My dad and I were invited to pit crew on a Top Fuel Harley-Davidson. For those of you unfamiliar these are nitro burning v twins that can make upwards of 1,000HP. The current record for V Twin nitro bikes is 6.02 at 230mph!
This was the Jim McClure All Harley Nitro World Finals in Rockingham, North Carolina. Our rider/team owner Michael Beland of A1 cycles has been riding these Nitro bikes for over 5 years, but this is his first forte into owner/rider.
My dad was the starter man (much like Nitro cars these bikes use an external starter box). I was in charge of taking the bike off the jack before the burnout, clearing the water off the front tire before the burnout, pulling the parachute pin after the burnout, and changing the oil after a lap.
We had Q1 saturday morning. The burnout went great, motorcycle sounded strong but started to puke oil out of the catch can right at the beams. We discovered the catch can started to overfill and come out the breather.
This was a fresh 168” engine that was test fired 7 times before this Q1 pass. Because there is no way to dyno these engines to break them in, they don’t have full piston ring seal until they have a load on them. So they will evacuate oil until they are totally sealed. We learned the catch can needs to be drained every time the bike is fired.
Q2 we were looking good. The rider was confident in his green crew, the bike sounded crisp, and we were ready to go. The motorcycle started right up, the burnout sounded awesome, and the bike when right up on the wheelie bars and left hard. Until about 40-50 feet it just let go. Lifted and torched both heads. Unfortunately our weekend was done early.
This was still an awesome and humbling experience!
Check out all the aluminum dust after the explosion. The rider said after 3 beers he could still taste it!
I normally try not to post facebook links, but these are public and you should be able to view them with no issue.
Also in our class. Procharged AND on Nitro.
Staging lanes full of nitro bikes is an awesome thing to be around!
This was the Jim McClure All Harley Nitro World Finals in Rockingham, North Carolina. Our rider/team owner Michael Beland of A1 cycles has been riding these Nitro bikes for over 5 years, but this is his first forte into owner/rider.
My dad was the starter man (much like Nitro cars these bikes use an external starter box). I was in charge of taking the bike off the jack before the burnout, clearing the water off the front tire before the burnout, pulling the parachute pin after the burnout, and changing the oil after a lap.
We had Q1 saturday morning. The burnout went great, motorcycle sounded strong but started to puke oil out of the catch can right at the beams. We discovered the catch can started to overfill and come out the breather.
This was a fresh 168” engine that was test fired 7 times before this Q1 pass. Because there is no way to dyno these engines to break them in, they don’t have full piston ring seal until they have a load on them. So they will evacuate oil until they are totally sealed. We learned the catch can needs to be drained every time the bike is fired.
Q2 we were looking good. The rider was confident in his green crew, the bike sounded crisp, and we were ready to go. The motorcycle started right up, the burnout sounded awesome, and the bike when right up on the wheelie bars and left hard. Until about 40-50 feet it just let go. Lifted and torched both heads. Unfortunately our weekend was done early.
This was still an awesome and humbling experience!
Check out all the aluminum dust after the explosion. The rider said after 3 beers he could still taste it!
I normally try not to post facebook links, but these are public and you should be able to view them with no issue.
Also in our class. Procharged AND on Nitro.
Staging lanes full of nitro bikes is an awesome thing to be around!
