my time to bring my hobbit to life. Now this motor has been years in the making and so far it’s been just awful. I had faith in it and somewhere in there was some speed I just needed to find it. Not even all of it, just get into the general area of it. The first major issue was carb tuning. I have never used a Polini PWK carb so I had no reference point on settings. I knew I was having issues with the needle being too rich so Duane bought me the Polini needle box and I started leaning it out. Eventually I landed on the leanest needle in the box and a main of 110, which seemed very lean but the heart wants what it wants. One of the issues I had was once I got the needle lean enough to work the idle was now too lean and I had to scramble to find an idle jet because I forgot my box at home. Luckily Hunter’s spare carb had a 52 in it and finally my jetting issues were close enough to run good. I only had the springs the Stage 6 clutch came with but it was enough to get the clutch ok when on the maximum setting. After some weight tuning with the ER3 I finally got the sound I was looking for. That high pitched, high rpm pull I had been searching for. So of course I told Hunter to go out and try to break it. At this point the motor had maybe 5 miles on it so no better way to break it in than at the track, under full power, with a guy who knows how to ride hard. It didn’t even blow up!
Saturday night was a classic moped dork party. There was a raffle with prizes from the usual subjects with the usual objects. Beers were drank, shit was talked, and nerds did nerd stuff. Sunday morning though was time to get back to work. Hunter and I had a strategy meeting and we agreed the best chance for us to place well was him riding my bikes in every class. We might not win anything but it was the clearly fastest combo and our best chance.
Some bikes at the event, I didn’t get a chance to get pics of everyone’s bike or ask a lot of questions so if anyone wants to chat about their builds hit me up, love to write about it.
Stock class qualifying was up first. Hunter on pole on the Tomos. But it seemed that Ed on his flatreed derbi found some speed overnight as got the better of Hunter to the line. Not by much but enough. He brought the Tomos home in 3rd for the non-variated class qualifying as well. The variated class was a lot closer this time with my hobbit. Hunter was fighting Tim for second, something no one had done all weekend. A huge improvement from the reverse race. In unlimited class qualifying the exhaust bolts rattled out of the hobbit so we were starting back of the grid for the main. So far the results looked good.
The stock class main shook our faith a bit. Going into the qualifying we were confident in a win but the second place had us concerned. Not much we could do but ride harder. Hunter was pulling consistent 1:08 lap times but in the main he dropped it down to a low 1:07. Still not enough to pass Ed’s flatreed on the strait and we came home with a 2nd place for stock. We might now have won but he knew we were there. Next up was variated main and this one was going to be close. Tim was only ten feet ahead of Hunter to the line and the track was getting hot. First was out of reach but a second could be on the table. But Tim fell just a couple laps into the race giving Hunter an easy ride to 2nd for the class. It’s not the best way to move up but we will take it. Non-variated was going to be tough to podium in with a stock Tomos but Hunter managed to take 3rd after a late charge from Jordan passed him on his gila e-50 but then lost the motor in the process. So far were were 3 for 3 for podiums and unlimited was looking like it could be the perfect capstone with us being one of the three bikes all fighting in the 1:03-1:02 range with only one down in the 1:00. But it was not to be as the muffler broke completely off the hobbit on the first lap, bringing Hunter into the pits. With Shane, the leader DNF-ing from a mechanical problem we could have had our 4th podium. No matter really, I think we achieved what we set out to do for the weekend. Which was to have a good time, not break anything too bad, and not get hurt.
Overall we did pretty good. The Spicy Boys have failed to podium in the past and we took 3 in one day. Not quite that W but we running it down. Special thanks the everyone who helped put on the event. Shane Johnson for organizing and putting it on, Tyler Rosonke and Travis King for livestreaming and commentary, and everyone that showed up, built bikes, and brought the party. We will plan a little better next year and come back again. We getting that W.
Also go check out the video of the event, it’s over here. Thanks again to everyone! See ya next year when I bring only scooters. All photos taken by me except the one I’m in on the podium that James Culver took.