Straightliners, Jurby 2006 - a lonely VMax Story
This is my annual plea
to other Vmax club members to come and join us at one of the rounds
of the Straightliners drag racing series this year. All the dates
are advertised in STREETFIGHTERS magazine and there's 2 more rounds
in August, one on September 16/17 at Santa Pod and the final round
at Elvington on October 8.
This year I went across to Jurby on the Isle of Man (22/23 July)
for the two day meeting. It was quieter than usual, the weather
was beautiful and the track was wonderfully grippy. I think I
was the only Vmax rider on the island that weekend but in two
days racing, I only clocked 22 miles, less than a lap of the TT
circuit. To cut a long story short, I didn't win anything, breaking
out of the 11.30 class both days but I ran my fastest ever quarter
mile on the Sunday (10.95 seconds) and my fastest ever time through
the lights at the other end, 137mph, on the Saturday.
The best run of all was a head to head with a Vrod. I admit I
was determined to make sure that my old bike established who was
the daddy and I knew the owner of the Vrod was a better drag racer
than me. When the lights went green, I was gone! We left the Vrod
looking like it had been stuffed. Mr Max was on fire, left the
Harley on the line and we never looked back. My son reckoned I
also beat a bloke on a 'busa too but I think he must have been
asleep. There's a special pleasure in winding the throttle wide
open until it hits the stop in second, third and fourth - you
know you can't go any faster! Slowing down was a little wild but
the acceleration is just brilliant. The weird thing is that the
really fast runs feel like the slowest and you definitely get
used to the speed although it takes a bit of hanging on to at
the top end.
If you've never been to the Isle of Man,
it's worth a visit and most people over there like bikes. It's
much quieter out of TT week and the roads are generally empty.
The Seacat from Liverpool is very smooth and only takes two and
a half hours to Douglas. If you feel the urge to burn some rubber
with your max, the NSA (National Sprint Association) is running
three classes for V engined bikes of all types with its own website,
www.vsprint.net. Terry Harrison
is currently leading on his Vmax and there are rounds in the south
at exotic places like Weston Zoyland.
As we all know, the Vmax was inspired by illegal drag racing bikes
in the States and it still looks good on the quarter mile. It's
easy, everyone is very friendly and it's all over in about ten
seconds but the buzz you get from winning sends most folk home
happy. Who knows, drag racing might even give those fat back tyres
something to do!
No pictures I'm afraid but a
movie that's got a great sound track! Maybe you can put it
on the website somewhere. I'm the one nearest the camera in the
Armani (not) leathers.
