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Post by soosh on Nov 14, 2011 19:30:47 GMT
Great photos Tony! Saw him race at Cadwell and was really super impressed. Guy Topper gave him a good run for his money though!  Photo 8 is by faaar my favourite! ;D Well done! J Cheers jacques... but erm... guy topper is on a grp6 (no restrictions) 256cc watercooled reed valved, cutdown lambretta. Charley was on an unwelded, piston port mugello with 207cc in a full bodied bike ;D Different groups completely.. in fact he shouldnt be anywhere near Guy. Charliec... this pic is for you...  Jim... I was on tiptoe  Hi Tony,hows it going? I agree with you on that one,Charley shouldnt be near Guy or any group 6 machine.But i saw the sprint results for Elvington,Guys machine still hits the 13 seconds and so does Ralph which is fast! These guys must be getting just too old to do group 6.Not knocking Charley in any way as we all know the guy is very talented as an engineer and a racer.Think it was last year at Donnington,Charley,Ralph,and Guy were pretty even all weekend and Charley did beat them but Ryan Saxelby took his dads group 6 out and just went mad on it,sure he beat the scooter lap record there,shame Charleys rear hub let go but you saw what a group 6 can still do as he was miles ahead of second place Guy Topper so surley we are comparing different age groups on the track.Maybe group 6 needs a bit of a kick up the arse like group 4 has had in the last few years.  |
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Post by tony on Nov 14, 2011 20:04:23 GMT
Maybe charley will do a group 6 one day... Guy is only a little older than me. His bike weighs 50lbs less than charley's grp4 with much less wind drag.. Guy's other prepped machine run by Doug Turner is lighter than my vespa so it shows how light they are. Its wind drag that kills a grp4 over a grp6(apart from the obvious unrestricted mods you can do) Ryan is a special talent make no mistake. On a similar bike I would like to see the race. Ryan has raced against CE several times and beat him once on his Dragster grp6A auto. But Charley has won every other time out of maybe 4 race weekends apart from the broken hub race. I think Ryan would have won here.. Donny is sooo big that the weight and wind resistance as well as the drive you get from a reed valved motor low down off the corners gives it a massive advantage. re the sprint times.. they were geared to do those times. Not knocking them at all.. in fact the opposite! It was awesome. Only 4 machines broke the 100mph too and 3 of them were Bsso race bikes . Mine was massively overgeared for the 1/4 and was only just maybe 2 seconds or so into 4th at the 1/4 marker which I did in 14.15 at 94mph. But launching a track built smallframe is hard. I am crap at the starts tbh ;D |
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Post by 225worb on Nov 15, 2011 19:07:46 GMT
Be interesting to see the internals of Charlies machine to see the winning tuning secrets of a racer.... |
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Post by triffid on Nov 15, 2011 21:28:13 GMT
I first saw Charlie at a very wet Ty Croes in 2010. He was quite simply much faster than the rest of the field, so much so that he was almost a lap ahead at the flag in one of the races. And his bike doesn't seem to be struggling when it flies past either, it just sounds right and smooth. Bet there are a lot of the race boys would love to see into that motor too |
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Post by tony on Nov 16, 2011 1:10:44 GMT
I have |
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Post by amazombi on Nov 16, 2011 9:09:20 GMT
I think a lot of people expect exotic rocket science when in reality it often is the subtle combination of details which are right more than the single "supertrick". Getting the details right and making the parts work together at their best is where most fail, and it's the most difficult and time consuming part too. The majority of people also believe that a fast engine is just a shoppinglist thrown together. It's not. It also may be worth to remember that to win a circuit race it takes much more than the engine. This probably is where Mr. Edmonds is pretty different to most people. He apparently spent the time to learn about engines (his early efforts were not exceptionally powerfull. Staying at it with perseverance makes all the difference though), and he is a talented enough rider to make use of it, and to develop the rest of the bike as well. That's a rare combination.
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Post by sugarlump on Nov 16, 2011 11:49:35 GMT
Great pics tony, an amazing scooter legacy.
That exhaust is a work of art, I can't help but think there's a lot of secrets in them curves! Incredible that a man who rides so close to the limit rarely if ever has an 'off'...
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Post by 225worb on Nov 16, 2011 18:43:06 GMT
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Post by ttscshaggy on Nov 16, 2011 18:58:37 GMT
Wasn't it a mugello 200 or something
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Post by amazombi on Nov 16, 2011 19:06:57 GMT
That's what it should be, and there's no reason to doubt it wasn't.
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Post by ozoap on Nov 16, 2011 21:48:49 GMT
This is begining to sound like an obituary!!!
FFS, the bloke has sold his bike and stopped racing.
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Post by vesparep1 on Nov 16, 2011 22:08:29 GMT
This is begining to sound like an obituary!!! FFS, the bloke has sold his bike and stopped racing. mate well Oz he was a bit of a god at racing......( i think our tony myself ) but your right mate hes stopped racing , thank god hes not dead , but he did do a fucking lot for the uk racing thing .... ;D cleaver fucker as well............... not to say that you havent got credits to your name mate, you have made some fucking great scooters................ just sell me the ts1 vespa........................... ;D ;D ;D |
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Post by teamwoodspeed on Nov 16, 2011 22:50:40 GMT
the picture of him working (getting his hands dirty) on my vespa was taken at Lydden hill, id just got the engine back after the clutch woodruff key had span, so motor had been rebuilt, but then would not start. we changed alsorts only to find a large blue rag shoved up the barrel section of the exhaust .Wet practice missed and the piss taken out of Charlie, just goes to prove he's human.
I hope after hes got everything sorted he comes and does the odd race meeting, after all he has set the bench mark pretty high for the rest of us.
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Post by soosh on Nov 17, 2011 9:48:48 GMT
This is begining to sound like an obituary!!! FFS, the bloke has sold his bike and stopped racing. mate well Oz he was a bit of a god at racing......( i think our tony myself ) but your right mate hes stopped racing , thank god hes not dead , but he did do a fucking lot for the uk racing thing .... ;D cleaver fucker as well............... not to say that you havent got credits to your name mate, you have made some fucking great scooters................ just sell me the ts1 vespa........................... ;D ;D ;D He sure gave group 4 a kick up the arse but then theres people who used to do group 4 who will say its too expensive to do now and prefered it when group 4 was something your average person could do and build a competitive machine. |
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Post by 225worb on Nov 17, 2011 20:36:03 GMT
Wasn't it a mugello 200 or something There were 2 types of mugello barrel wasnt there ? |
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Post by Juan on Nov 17, 2011 21:47:17 GMT
Small block and large block.
Not sure about the large block but the small block had at least 3 versions that I'm aware of, maybe more.
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Post by tony on Nov 17, 2011 23:39:45 GMT
And what has the cost of racing got to do with Charley??
When he started the alloy kits were already voted in. This was also a majority vote which he didnt even vote on. It was made by members of various tuning shops and some individual tuners.
Apart from alloy kits nothing changed in grp4 at all.
It was up to the individual if they wanted to spend 80quid on an egt gauge or a powerjet and thats all he brought to the table.
There is also nothing to stop your average person doing grp 4. There is even a GP4 classic class if you want to use iron.
Grp4 evolved. It had to .. we were a laughing stock poodling round on iron barrelled lambrettas making 24hp. We race with a motorcycle club and we have to impress or the paying public will want us out. The alloy kits gave more potential port area and reliabilty unheard of before. In fact the alloy kits saved that class and racing itself. Charley came along.. moved the goalposts and showed what could be achieved. All of a sudden everybody caught on.. raised their game and hi power grp4s emerged. The numbers grew as did the speeds so I guess the attraction was there to would-be racers. We even have 18yr olds on Grp4s now.
It seems to me that comments said to you like that above sash are made by people who dont actually know the score at all or are bitter about the 'good ol days'.
Well, the good ol days went south as we only had 4 grp4 lambrettas on the grid at times the year prior to the ally barrel vote. People were not interested anymore at that point.
To race an iron barrel is more costly than an ally one sometimes. It was the cost factor overall that made people want the alloy kits in.
Factor in barrel, high quality piston,head work,barrel machining,rebore to suit piston and most of all the massive port work required and maybe having to pay for that as well by a tuner. THEN consider the unreliability of the barrel , the seizures, new piston, even bodywork damage etc. you begin to realise the score. These days grp4s do not seize up and rarely fail at all.
The ally kits are half way there already.. much less man hours for a start.
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Post by soosh on Nov 18, 2011 15:44:49 GMT
It seems to me that comments said to you like that above sash are made by people who dont actually know the score at all or are bitter about the 'good ol days'. Who knows,these are not old men anyway but just people who have raced in the last 10yrs and up for it but just the cost involved,hey,it dont matter to me in the slightest.But i wouldnt say the old group 4 would be a laughing stock,ive seen em race years ago and they were the standards class so you didnt expect them to fly anyway.I can understand now that proper looking scooters are now going a hell of a lot faster and gaining a better cred. at the meeting from joe public as we all want to see that ;D. I couldnt afford to race as im trying to keep four machines on the road anyway and none are standard but wouldnt it be good for a new class which was limited to iron barrel and an off the shelve pipe etc?Im sure i read in scootering that they were trying for a new class to allow people on their road TS1/RB enter to get numbers up on the track but thats still expensive.You can build a reasonably quick and reliable motor from old technolagy still and not that expensive. |
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Post by amazombi on Nov 18, 2011 16:58:32 GMT
I have to agree with Tony. From what I remember from the Group4 Racers I've seen at Taffspeed and the like back in the day they were anything but cheap, with all the work that went into them, at least if you wanted to be competitive. If you're ok with just going and having a go that's a different story, but that can always be had for comparatively little money. With the prices of Lambrettas as they are they are not the vehicle of choice if you want value for money anyway, are they? Get yourself a PK XL II, carefully select the parts and you will have an affordable racer. Not a race winner, mind you, but a racer you can learn racing on.
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Post by tony on Nov 18, 2011 17:17:05 GMT
Sacha. You can race your bikes already. Street class. And there is a kit class for next year using off shelf parts.
I have watched spectators laugh years ago at the old iron bikes. Websters group 4 made 24 hp to give you an example of what the 80s bikes made. . It was ok when we were alone racing but not today. Also what you don't realise that even if you get 28hp from an iron barrel its not producing that by the end of the race...power drops off dramaticaly with iron. You simply can't build them that tight to stay on song for the whole race.
But there is nothing to stop anyone racing an iron barrel. A basic bike.
The kit class is a great idea. It is basically off shelf kit , pipe etc. No welding and off you go. The idea is that people if they didn't want to race their road bike could build a Indian chassis and drop their road motor it at weekends.
Racing in any form is not cheap. People either are serious about racing or don't race. Unfortunately its addictive and once you race it becomes part of your life.
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